RymdResa ($11.99) is a fascinating PC game that features a narrative structure, music, and environments that play out like an art-house drama. While drifting through the emptiness of space, collecting resources and materials to survive, your character occasionally drops poetry gems via diary entries, while reflecting on the loneliness that vastness represents—along with the depression, hope, and desire that comes with it. RymdResa features nearly zero in-game interactions, but the rogue-like adventure game uses a single character and simple graphics to dissect the human psyche in a story that flirts with the possibility that we are one with the universe in more ways than imagined.

Nothing Is Everything
RymdResa's opening cut scene explains that your home planet is destroyed, and that space's infinite mysteries are all you and your ship will experience for several years. You mission is to find a new suitable home world for your kind, while mining derelict space stations, planets, and asteroids for resources and fuel to maintain your existence. Living takes on a different, colder meaning for the pilot, and space—for all its wonder and existentialism—begins to reflect the generosity, viciousness, and beauty of humanity itself.

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Exploring a location sometimes yields valuable Resource Points, which are used as the ship's health and fuel, or Spacepoints that let you purchase new starships and other items. Sometimes, however, RymdResa punishes your curiosity. When you mine, you receive Spacepoints or Resource Points—or you may lose some of either. It's random, just like life.

The universe will sometimes bless you with items that can be equipped to boost your ship's stats, or grant one-time power-ups, such as invincibility and the ability to absorb stars located farther out into space (which, in turn, generates more Resource Points). This mechanic, while basic, adds robustness to the otherwise simple point-and-click gameplay. Most found items can only be used for specific ships, but if you have no need for them, they can be scrapped for new ones. The possibilities of finding items, points, or new surroundings are endless, as RymdResa takes place in a procedurally generated universe.

The environments are quite vicious in some sectors, so expect to die a lot. When that happens, you receive a calculated progress score and XP based on the results of how long you survived, what you collected, and other information. This XP is used to upgrade your Exploration, Scouring, Technology, and Survival skills. These increase your technical expertise, ability to discover items, and resource/consumable item bonuses. RymdResa also grants XP for every year that passes in-game. There's a lot to learn, and RymdResa presents the information all at once. It can be a bit overwhelming, but fairly simple once you take action.

Time Shall Heal All My Wounds
There are three chapters to play through, each with their own main objectives that take a decent amount of time to complete. More so, there are numerous side quests, so there's always something new to do. You can purchase new ships with your Spacepoints.

The ships have identical control schemes, but each has their own unique look and base stats. While Spacepoints are bountiful, it's not always wise to buy the best ship available, as there may be less expensive crafts that are better suited for a particular mission. Unfortunately, your previously purchased ship and its equipped items won't follow you to a new ship or return to inventory once you die. Thankfully, consumable items and Spacepoints do carry over after you die.

You can also conduct research by discovering Research Pods during your adventure. To start the process, you must pay a certain amount of Spacepoints. After some time (shown in the upper-right corner of the screen), the research is complete. This usually lessens the amount of Resource Points used to do certain tasks or betters the chance of finding items in space.