Stories From Sol: The Gun Dog Preview – A sci-fi story worth settling in for

thesixthaxis.com:

The setting of a solar system war is a familiar setting, that’s been explored in various stories. Stories From Sol: The Gun Dog is a visual novel set in a universe where such a war has concluded. The allied front of the Martian Territories and the Jovian Unified Colony Fleet has defeated the oppressive Earth-based Solar Federation. Your character is a Jovian, meant to take part in a battle during the final days of the war, but your mech had engineering issues. Those issues lead to almost all of your squadron getting killed.

The story of Stories From Sol: The Gun Dog opens aboard the Jovian Carrier JFS Kalyke. Your character, who you can name, is a fresh conscript who is trained as a pilot, but training has all been done in simulations and not in real-world situations. In this opening, your frame, aka mech, does not disengage from the Kalyke, leading to the aforementioned squadron wipe out. The game moves on from this opening to four years after the war, where your character is made a lieutenant following years of doing security detail, and is transferred to the JFS Gun Dog, a very small ship with a small crew.

Before you meet the crew you familiarise yourself with the gameplay screen, which has five options on the right hand side. Those options are move, use, look, talk and item. Look lets you observe surroundings and gain information about locations, use is for interacting with things in the rooms, item lets you see and use the items you are carrying. The talk button brings up who is available to talk and interact with. Later on, a function button is made available that gives access to your task list, a map of the ship allowing fast travel, and an info tab which gives background about items and the game’s lore. What I found a great design choice here was that when you clicked on a button there was a hefty clunk sound, providing satisfying feedback and playing into the retro design feel of Stories from Sol: The Gun Dog.

Stories from Sol: The Gun Dog looks green