Our Personal Space
Platform: Android, Mac, Windows, Linux
Think Little House on the Prairie mingled with Star Trek and you've got an idea of the feel of Our Personal Space, a thoughtful sci-fi visual novel by Metasepia Games, free as a download or for your Android device. Would you be willing to give up your family and friends, basically your whole life to colonize a distant planet? What skills would you need to have? How much could other futuristic technology make up for the lack of indoor plumbing? Could you handle it? Could your relationships handle it? You get to step into the shoes of the protagonist and her new husband (you get to choose their names!) as they embark on a journey of a lifetime to the distant garden planet Talaam. As you progress in the story you'll get to choose your profession and your hobbies, all which open up different scenes and options as you go.
The gameplay is simple, as it's mostly reading. The writing is a pleasure to read, and you are often asked to choose from several diverse options to drive the narrative. Every month of game time you get to choose your priorities for the month. Just tap or click whether or not to focus on work, which skill you'd like to work on, and how you'd like to spend your free time. Take note of your health and relationship status, because working too hard or not spending enough time together can take a toll on these. As each month passes, you get to see how these choices play out, and chose your reactions to different events. The cast of characters are well drawn and their interactions and the sense of community feel real. While the sci-fi aspect of the game is wonderful, Our Personal Space is not just about physical survival, but ultimately about relationship survival. There's three different endings, and to help you along, once you've played through once, you have the option of skipping scenes you've seen before so you can explore more content. You can also re-start without your skills resetting to zero, again allowing you to see more content. Alternating between, sweet, sad, dramtaic, romantic and maybe even sometimes a little sappy, the story will keep you engaged til the end.
Windows:
Get the full version
Mac OS X:
Get the full version
Linux: Get the full version
Android:
Get Our Personal Space
I couldn't get the mac OSX file to work, downloaded it and tried unzipping but I got error 2. My other zip files are fine, so I am suspecting that the game file might be corrupt? Anyone else has the same issue? I am so excited to play this darn!
Hey, I'm sorry to hear that the Mac version was giving you an error! I don't personally have a Mac to try it on (but our Mac tester said at one point it was working?). This page has some suggestions to try; if those don't work, please let me know and I will make sure there is not an error in the Mac build.
Mac Error Opening a ZIP file
on windows game comes great. Thank you very much;-)
Hi qirien, not sure if you're still monitoring this page or if you've since updated the file but it works now. It's a gorgeous piece of work — it really spoke to me, the story was great and the choices I had to make really felt like important ones that mattered to me as a player and as a person. The messages I'm taking away from it are understated but thought-provoking. I absolutely love it.
I really liked this game. The one feature that I would have found useful that this didn't have was the ability to step backwards in the text. Sometimes I'd accidentally skip a line of dialogue and have no way to go back and reread it.
Other than that it was pretty great.
Just finished it and loved it! I literally sat there for two hours because I couldn't put it down...
My husband (I named him Nick) and I ended up divorced. I did it on purpose once I suspected I could have an affair with Brennan. I just wish I could have seen if my character and Brennan had a good life together on Earth.
Hey, I'm glad you got it working and enjoyed it! Thank you for taking the time even when it gave you trouble the first time. :-)
Hey, thanks for playing! There actually is a feature where you can use the mouse wheel (or the back button on Android) to scroll back to previous text. I think it says that if you click on "Help" in the "Settings" menu, but perhaps I should have made that more obvious. :-)
I can't get the help page to open on my Android phone; it says it's not a proper PDF file. Also, what does it mean when an option is in italics?
Thanks for letting me know about that error on Android; I think that browser integration with Ren'Py is not quite setup yet. It just takes you to a local copy of this webpage: http://www.renpy.org/wiki/renpy/Help
Also, an option in italics means that this option does not always show up. It may be showing up because of your profession, skills, relationship status, or other variables in the game. Often it's a better option, but not always!
Update