Tachyon Dreams Anthology is an adventure developed and published by Cosmic Void, an indie developer already known for Twilight Oracle and set to release a new point-and-click adventure, Devil’s Hideout, in September.
Tachyon Dreams Anthology was previously released in three volumes on itch.io. The version we are going to review is the Steam version, which has been edited by the developer to provide a seamless adventure with additional content and Steam achievements.
Tachyon Dreams Anthology: An odyssey through time and space
In Tachyon Dreams Anthology, we take on the role of Dodger, a young dishwasher on duty on the Penrose Interstellar Space Station, aka PISS. Upon awakening, we find the PISS completely deserted. The sole sentient creature present is Audrey, the station’s artificial intelligence, who patiently explains that the crew vanished after conducting an experiment involving time travel.
Here begins our journey, which will take us to different timelines, where we will see post-apocalyptic futures, distant pasts and follow the trail of two centuries-old civilisations in technological competition.
Let’s type
Tachyon Dreams Anthology is a text parser inspired by old Sierra games like Leisure Suit Larry, King’s Quest and Space Quest. In this type of adventure, we do not have to use the mouse to interact with the scene. Instead, we use a command prompt to give orders to our character.
To make it easier for those who have never played a text parser before, there is a short introduction. However, there will be no hints on verbs to use, no autocomplete and no hotspots to speed up exploration, just like in old school games. It will be up to us to figure out which verbs to use and which words to combine correctly. In some cases, however, if we use a too generic verb, such as use, we will receive a hint asking us to be more specific.
As well as using words, we can also use the directional arrows to move around the scene, as some actions are only possible when the character is close to the object.
In addition to the simple exploration and collection of objects, there are also logical mini-games that we will have to solve in order to progress.
A nostalgic novelty
Tachyon Dreams Anthology belongs to a video game genre that has been lost in time, and Cosmic Void offers us the chance for nostalgic gamers to take a trip down memory lane, and for new players to discover a milestone in graphic adventures.
Tachyon Dreams Anthology has very simple graphics, recalling old EGA graphics titles such as the aforementioned King’s Quest.
It may seem surprising today, but the game, complete with soundtrack, occupies only 14.9 MB of hard drive space.
Like any self-respecting adventure, there are puzzles that require a certain amount of attention to solve. In our game, there were only a few puzzles that challenged us and were not very intuitive to solve.
Unlike Sierra adventures, which are notorious for punishing the player with sudden deaths, dead ends and lots of moon logic, Tachyon Dreams Anthology flows smoothly and without frustration, retaining only the best parts of typing adventures.
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