this is really great! you're a ship captain who frequently makes detours to rescue stranded people. the visuals (and the whole game in a way) is sparse, and it flips back and forth between sequences where you're in your ship and can talk to the crew, briefing dialogue, and the missions themselves. those are set up like a ultrawidescreened horizontal shoot-em up (not like Darius though) where you dodge some asteroids and later get to shoot 'em down. as you progress, the people you rescue help out on upgrading the ship and, depending on how you treat their personal requests, keep upgrading it while their story arcs build in different ways.

here's the thing: this is all about fucking. everything. the first woman you save instantly installs a masturbation detector on the ship, and the first thing that the dude you save says to you is that he wants to spy on another woman on the ship, who conversely also wants to spy on him. they fuck and eventually try to invite you to a threesome. there's more of that throughout the game and, on the "bad" route, there is a sexual assault scene out of nowhere.

this is all in the name of parody, which kinda rubbed me the wrong way. it's pretty spitefully targeting those late-2000s games that have small scale choices that end up completely changing the narrative in stupid ways. but even though Starfeld is dumb, it also pararadoxically made me interested because of the choices it has, because you end up with impactful gameplay differences if you choose to help the crew. the ending still makes fun of you for doing that though.

still, the game has some cool stuff mixed in, like the funny dialogue (at least in the "good" route) and the charming setup of ship-to-briefing-to-mission. avoiding those asteroids is made pretty engaging because of the upgrades you may or may not have on each mission. increpare is so good at making games that even when one is a joke it still has a lot to offer aside from the comedy.