Ragnar: Of all the First Contact contingencies I had prepared for, none contemplated the possibility of Angelica Patel teaching an alien mind how to swear.
Relicta is a Puzzle Platformer by Mighty Polygon Games, available for PC (Steam and Epic Games Store), PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and Google Stadia. A science team that took over an extensive lunar base after the Aegir Corporation was forced out by war has found something strange, fascinating, and terrible...and now something has started to go wrong with it.
Dr. Angelica Patel leads the physics team, testing gravitonic interface gloves that let her control magnetic charges on cubes and plates, along with disabling gravity on the cubes.
Two free bonus levels were released on April 15, 2021. "Aegir Gig" tells the story of Dr. Nic Lucas, a Terran contractor for Aegir Labs before the Seventy-Two Minute War, while "Ice Queen" tells the story of a certain character after the "Run Away" ending.
This game contains examples of:
- Abandoned Area:
- The rest of the science team is all busy elsewhere, and the habitat is far larger than they need. It was previously a large mine and research facility for Aegir Labs, until it was bombed and cut off from supplies during the Seventy-Two Minute War.
- "Aegir Gig" has Dr. Lucas off in a separate testing area, despite being set when there were over 70,000 people at the Manna-III base. He never even sees the soldiers who kill him.
- "Ice Queen" takes place in an area that was held by anarcho-selenite squatters until they were starved out after the Seventy-Two Minute War, and was then left abandoned.
- Anachronism Stew: Several modern pop-cultural references make no sense for something set in the year 2119.Parasite: "NEW PHONE, WHO THIS?"
- And Now for Someone Completely Different: The DLC areas are played as different characters, either a Terran contractor in "Aegir Gig" or Laia in "Ice Queen".
- Anti-Frustration Features: Puzzles where it might be possible to lose a cube in an inaccessible place typically have a teleporter that can be used to retrieve it.
- Apocalypse How:
- Class 1 or 2 for Earth; while details aren't given, Aegir Gig mentions that there are significant flooding problems, and everyone who has the means is fleeing the planet.
- Class 0 for the Manna-III base, whose population was apparently killed during or shortly after the Seventy-Two Minute War.
- Apocalyptic Log: During the main game, messages are picked up and loaded onto the PDA, giving backstory details. One of them is from Dr. Nic Lucas, protagonist of "Aegir Gig", discussing his concerns about what's going on and his expectations that he'll be killed because of them; another is from Samantha Ngatye, the Security Overseer who is his Mission Control, and who orders his death.
- Back from the Dead: Laia, in The Stinger and "Ice Queen".
- Beehive Barrier: Whenever you attempt to move out of the play area, a hex-grid barrier appears.
- Blatant Lies: In "Ice Queen", Ragnar tries to talk Laia into surrendering with a large supply of these.
- Block Puzzle: The fundamental element of the puzzles is a cube, roughly two feet per side, which can be magnetized (positive or negative) and have its gravity toggled on and off.
- Body Horror: When you get a look at your hands without the filter the parasite provides, there are glowing cracks in them and spikes growing out of them. Laia gets the same thing in "Ice Queen".
- Cast Full of Gay: One email mentions Kira breaking up with a girlfriend, and Angelica and Laia were involved with each other.
- Cell Phones Are Useless: Inverted. Angelica deliberately goes to where she is out of range of Sys in order to contact Ragnar.
- The Chessmaster: Ragnar knew the Relicta was there and sent the research team to "find" it in the first place.
- Cool Spaceship: If you leave with Kira, the Solidaridad pulls over 50 Gs heading away from the base.
- Creepy Monotone: From Laia (actually Systems/the parasite) after you enter the Relicta. Then, the parasite when Angelica first starts communicating with it directly.
- Door to Before: Often, reaching a certain point gives you access to a control panel that lets you turn on an elevator or lower a force field that lets you return to the same point without going through whatever you had to do to get there.
- Excuse Plot: The player must go through all the test tracks, which don't have any way to bypass the puzzles in case of an emergency. Even more so in "Aegir Gig", where the player is a biologist who is evaluating biomes in the domes by...going through the magnetic test tracks. Lampshaded by the player, who wonders why he's testing things with the gravity gloves, then justified because he's expendable, and has been trying to call attention to what's going on, so Sam is planning to kill him as soon as the job is done.
- Fantastic Racism: The contractor in "Aegir Gig" is clearly discriminated against and ultimately murdered for being Terran.
- Force-Field Door: Five kinds of force fields that block your way: purple ones that you can pass through but cubes can't, green ones that cubes can pass through but you can't, yellow ones that block both you and cubes, orange ones that drones cannot pass through but everything else can, and blue ones that allow you (but not cubes) through, but only in one direction (except in "Aegir Gig", where Nic can pass through them in both directions). The blue fields are only used to mark the start of a level.
- Genre Savvy: Dr. Nic Lucas, the protagonist of "Aegir Gig". A security officer who hates his guts is having him do nonsensical tests with highly-advanced technology, meaning that his expected lifespan after the job is done is measured in minutes. He knew this, and sent off a message to a friend before he was killed.
