🇬🇧 full review | 🇧🇷 resenha completa

Ainda não sei quem amou mais esse jogo: minha criança interior que ri feito um idiota de uma buzina, ou o adulto cansado que gostava das pausas do dia de trabalho para ajudar alguns marcianos. A capacidade de Lucas Pope de transformar um trabalho chato em um jogo interessante continua incrível, e mesmo que não haja a mesma profundidade de seus jogos anteriores, a premissa alegre tornou-o uma experiência única. Se você tem um Playdate e um jogo bobo chama sua atenção, você precisa experimentar Mars After Midnight.

Mars After Midnight oozes charm. The atmosphere, the character designs, the music, the sound effects, the attention to detail. I loved everything about it, except playing it.

I understand this is a simple game, possibly aimed at children, but I found the core gameplay loop very unsatisfying. There is no skill or nuance involved whatsoever, at the beginning of a session it may take a moment or two to figure out exactly what you're looking for, and then the rest of the evening plays out exactly the same. It's beyond trivial.

For the first few of sessions the game's incredible presentation was enough while I waited for some escalation of stakes or complexity, but that escalation never comes. The final session is as simple as the first, and when I reached the credits of the game I just felt relieved.

This game may just not be for me. I can totally understand loving it simply for how great it looks and sounds, and the subtle humour throughout. The designs of the various aliens are truly spectacular. I am a fan of other Lucas Pope games, I'm not sure if that made me feel more or less generous with this game. I know I really wanted to love it, but the initial charm wore off quickly and I was left with only boredom.

Lucas Pope revient avec un concept proche de Papers, Please mais finalement assez éloigné pour ne pas être juste une vague transposition. Loin de l'ambiance oppressante de son prédécesseur, Mars After Midnight installe un univers bon enfant, dénué de tout stress et qui stimule l'imagination.
L'écosystème limité que représente la Playdate est exploité comme peu de jeux l'ont fait jusqu'à maintenant, avec des animations soignées, des effets sonores qui claquent, des musiques super cool et une utilisation de la manivelle simple mais totalement raccord avec les actions exécutées à l'écran.
La boucle de gameplay, décomposée en une poignée d'étapes, devient vite familière et assez monotone dans son déroulé, mais sa force réside dans ses trouvailles : on prend plaisir à chaque fois à découvrir les tronches des Martiens (générées en partie de façon procédurale) qui viennent toquer à notre porte et quelles caractéristiques il va falloir observer ou déceler pour réussir notre mission. On s'amuse comme des enfants, finalement, et le jeu leur est tout autant destiné, le texte ayant une place minime au sein de l'aventure.
La narration est épurée, elle passe grandement par l'observation de l'environnement, par les saynètes qui ponctuent notre partie et par notre responsabilité en tant que gérant d'un centre communautaire. On devine et imagine certaines choses, et cela suffit amplement.
Une petite partie de 10 ou 15 minutes par jour, et on arrive au bout assez rapidement. Le challenge est totalement absent du jeu, il n'y a pas vraiment à gérer des ressources ou des évènements dangereux, Lucas Pope ayant tout misé sur le plaisir de la découverte, et à raison.

Hello Mr. / Mrs. / Insert Non-Binary Honorific [Username] ! You are one of the lucky few chosen to test out or new product, the Playdate! P U SS Y I N B I O

So yeah that was pretty convincing fellas I clicked on the link but all I got was the playdate. Instead of drowning my sorrows in alcohol and colgate, I decided my date would be no one particularly, I'll just be casually rizzing up a whole martian settlement with free healthcare and great customer service. Historical context: if you're reading this review a few centuries from now, let me tell you about what the playdate does. It's a little device with a gimmick, a crank that you can turn. It's fun to use! Here, it's used to clean tables once in a while. And make the martians dance, it's a key feature excellently making use of the crank and I'll keep up that lie.

Every day, you host a therapy session, one many of yall deserve but I've not seen a hair of any Backloggdian much to my disappointment. Is disappointment the opposite of an appointment? wtf? Let's not get sidetracked. My therapy session has free wifi and free food, also P U SS Y I N B I O and I'm the first one to deliver on that ever empty promise. Each session has a theme, and they're all very funny! You have to check through the window to see if the to-be client truly fits the bill, not here just for a tasty cake. Is he Japanese? Or a bonafide weeboo? Make the wise choice.

So yeah thats the loop. It does be longer than the other Playdate games, and more unique. Or unique. The others are like, Snake or Tiger Tiger from Xenoblade 2 and this one is Papers, Please lil cousin. Using your tentacles to clean is a great idea and it makes the process very slippery, which as many know is good design because you can barely control shit. Is the game different if you play at midnight? Expert required to answer this. Any expert who actually owns a playdate? Dare ka imasu ka?

Paper's Please: Kid's edition. Lucas Pope hat selbst gesagt, dass er hier ein Spiel entwickeln wollte, welches auch seinen Kindern Spaß machen wird und das ist ihm hier definitiv gelungen ohne seine Identität zu verlieren. Die verschiedenen Spielmechaniken fühlen sich an wie ein Versuchskasten verworfener Ideen für Paper's Please. Da sind wirklich gute Sachen dabei, doch leider werden verschiedene Mechaniken nie miteinander kombiniert und somit wird Mars after Midnight nie wirklich komplexer, sondern immer nur ein wenig anders.

