For long stretches since Routine was announced way back in 2012, it’s been easy to assume this was vapourware, that it would never be released. It is therefore with great delight that I can confirm that, not only is it fully complete, but it has actually turned out to fulfil all my expectations and more. The retro-futuristic stylings, the moments of sheer terror, and the fascinating storyline all combine to produce a game that is well worth the wait.
The game’s title is a suitably tricky play on words, with dual references to the everyday nature of your job as a computer technician and the nature of the programs you interact with on the 1980s style terminals scattered around the lunar base. The aesthetic of the game draws equally on the Alien series and Duncan Jones’ Moon, with clear narrative echoes to both appearing as well. I am a sucker for this kind of vision of the future so have been eagerly awaiting the chance to immerse myself in Lunar Software’s debut game.
Routine begins in standard science fiction disaster fashion. A lunar base outpost has suffered a complete systems breakdown shortly after the crew reported a mysterious finding. You take the role of a solo systems tech who must travel to the base and find out how to restore power and function. Little do you know that you will be exposed to mysteries and horrors beyond your imagination and find yourself changed in ways you never thought possible.
The general atmosphere and aesthetics of Routine are superb, taking clear influence from the retro-futurism of films like Alien and Silent Running. Huge CRT monitors are littered around the environment with many being accessible for hacking with your gun-like multitool. Unlike many similar games, objects around you are more interactive, with intuitive prone and leaning mechanics being necessary to hide and navigate around parts of the environment.
The early enemies are threatening and merciless but have nothing on what will face you later on. Environmental signposting is good and it is worth trying to orient yourself through this as there was no in-game map that I could find. While there is a degree of backtracking involved, the individual areas are compact enough to avoid this becoming a chore.
Interacting with the world requires the use of your CAT (Cosmonaut Assistance Tool), which looks like a gun but is not really an offensive weapon and feels more like a blend of a VHS camera and radar speed gun. You can fire off bolts of electricity to stun enemies, but this function was mostly used for puzzle solving in my playthrough. In the very beginning of the game the embedded tutorial teaches you that the CAT requires batteries (fortunately these are incredibly common around the map) with different modules you find along the way using up different amounts of power.
Your first module is a Wi-Fi feature that lets you connect to the main terminals in the game – terminals that act as save points, task journals, and manual. This immersive menu is incredibly effective and means that you never have to break free of the game to save and access your journal whilst also ensuring that you need to find a terminal to access these functions. The immersive nature of the mechanics continues with the CAT itself which you have to directly engage with to insert batteries, activate the WiFi and also use the later module upgrades which require you to hold up the device’s miniature screen and zoom in.
Puzzles range from looking for password codes to directly using the CAT functions to search the environment for hidden clues. These functions are introduced regularly throughout the game in a way that means you are never left doing the same thing for too long.
The pacing of the game in general is excellent, unless you put it down for a day or two and forget your way around… Playing prior to release added a great deal of extra satisfaction as there were no walkthroughs or puzzle solutions to look up. I’d absolutely recommend persevering if you’re stuck to experience the game this way.
