Xbox Game Pass is the gift that just keeps giving with its versatility and diversity in its broad range of offerings to the subscription service. Spacelines From The Far Out is developed by Coffeenauts and published by Skystone Games Inc and introduces itself as a cooperative experience that will appeal to all ages. If you’ve played some of the funnier family-themed co-op titles such as Overcooked, Get Packed and Moving Out, then you’ll almost immediately see some similarities here. If you’re up for some hectic carnage amongst the stars of space then you may just want to take a look at this roguelike space co-op management. Work together to manage your very own space flight enterprise, be warned though, it won’t be easy! I can guarantee you’ll have fun and laughter all the way through though.

Introduction

Spacelines From The Far Out puts the responsibility of running a spacecraft for passengers in your hands.  Not only will you be managing the various flight operations through space, but you’ll also be ensuring the safety of your customers and tending to their every want and need. Venturing into the unknown as a solo player though has you juggling all these acts by yourself. Bring with that the balancing of the books with regards to finances and upgrading and maintaining the vessel and equipment, you have a lot at your mercy. You also have to be mindful of upcoming obstacles and fuel consumption as the last thing you want is to be floating around the universe with an empty tank.

You start off with minimal funds which are enough to buy you a basic spacecraft and kit it out with the essentials. As with any game with progression systems in place, the more money you accumulate, the more you can invest in. Routes are generated for you and no two trips ever feel the same in terms of direction and length. Along the way, you’ll need to be mindful of the pit stops needed. Restock on fuel, get your ship maintained and cleaned along with picking up more passengers. The focus is on providing a smooth, safe and customer-friendly ride as you’re giving a rating when the destination is reached. Just remember, if you have a crap meal in a restaurant you won’t revisit. Crap flight = unhappy customers and less money to play with.

Gameplay

The saving grace during the solo run was the fact you can upgrade assets to make your life a lot easier. But I found the entire experience incredibly difficult on several occasions to utilise time management wisely to manage everything. Piloting a ship to where it needs to be whilst trying to feed a moaning passenger because they are hungry and also doing a dance for another because they were bored was an awful lot to take in at first. What I did enjoy is how much responsibility you did have for almost everything even down to the branding of your enterprise. The more you progress, the more intense your surroundings will become and passengers become needier. On several occasions I got things wrong and hard to start over again, if you don’t invest in insurance for your ship then you must proceed with your mission from the very beginning.

Playing the game with my friends made it feel like a different game to me as not only was it easier to achieve everything required, it was simple to discuss and delegate certain tasks to each other. The experience was much more fun and provided bouts of intense laughter as passengers start to puke or urinate on the floor if you don’t have the tools in the right place. Whilst the game is currently on Xbox Game Pass at the time of writing, it gives you the flexibility to get a party of you playing together. The controls are simplistic and explained to you in a mini tutorial before you start the entire game. Even the most casual players amongst the gaming community will get to grips with this one with ease.

Graphics & Audio

The visuals in Spacelines From The Far Out instantly made me feel like it was Overcooked in space, which isn’t a bad thing as it was an exceptional game. The characters come across as extremely similar and appear along the lines of the Nintendo Wii avatars. I especially adored the transitions between loading screens and menus, with bright and vivid colours with easy-to-read and understand information. The gameplay loop is fluid for the most part and this blends together with the well-illustrated environments. Whilst you spend the majority of your time in flight, the interior animations and features are well crafted and do the job. The aesthetics have a 1960’s vibe to them and the design team have done well to echo that era. The variance in the appearance of characters and passengers is well orchestrated and achieved so that it didn’t always feel the same.

The audio design is excellent here with a soothing soundtrack with fantastic sound effects to echo everything occurring on screen. When the chaos becomes too much it really shows with equipment exploding, passengers screaming and the thrust of the ship soaring through space. When things are really going wrong it converts to fits of laughter as it becomes a Chucklevision moment especially playing with friends.

In Conclusion

Spacelines From The Far Out takes inspiration from some of the best co-op games in the business and becomes its very own fun and frantic creation. I’d absolutely recommend grabbing your online friends, telling them to get this downloaded and to play it with you. This is the best way to experience the game and whilst you can’t play with randoms, it’s nice to have the option to extend the game beyond solo play. The fact that the game is on Xbox Game Pass for Xbox and PC and supports cross-play co-op just places a green tick in every box to make it as user-friendly as possible. Everything is laid out and set up on the table for multiple players to work together on this one. Playing alone has some really difficult hurdles and becomes a real challenge to please your passengers all of the time. That said though, it’s another solid co-op title to pop on that to-do list when you’re pining for new titles to play with mates.