Für einen Playdate Titel ist das meiner Meinung nach aber auch in Ordnung so. Die einzelnen Sitzungen funktionieren als kleiner Happen zwischendurch und einen übergreifenden Spannungsbogen gibt es dabei nicht.

Trotz des recht limitierten Gameplays strotzt dieser Titel aber um so mehr vor Charme. Das Characterdesign ist wunderbar weird und es gibt ein paar Sitzungen, die mich zum schmunzeln gebracht haben.

Insgesamt kriegt man hier einen netten kleinen Playdate-Happen in den man aber nicht die Erwartung stecken darf, dass das hier das nächste große Pope-Meisterwerk ist.

Lucas Pope doesn't miss. An extremely charming and light-hearted take on a Papers Please style gameplay loop with a small narrative that builds over the campaign. It's simultaneously short and longer than you'd expect. I think it sticks around exactly long enough to not overstay it's welcome. I didn't expect to get emotionally attached to your silly robot friend and his little bit of character growth.

This isn't worth the price of a Playdate, but if you own a Playdate I think you need to play this. It's fantastic.

a sublime experience from the great lucas pope. distills the gameplay essence of papers please into a simple, comedic form and it works wonderfully. specifically, the idea of hosting a community event and making sure that the right people attend to get the help they need. once i got into the rhythm of it i found myself giddy to open up the door's hatch and take a look at who was trying to get in. there's a ton of fun events and gimmicks involved and i enjoyed the planning, but i do think there's a tad bit too many events in the mars colony section. the subtle character touches for our 3 eyed martian and his robot companion leaves me wanting more from them. i adored when the robot began dreaming about his teddy bear.

at the end, there's a slight but eloquent touch, to remind people to do this sort of "care" in real life, and i appreciated it.

not going to be a playdate seller by any means, but if you have a playdate, this is an easy recommendation.

Mars After Midnight is full of hilarious weirdos, is great in small sessions, features an immersive use of the crank, and even managed to fit in some subtle but interesting worldbuilding; however, I was still left yearning for a bit more substance after finishing it. That's not to say I wish it was longer, just that I wish there was more room for decision making from the player. I feel like the classes attended by the Martians could've been a good solution here if they involved some sort of gameplay component rather than just ending in a simple (albeit quite fun) cutscene but hey I'm not a game designer.

As a bit of a tangent, while playing this game I couldn't help but have a lingering worry in my mind that this was just going to be the peak of games on the platform. I express this as worry because while this could very well be a perfect 'Playdate game', it's hard to deny that it's lacking depth and as someone who only purchased my console recently I was left wondering, 'Is this going to be the case with all other exclusives as well?'. I guess this is perhaps my roundabout way of asking for other game recommendations on the Playdate that hopefully disprove this notion?

As in Lucas Pope's earlier games, this is taking a core mechanic and running with it. Using the Playdate's crank to open and close a door's security flap is incredibly basic, but feels just right, and in this game with very light storytelling, this simple tactile interaction goes a long way towards making this world come alive.

Also in line with his earlier games, I feel like Lucas Pope's one-man show of doing design, code, art, and music, adds a cohesion that lets details come through even in a small scale project like this one. Even though the minigame-esque mechanics are all quite easy, they give room for all the art to be appreciated. Also, some of the mechanics end up being quite funny!

Before this I hadn't really used my Playdate much (lack of a backlit screen was harder to deal with than I was expecting) but this is the game I'd been waiting for on the system. If you have a Playdate already, buying this game should be a given. Maybe it'll even get me to keep using my Playdate some more now!

An extremely cute little puzzler by the legend Lucas Pope.
It essentially interpolates a simple version of 'paper's please' with a neat crank mechanic and some cleaning/organizing mechanics.

The story is minimal but portrays character nonetheless.

It's clear Pope wanted to keep it minimal but did so with his usual charm and subtle depth.

There's certainly room to apply difficulty if he really wanted to, ultimately the game is extremely easy and there's nothing wrong with that.

Mars After Midnight es un juego muy generoso. Desde su propia concepción, como obra que Lucas Pope quería disfrutar con sus hijos, hasta su ejecución. Y es que a pesar de tener un loop bastante simple, está trufado de pequeñas features de usar y tirar para sorprender y arrancarte una carcajada mientras inspeccionas a los marcianos que quieren acceder a nuestro centro de ayuda. También sorprende el cuidado y detalle del apartado gráfico y sonoro, con muchas partes que resultan casi excesivamente mimadas (la voz de los marcianos usando sintetizadores, el generador procedural de caras, el tembleque de todos los elementos de la interfaz). Hasta el precio es generoso, ya que siendo lo más parecido a un vendeconsolas que tiene la Playdate (spoiler: no lo es, aunque es un must si la tienes) Lucas se podría haber aprovechado, pero ha salido por sólo 6 dólares, mucho más barato que otras propuestas más humildes que habitan en el Catalog. No creo que sea casualidad que la minimalista historia sea en resumidas cuentas un ciclo virtuoso, casi como un reflejo de la filosofía que hay detrás de Mars After Midnight.