- The Ghost: While you're in com-chat with several characters, Angelica is the only physical character in the game. Unless one counts the dead body of Laia you find in the glacier level.
- Hands Looking Wrong: When a person infected by the parasite looks at their hands without the mental filter the parasite imposes, there are glowing cracks in them and spikes growing out of them.
- Hive Mind: The fate of humanity if you choose to wait for Ragnar.
- Honey Trap: "Ice Queen" implies that Laia was under orders to get into a relationship with Angelica, although it led to falling In Love with the Mark. This was not from the Federación; Laia apparently was involved with the anarcho-selenite squatters that had lived in the base before Aegir Labs evicted them by force.
- House Squatting: Anarcho-selenite squatters took over the Manna-III base after the company that built it went out of business. Aegir Labs decided to retake the base, possibly knowing the Relicta was there, and evicted them by force.
- How We Got Here: The opening cutscene shows Angelica entering the Relicta. Then we jump back two hours to doing research, followed by a forward jump of two years for equipment upgrade.
- Insignificant Little Blue Planet: Earth is a political non-entity compared to the United Habitats Alliance and its member orbital polities like the Republic of High Samarkand and the Federación de Nueva Metzli.
- Insurmountable Waist-High Fence: Combined with chest-high bars that can't be ducked under. The fences typically have a Beehive Barrier behind them; the bars are high enough that cubes can pass under them but Angelica can't. Also, Angelica can lift a cube high enough to put it on top of another cube, but can't lift it that high to get it over a force field or a bar.
- Last-Second Ending Choice: At the end, Angelica has to choose whether to wait for Ragnar and his team, or to run off with Kira and the parasite in the Solidaridad. Each gains a different achievement; if you select 'Continue' from the main menu, it will drop you back at the choice so you can see the other one. The "Ice Queen" extra indicates that the latter ending is the canon one.
- Lock and Key Puzzle: Many of the puzzles require getting a block (sometimes a specific block) to a switch to enable or disable a force field, or to activate an elevator or teleporter.
- MacGuffin Title: The Relicta is an alien artifact that was found on the moon, and that the research base is focusing on.
- Mama Bear: Angelica cares about Kira's welfare above pretty much everything else.
- Mission Control: Sam plays this role for Nic in "Aegir Gig".
- The Mole: Kwarizmi is funneling all the information the team finds to Ragnar.
- Multinational Team: Each of the science team leaders is from a different government under the UHA. Angelica and Laia, in particular, are from the two governments that fought in the Seventy-Two Minute War.
- No OSHA Compliance: Emergency override controls are only accessible on the far side of complicated puzzles, with no way to bypass the puzzles.
- Punch-Clock Villain: Sam, in "Aegir Gig".
- Reed Richards Is Useless: The Relicta and the technology left behind by Aegir Labs provide ways to remotely magnetize/demagnetize items, and to negate gravity and friction. They're used for...solving puzzles to get a human from one side of a test area to the other. It's implied that this is caused by the Relicta, controlling the science team into researching it to the exclusion of all else.
- Required Secondary Powers: As in Portal, the player can fall any distance without getting hurt. However, there's no explanation, except possibly that lunar gravity is lower.
- Secret Test of Character: Angelica and the rest of the team should have reported the Relicta as soon as they found it...but they didn't, and Ragnar knew they wouldn't.
- Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: The parasite as it's learning the language.
- Shout-Out: Some of the Anachronism Stew.
- To Toy Story: "So, where do we go now?" "INFINITY? BEYOND?" "Nah, that's been done before."
- The Short War: The 72 Minute War that led to the base being abandoned.
- Sir Swears-a-Lot: The parasite really likes saying "Fuck you" to everyone it communicates with.
- Smug Snake: Ragnar is supremely confident that he is in control of every situation.
- Snow Means Death: Laia and her team all freeze to death while Angelica is in the Relicta.
- Solve the Soup Cans: The puzzles are in the way and can't be removed, even though there would be serious safety concerns with a puzzle design that blocks the entire pathway and cannot be bypassed.
- Speed Run Reward: There's an achievement for completing the game in under six hours.
- The Stinger: If you choose to go with Kira, after the credits, it cuts to the frozen body of Laia...which now has the lines on its hands like Angelica's after the parasite infection. One of the hands twitches. This is explained in the "Ice Queen" extra.
- Take Your Time: In the last puzzles, messages tell you that you only have a few minutes left, but you can take as long as you need. Similarly, "Ice Queen" has frequent reminders that there are soldiers chasing you, and "Aegir Gig" has the overseer continually complaining that things are taking too long, but there is no actual time limit involved with either.
- Teleportation: The block teleporters will teleport whichever block has the matching label to them, wherever it is. "Ice Queen" adds personal teleporters that can be enabled/disabled with switches.
- Time Skip: Angelica was in the Relicta for five months.
- Working with the Ex: Angelica has to call Ragnar once things start going wrong.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Sam, to Dr. Lucas at the end of "Aegir Gig".
