On the Edge of Earth: 5000 – There’s really a lot of fun to be had just kinda… poking at things

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There’s a movie called Dark Star. It’s a little boring, it moves slowly, but it’s a deserved cult classic for being uniquely weird. In it, a small number of sorely under qualified crew members putz around a spaceship – sometimes goofing off, sometimes trying to fix this or that, sometimes trying to convince their cargo, an overly smart bomb, not to blow up and kill them all. It’s written and directed by John Carpenter and the characters have a style that seems to be common among movies in which he’s involved: they’re not all that likable but at least you can recognize them for their flaws.

I hadn’t set out to talk about Dark Star, but you should watch it if you get the chance. I’m told you’ll enjoy it more if you’re high when you do so.

on the edge of earth 5000On the Edge of Earth: 5000 takes that concept, “poking around on a spaceship is fun,” and makes a video game out of it. (Yes, that is a picture of a guy sitting on a toilet.) It doesn’t move very fast and you don’t do very much, but it manages to be a good time anyway. It does have an actual objective, and that does involve blowing something up, and the developer said that the game was movie influenced (though without specifying which movie(s))… Well, you’re free to draw your own conclusions. What matters is that it’s an amusing little game that’s paced well, and manages to turn boredom into entertainment.

I’m putting this in the point and click category, despite no pointing or clicking. That’s not so unusual, there are quite a few games like this, but they don’t have their own genre and there’s really no need. In every other respect they are point and click games.