We are ... well, we get to choose what we are in this spacefaring adventure, and this will affect our winning conditions in the end. The first few minutes of the game is all about putting together a character complete with background and skills, and there's even a character sheet included among the game's feelies. Overall, I have to say that it looks like someone's had quite a bit of fun putting together the best-looking feelies they could.
The basic premise of the game, all question of character creation and variable winning conditions aside, is that we've got this sentient spaceship and we're wandering through the cosmos, exploring and trading and basically living the starfarer life. The game is played out in a series of vignettes in which we find our way to a place (from spaceport to uninhabited rock) and decide what it is we want to do there. We only ever have time to do one thing; it seems the "shifting dark matter" (which I assume to be an euphemism for our wanderlust) requires us to keep moving. The whole thing, as described above and as promised by the packaging, seems incredibly fun and interesting.
However, it seems to me that the wrapping rather outstrips the contents. In fact, I feel as though what we have here is actually a skeleton of what it should be. As things currently stand, there is very little to distinguish one place from another, and we can't escape the sense that each vignette is procedurally generated from a limited list of names and traits that do not matter. There is a sameness about these adventures that really ought not to be. The experience is similar, in a way, to 2014's Begscape, except that Begscape was actively going for that effect in order to make a point.
This is the body of Adam before God ever breathed life into it. The idea is there, and it could be made into something wonderful, but we're not there yet. It's a celebrated breakfast buffet with chafing dishes ready for everything from French crepes to kedgeree to shrimp and grits, except we've arrived too early and only the toast and coffee have been laid out.