Technical Information

Developer: Robbie and James
Publisher: Robbie and James
Release Date: September 3, 2020

Travel with Astra through space to help him find his parents.
Astrovity is a puzzle-platform game that uses gravity as its main mechanic and features over 200 stages.

Final Thoughts – Analyzing the Game as a Whole

Graphics and UI

Simple but well-done pixel art.
I really liked the parts that show the spacecraft window, where a beautiful gradient of colors (used to illustrate the universe) passes by. This contrast breaks up the overall simplicity, giving the game a capricious and unique art style.

The game doesn’t have a HUD.
The UI has options to view the keyboard commands.
There’s a death counter and total playtime, which you can view when loading a save or pausing the game.

The only thing that bothered me was that the game doesn’t inform you of the current stage number.

Soundtrack and Sound Effects

The music is nothing special, but it’s very relaxing and brings a sense of calm (after all, you’re traveling through space!).
When you die or restart a level, a piano note (or something that sounds like that) plays. Since dying is quite frequent in this game, this sound ends up being a bit annoying after a while.

Gameplay

At first, I thought it was just a puzzle game, but I soon realized that it also requires skillful control.
Dying is very easy, and adapting to the gravity-based movement can be frustrating for players who don’t enjoy difficult games.
Because of this, Astrovity ends up having a fairly high level of difficulty. Be warned!

As you progress, new objects appear, increasing the challenge of the puzzles even more.
In some stages, you can interact with certain objects and characters. They provide relevant information about the stage you’re on or details about the story.

The game has three save slots and supports joysticks.
I tried playing with a PlayStation 4 controller, but unfortunately, the game didn’t recognize it. 🙁
Keyboard controls are quite simple, and I personally didn’t find them bad, even though this is a game that requires a lot of motor skill.

Replayability and Game Retention

There are many stages where you’ll need to restart the level, since one wrong move can leave you stuck.
For me, the difficulty worked as an incentive to keep playing, but I understand that it might have the opposite effect on other players.

I played it during my free time, when I was already tired of games with more elaborate storylines. It works very well for casual play.
I don’t think it’s for everyone, but if you like difficult games that challenge your brain, this one will be right up your alley.