El juego en sí es sencillo, un feel good work simulator para todas las edades, muy consciente de su naturaleza de obra menor y de la consola donde se ejecuta. Encarna muy bien la imagen que quiere reflejar Panic para su Playdate: partidas rapiditas, humor fresquito y ser una especie de lugar seguro para un público moderno que quiere jugar a lo más alternativo y experimental sin querer sacrificar la parte estética.

El único problema que le veo es la falta de reto, no es complicado hacerte el 100% a la primera, y no hay apenas consecuencias si fallas. Entiendo que es por su enfoque a un público más joven, pero creo que el juego tiene las suficientes mecánicas para componer algún modo más exigente que invite a revisitarlo. Aún así, es imposible enfadarse con una obra tan cuidada y graciosa, sobretodo habiéndolo jugado en una época de mucho estrés en la cuál he agradecido mucho su amabilidad.

Mars After Midnight is a game I have been anticipating to play for around two years now, more specifically after completing another Lucas Pope- and now one of my favorite games ever made Return of the Obra Dinn. While not the only reason, the announcement of Mars After Midnight as a Playdate exclusive of all things, was a big contributor to me buying the console and I don’t think I’m alone with that, as their tweets about the game are noticeably more popular and comments about it riddle the sections of tweets that don’t even mention it.
After the announcement of the release date, around two weeks ago, even after playing through this game, it still doesn’t feel real to finally own it after this long time, so I probably don’t have to describe how high my expectations for this game were.

Did it meet said expectations?
Yes!
Did it exceed them?
No, but that should never be a standard to hold anything on now, should it?

Mars After Midnight is another entry in Lucas Pope’s paperwork series and is (to my knowledge) the first one based around a job that has yet to exist.
You will see yourself as the owner of a Martian-help-center and work at the reception while finding out which Martian, Robot or even Human needs help. The ways of going about this are relatively simple. Some you can deduce, for some you need to use a device and for others both, just know that there are always 6 Martians that need any given kind of help.
After letting someone in, they may eat some refreshments and may leave a mess, which you may have to clean up for the next customer to dabble in said refreshments. After the session is done you get two Mars-Dollars for every right customer. These Mars-Dollars can then be used to advertise, buy food etc. for the next Martians. They can also be spend on items or new treatments, sold by a merchant that shows up every day.

Planning out your next day is always fun, with you looking at the map of your colony, with the living quarters of the six Martians you want to attend being highlighted and picking out where to advertise and which food is most popular at any given place, every day. The only issue I had with this is that it disincentivizes experimenting with new foods, as the cleaning-up process, the only one with a timer, will be different with every item of food. Furthermore the first item of food doesn’t only cover a lot of area, but becomes the easiest to clean up with your dependency on it in the early game.

I’m conflicted on the amount of Martians you have to get right, as 6 is pretty much the perfect amount, if you fail, as you will have more than enough time to deduce what you did wrong, but it does get a bit repetitive if you instantly know what to do and now have to go through a random amount of visitors to pick out the six obvious candidates. This small issue gets heightened by the fact that this game is really easy, and I only had to redo two jobs, because I forgot what reading was; so the fact that six is the perfect amount in those cases didn’t really come up. Even if you fail the punishments are relatively insignificant as you get paid more than enough, for those 2 Mars-Dollars not to matter, if you only miss a few.

As I already mentioned, there aren’t that many ways of finding out which Martian needs a given treatment, but don’t worry, there is enough variation in these ways of deduction for this to never get repetitive, over it’s relatively short runtime of ~3 hours. The gadgets especially, even with them being simple in concept, were fun to mess around with, just to see the reactions of the Martians you try them on, which is even incentivized by the reactions acting as a collectible, with new phrases being registered in the blab-o-dex, a sort of encyclopedia of the Martian language.

Now I’ve tried to stay spoiler-free up until now, but there is one small gripe I had with the game which I cannot talk about without spoiling something that happens at around 2/3rds through the game, so I will write my conclusion here while everything after may be a spoiler.
Mars After Midnight is probably not worth you buying a Playdate, solely to play it, for, even with it being a quality, although simple game. If you are on the fence of buying one anyways, with this game just being a big contributor to why, then there probably is no better time than now, as they have now ended the preorder structure, with me waiting for around a year for mine to arrive in September and there currently being a sale on their online storefront going on; some of my recommendations of other games on Playdate to keep an eye on are Resonant Tale and Sparrow Solitaire

The spoiler(-y) section will begin here.

As I already mentioned something happens in Mars After Midnight at around the 2-hour mark, being that you will leave your colony and go to the people’s colony, which primarily serves as a way for there to be more visual variety. My problem with this comes from the brevity of time you spend there, as the previous colony had 78 Martians to provide help for, while this one has only 24, which also means it is way smaller, which then means even less variety in the food items to use and such. I also found the ways to deduce way easier in this section than some of the more difficult ones of the first colony.