Hi.
I love the presentation here, the grim takes by station control and your commander, wonderful sence of the world.
The audio is also great, with the music and spoken dialogue.
However, I'm afraid the gameplay and game design are really letting this one down.
Firstly, the specification of numbers and coordinates. Often, by the time coordinates were spoken, it was already too late, especially when coming in on approach, indeed the audio beacon could be used far more than it is.
Why there isn't a single key press to get x. y and z coordinates I don't know, ditto with speed, indeed the thrust system with 5 being neutral took me a while to work out.
However, the major problem in the game, the game is literally impossible!
After half an hour of trying, I still had not completed the training mission.
I tried coming in on speed 3, then throtling down. I died.
I tried coming in on speed 4, then changing to speed 5 when I was one coordinate away, this left me hanging in space at speed zero, and one touch of the thrusters caused me to die, indeed by the time I got the proximity warning it was already too late to pull up.
I tried coming in at speed 4, then changing to speed 6 when I was one coordinate away, and again, I was just hanging outside at zero, and one touch of 4 and I died!
The thrusters seem to accelerate and decelerate way too quickly, especially with the clunky, three key press input to change your thrust level, and three key press input to check anything.
I really don't like having such a downer on the game, since the concept is interesting, the presentation very nice, and the audio (for all that it felt that the speech and beacons weren't used correctly), is really good.
however I'm afraid after that many unsuccessful attempts the game has gone beyond what is fun.
I would hevily suggest streamlining the interface so that thrust can be changed a lot more quickly, as well as getting far easier ways of reporting information.
Several other audiogames have simulated fine tuned vehicular control, EG, Tube sim, the Japanese game dreamy train, the flight sim eurofly, or the combat flight sim zero sight, so it might be worth examining the details they've used, EG easier ways of distance reporting, since all of those titles (even the very difficult zero sight), were far less problematic than arrival.
For more info on these and other audiogames, please visit www.audiogames.net.
I'm really sorry to have such a downer on the game, I genuinely appreciate the work that's gone into this, and I'm quite aware games development isn't easy, I also really hope that development will continue in the future, since we definitely need more detailed audio space games.