Venineth

 What if Metroid Prime and Myst had a baby?

Venineth is a 3D puzzle-platformer that has you controlling a spherical object to navigate through a variety of alien land- and starscapes to do...something. It is also very, very pretty.

The first planet. You start on the icy outer worlds and move inward towards the suns.

Essentially, the game combines the "spherical platforming on alien worlds" mechanics from the Morph Ball segments of the Metroid Prime games with the "operate the obtuse alien device" gameplay of Myst. All of this is wrapped in a 1990s Trapper Keeper aesthetic: the developers implemented a dedicated screenshot button, because they knew exactly what players would want to do. (The screenshot functionality doesn't use Steam's framework, and you have to read the FAQ to know where they save: for posterity, they live in 

C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Local\Game\Saved\Screenshots\WindowsNoEditor.)

I love me some '90s Trapper Keepers, which is the main reason I bought this game. This is what I wish all science fiction looked like.

Geometric shapes floating in the air for no reason? Sign me up!

Each level in Venineth is either a larger zone on a semi-plausible exoplanet, or a smaller stage in a more abstract aerial or space structure. The latter are, if anything, even more beautiful. My personal favorite is a fleet of concrete sky battleships.

CONCRETE. SKY. BATTLESHIPS.

Besides simply reaching the end of the level, you'll often have to complete goals such as operating various bits of technology to open the path forward. This will often require you to alter the properties of your sphere to give it fire or ice powers, magnetism, or the strangest one, which allows it to interact with entities that exist only in mirrors.

I have become V O I D .

Unfortunately, the game could stand to be a lot less inscrutable more scrutable. There is essentially no text in the game proper, which works pretty well, since I believe English isn't the developers' first language and easy translation is a plus. The problems are elsewhere: the achievements are written in a Wingdings-like font that doesn't really add anything to the setting (it's not like deciphering alien text is part of the game proper), and the options menu...

Imagine squinting at this as you're trying to boost the resolution to 4K.

...it's nigh-incomprehensible. This is a game that badly needs accessibility settings: gamers with less-than-perfect vision are probably going to have a real struggle here. THE OPTIONS MENU SHOULD NOT BE THE LEAST LEGIBLE THING IN THE GAME.

Be that as it may, I loved this game, probably because it's a Brendan Game. Games that are trying to be All Things To All People are never going to hit me as hard as the ones that are laser-focused on the specific things I like. Venineth nails this: If NASA needs someone to solve enigmatic puzzles on beautiful-yet-desolate alien worlds, I'm their guy. Now if only there was Metroid-themed DLC...

Just...look at it.