Ambrosia Sky is a pretty high concept game, but there’s a few ways into it, depending on what you like to play. The most obvious comparison worth making is PowerWash Simulator. As a deep space disaster specialist, part of your job is to explore derelict spacecrafts and remove a dangerous alien fungus that aggressively spreads throughout each ship. You remove the fungus by spraying it with water. You’ve even got a variety of nozzles that allow you to adjust how precise your stream is. If you’re the kind of person who finds comfort by carefully washing every speck of dust off of a rusty Pontiac, you’ll be right at home in Ambrosia Sky.
I was immediately drawn to Ambrosia Sky because of its systemic qualities. The fungus is more than just an eyesore; its tendrils block passageways and interrupt electric currents, deactivating automatic doors and generally messing up power across the ship. Untangling and breaking these anti-circuits by spraying them is just one way you can predictably interact with the environment. Water conducts, fire spreads, and electricity surges; Ambrosia Sky has the immersive sim flavor that makes me salivate.
Then there’s the narrative hook, which is far more evocative than you might anticipate from a game about hosing down fungus. Your investigation into this deadly, sentient spores includes finding the dead and laying them to rest. This leads you to valuable information about the origin of the infestation, but perhaps more importantly, it gives you an opportunity to connect with the deceased, hear their thoughts in their final moments, and give them the respectful send-off that we all deserve. It’s an unexpectedly tender element that I found particularly resonant during both of my recent previews with Ambrosia Sky. I’ve played other games about death before, but none that made me feel this warm and sentimental.
Who Will Remember Us When We’re Gone?
Interestingly, the people who died on the ships you investigate were not strangers to you. Your character, Dalia, is what’s known as a scarab; a kind of mortuary scientist whose job is to clean up these interstellar crime scenes, collect biological samples from the deceased to unravel the mystery of their demise, and, inasmuch as you can, floating along by yourself in an old ship, lay the dead to rest. Scarabs are equal parts crime scene investigator and spiritualist, occupying a unique role that defies any real comparison. I told you Ambrosia Sky was a pretty high concept.
It’s a heavy job to be sure, but this investigation holds extra weight for Dalia because it hits close to home, literally. The victims of the plague are people she once knew long ago, before she left this sector of space to become a scarab. It’s evident from the early missions that Dalia has unresolved baggage related to her upbringing, and that through her work she will not only solve this fungal mystery and give the dead their last rites, but also find some sort of closure of her own. I haven’t seen enough to know exactly what that journey entails, but it’s one of the things I’m most looking forward to discovering about Ambrosia Sky.
What is clear from the demo, which is currently available on Steam, is that the process of laying the dead to rest isn’t nearly as morbid as one would think. I’ve gotten to see two of these scenes during recent previews, one that’s featured in the demo and another shown exclusively to press. In both scenes, the departed left messages behind for Dalia in their final moments. Knowing that a scarab would come to find them and that that scarab would most likely be Dalia, they both took the opportunity to reflect on their lives and leave a word of comfort for Dalia.
The scenario is grim, but the way both of these characters approach their impending doom with dignity and compassion gave me a strange sense of hope. Like most people, I try to avoid thinking about the end. Being trapped alone in a spaceship with an evil fungus creeping towards me sounds like my worst nightmare, but these people not only embraced the end, they had the empathy to consider how the person finding their remains will feel about it.
There’s a strange dialogue that occurs between the living and the dead in Ambrosia Sky that I find strangely comforting. The most any of us can hope for when we’re gone is not to be forgotten, and in fulfilling your scarab duties, you’re ensuring that the lost live on in our memories. It’s made me think, perhaps for the first time, that perhaps there is a way to find peace in the end.
Ambrosia Sky is a complicated game, and the small chunks of it I’ve gotten to play just barely scratch the surface. Developer Soft Rains has a tremendous amount of ambition for this game, and though I expect it will take me to some uncomfortable places, I’m eager to see how Dalia’s investigation unfolds, and give the damned their final farewell.
Developer(s)
Soft Rains
Publisher(s)
Soft Rains
Number of Players
Single-player
Steam Deck Compatibility
Unknown
