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Amateur developed games can be hit or miss. While it can be immensely enjoyable to discover gems that are hidden on the Internet that only a few others know of, it can also be a painful experience and just a waste of time too. Sometimes attempting to struggle through a poor design or interface of the many games out there; looking for that special gem just isn't worth it. After reading a review that Charlie Foxtrot and the Galaxy of Tomorrow was one of those gems, I just had to try it for myself.

Charlie Foxtrot and the Galaxy of Tomorrow is a wacky adventure game that is quite obviously made by an amateur developer. You can never forget this as the graphics make your ears bleed, and the sound makes your eyes red and sore... Yes, so horrible they even affect the wrong organs. I was able to adapt to the graphics, but the sound was just too poor to tolerate. I had to turn my speakers off. Maybe a wacky story that most modern games don't feature should be able to make up for that.

Normally I'd describe the story and what happens here, but it’s easier to just say that it is a complete rip-off of Star Wars. Have you ever seen the Family Guy episode that is a rip-off of Star Wars? It is kinda like that... Actually, no. It is more like they ripped off the Family Guy episode of Star Wars and missed the original movie entirely.

Either way, the gist of it is that instead of being Luke, you are Charlie Foxtrot, a character who defies the authority of the evil Empire of Conformity and decides he is not going to be exactly the same as everyone else, despite being a clone. He sets out to bring down the Empire by attempting to find the Rebel Base. You'll meet a huge variety of characters you will recognize from Star Wars, The Muppets, Futurama and many other movies or TV shows but in a very pixelated form and slightly altered names.

Like most action games, you can find items and put them into your inventory, combine inventory items to make new items, and use your inventory and the clues to solve puzzles. Action is entirely point n' click — the game has a generally crude interface — with no ability to advance the scenes and a very clumsy menu. On the bright side, just about every angle and combination of actions has been considered and given an often humorous response, which is very impressive for an amateur game. That said, with more detailed text it becomes a chore to read everything, thanks to a very poor choice of colors.

One of the biggest problems in the game, and for me what killed the fun, is inconsistency. It really just looks as if the game wasn't well planned out. You'll see that while a good deal of the puzzles provide clues on how to solve them, there are many others that you sorta gotta just guess at. About halfway through the game I had solved most of the puzzles, and I knew I needed to do a few more things to advance to the next stage; but do you think I could find any clues about how to do that? I ended up just having to solve another puzzle to get to an area that had no relation with my goals. I strongly dislike being forced to do something in a game just because I haven't done anything in that area yet. To me, it makes the game feel like a game, and not an experience. However, I was strangely intrigued playing the game up until this point, it was humourous, and the story was at least uniquely twisted and butchered to fit the wacky characters and puzzles, but the break up in the storyline hurts it badly, and only gets worse as the game proceeds.

For Charlie Foxtrot, death seems to be a natural thing. Mistakes can be easily made with no warning, or just through mistakes with the bad interface. Save often! This is especially true since you require every item you can get in the game, so if you miss something you'll have to go back for it later. This brings up another negative point: the majority of your playtime is spent wandering around clueless because of lack of direction and story at specific points or from experimentation and dying. If someone relies on the player's confusion to extend the game play time, it means your game is just designed wrong. Requiring random items to be acquired for no reason at all except for some bizarre twist at the end which really doesn't make a whole lot of sense is just something that shouldn't happen.

Charlie Foxtrot and the Galaxy of Tomorrow is a funny amateur adventure game that leaves much to be desired. I did initially find the game to be intriguing and entertaining, but as time went on I got further frustrated with what seemed to be an increasingly lazy game design as you progress; I just wanted it to be over as soon as possible near the end. For a free amateur game it really isn't bad compared to others, and you could certainly do worse. If you want to spend a few hours giving the game a shot (or a good 20 minutes with a walkthrough), go for it. The game's developer really appears to have some skill in creating puzzles and an entertaining atmosphere, and maybe a little better planning will make their game next game even better.