FInished Heaven's Vault. A lot more interesting then I gave it credit for. It leans heavy on story and atmosphere, particularly peeling back the layers of history of the Nebula(as the area of space is known) much of it is "Go here, walk around, look at stuff to advance story" but there are small side quests of a sort and taking the time to look at everything you can and explore can go a long way towards explaining just what's going on. However, the main gameplay element of deciphering the constructed language known as "Ancient" is a full fledged gameplay mechanic and the inscriptions you find as you go on get longer and more complex, so you're expected to learn as many words as you can along the way and even then some of the endgame stuff is still extremely difficult if not unsolvable. It's satisfying and intriguing enough I probably spent a lot more time then I meant to just trying to get new words and so I could read more stuff because that's the big way you get the games backstory. Basically the most valuable things in the game are another inscription to translate(which are all helpfully recorded so you can go back and solve them later when you've learned more Ancient, so you don't need to keep going back to the same places).
Interestingly, when you get to the endgame, it feels really short and truncated, like you're presented with a small choice and then the game ends. However, one of those choices triggers a NG+ cycle where all the ancient you've learned carries over, the map stats explored(at least the paths do, which is a bit of a timesaver) and it seems some of the stuff is now presented differently, but the inscriptions are different and more complex, presumably revealing more of what's going on. So presumably you have to play the game at least twice to get the full experience. And I do want to play it again, but I'm gonna take a break and play some other games so I can come back to it fresh.
Interestingly, the NG+ is actually tied to the story because the dominant religion of the game is called Loopism, the belief that the past is the future and the future is the past, that everyone eventually reincarnates and everything happens over and over again(though some people take to some lengths). It's flat out stated to you that the Nebula has seen a series of civilizations rise and then fall, one after another and thus if past and future are the same, then another fall is coming up soon and maybe if you knew how you could prepare for the next one, though just how that works is unclear.
It's a really interesting and unique game from the people who made 80 days and Overboard and while it's definitely not a game for everyone, it's doing something different and pulling it off pretty well, not to mention probably being a more accurate depiction of archaeology then most media examples.
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