Universe For Sale review - "Absolute eye candy and memorable story, but with frustrating mobile controls"

• Gorgeous art style and aesthetics
• Engaging story that's meant to stay with you for a long time
• Controls aren't optimised for mobile, with a lot of unnecessary pixel-hunting

Advanced primate lifeforms, enlightenment by dismemberment, and universes in the palm of one's hand - it's hard not to get intrigued by the premise of Universe For Sale alone. Complement that with a gorgeous hand-drawn art style and it's sure to pique anyone's interest, which is exactly why I was all too keen to give this narrative adventure a go as soon as it came out on mobile.

Despite me wanting to love it with every ounce of my being, a few hiccups here and there kept me from giving it top marks - and here's why.

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Table of contents:

• Universe For Sale visuals
• Universe For Sale gameplay
• Universe For Sale verdict

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Universe For Sale Visuals

There's no doubt that the visuals here are what immediately drew me in at first glance - character designs are incredibly ingenious, with breathtaking backdrops that truly capture that futuristic sci-fi vibe. It's pretty much all about the gloom and doom here, but true to humanity's resilience, the human race has somehow found a way to survive a catastrophe of post-apocalyptic proportions, now opting to live across the vast reaches of space within the solar system.

We start our purposely confusing little narrative in Jupiter, where, as the mysterious "Master", you'll stumble into a tea house on an acid-rainy night looking for a girl who can craft an entire universe in her hand. Interactions are done entirely through dialogue boxes, but the subtle animations the characters make as the quirky tale progresses are more than enough to immerse you into the story.

That and the quiet background score - sometimes loud, and sometimes completely absent - add to the charm, and, despite the bleak setting of this unattractive future, there's still an element of cosiness thanks to the beautiful aesthetics alone.

Universe For Sale Gameplay

The gameplay is a simple point-and-click affair, with most of the story moving forward solely via dialogue and the occasional puzzle. Said puzzles aren't even challenging in themselves - what makes them tricky to the point of being frustrating is how finicky the controls are, and that alone ruined the whole experience for me.

Essentially, all you'll really have to do is tap a colour, an item, or any object of interest to "solve" each puzzle, but the problem lies in how small some of the items are, so much so that it's ragequit-inducing to have to keep tapping on something that doesn't seem to register.

I would've thought that a genre like this would be perfectly suited for mobile - as point-and-click adventures often are - but this one doesn't seem to be as mobile-optimised as I had hoped.

Now, infusing a little bit of pixel-hunting is a staple in these kinds of experiences, but here, because of the poor touch controls and lack of intuitive puzzles, trial-and-error becomes more of the norm rather than the exception. I mostly had to randomly keep tapping on the screen until something clicked that allowed me to move on. 

I even tried to cast my phone's screen onto my laptop and used my mouse to tap away instead just to see the difference - and expectedly, I had no issues clicking on what I needed to click on. It's the fat-finger tapping that's the problem, which is a darn shame.

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• The Longing mobile review - "A seemingly excruciating pace that's totally worth the wait"

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The titular universes that are being peddled are also a bit of a chore rather than something to ooh and ahh at, given the seemingly arbitrary combinations you have to conjure up to fulfil the townsfolk's desires. I won't spoil too much here, but suffice it to say that creating universes for picky customers is no easy feat.

What's the appeal?

That said, the star of the show is the story itself, because I'm absolutely in awe of the creative worldbuilding. There's an entire series of stories to be told here, and while the main one felt a little predictable to me, the little side stories of each character are so darn interesting that I wish I knew more about them too - they're just that colourful.

I would've loved to know more about the orangos, the church, and the cult of enlightenment here, but that would ruin the length of the story, which is just right for the point it wants to drive home.

The writing is also superb, with each exchange between characters so engaging that I'm willing to forgive the wonky gameplay and the occasional glitch (there was one particular bug where choosing an answer would play out an entire conversation with characters that are nowhere in the scene) just to keep reading.

That also means that the gameplay actually gets in the way of the story here, so depending on what you're expecting to get out of this experience, it might be a triumph for a visual novel, but not so much for a point-and-click adventure.

Overall, Universe For Sale is an incredibly inventive narrative journey that keeps you hooked thanks to its non-linear storytelling. The characters, aesthetics, and worldbuilding are simply stellar, but the gameplay itself leaves a lot to be desired.

I still came out of it feeling pretty satisfied though, so there's at least that sense of closure throughout the four-hour-long journey. Perhaps it's the mobile port that's the problem, really, so it's likely not the best fit for this platform.