Even with as many indie games as I’ve played and reviewed for the Switch, I can confidently say that nothing I’ve played has been quite like Times & Galaxy. Ultimately, it’s an odd blend of adventure, mystery, and journalism. Your robotic junior reporter will explore, chat with locals, gather clues, and interview subjects to essentially collect all possible details for your story. You’ll then be the one to determine which aspects and details of it are published, making it into a unique and somewhat interactive experience.

For the most part the game breaks down to two phases, one where you’ll be back at your workplace, talking to people, observing sometimes amusing evidence of office politics, and sometimes taking advantage of some upgrades that become available to you (thanks for that mobility upgrade in particular). While this piece of the puzzle can at least be amusing, I think the real bread and butter comes when you’re in the field on assignment. You’ll absolutely need to learn to be thorough, demonstrate some degree of sensitivity if you don’t want people walking off without answering all your questions, and at least to some degree to keep a rough idea of what you’ve been hearing so you’ll be better prepared for actually constructing your stories.

Considering that the entire game ultimately revolves around you turning the events you’ve collected information on into front-page news, I do wish this phase worked a little better. You’ll get to choose the essential elements of your story from the headline on down to an extra stinger detail that adds a little color, and these are tied directly to your investigations. If you’ve somehow missed something as you’ve walked around, or weren’t able to get one of the witnesses to be forthcoming enough, your options will appropriately be more constrained. The pity was two-fold though: I was disappointed a number of times that the direction I wanted to take with the information I’d gathered simply wasn’t an option, so I had to settle in on something else. In addition, you can see what the various public responses will be to any given element, so you aren’t necessarily best off going for a sensible, cohesive story, you may instead be rewarded for a jumbled mess of disparate details that just happen to work better to maintain a specific public perception. In addition, I did encounter some irritating bugs that got in the way of progress here and there, but at least it didn’t feel like they sidetracked me too significantly.

In general, the game ultimately left me on the fence. On the one hand, I think the idea is pretty brilliant and could be a terrific vehicle for helping people understand something about the challenges of the press. On the other hand, the ability to game your output to maximize results at the cost of clarity, also almost feels too consistent with reality and that can be disheartening. Regardless, it’s a game that can make you laugh, think, get frustrated at times, and perhaps indirectly give you a little more appreciation for the challenge of somehow being accurate, ethical, and successful in modern journalism.