2. The Gallery - Episode 1: Call of the Starseed General hints and tips

The game is divided into six sections or chapters. Once unlocked, you can replay any section by choosing the corresponding cassette tape from the main menu. There is no save system, per se. If you quit the game in the middle of a chapter, you'll have to start that chapter from the beginning next time you load. However, all of the chapters are actually fairly small and short (once you figure out how to do them), so this is not quite as burdensome as it might seem. Ignoring achievements, you could play through the entire story in an hour or so.

All but three of the achievements are (or could be) essentially earned within a single chapter, so one strategy to consider is to play through the story with normal exploration and not worrying if you miss one or two, then to go back and replay any chapters you need to in order to pick up the rest of the achievements (rather than try to get them all in one pass). Two collectible achievements span chapters; one of them is easy enough to get on the first play through and worth doing so because it makes it easy to track whether you've completed all of the requirements. The other has no progress indicator, but will unlock when you complete the last requirement, regardless of which level you'r replaying at the time.

Movement in the game is predominantly done through a teleportation mechanism known as blinking. This is explained in the mandatory tutorial, but basically you look at where you want to go while holding a button on a controller and then release the button to move there. Almost all of your movement will use blinking. What you will certainly forget is that this is a room-scale game! Within the confines of your playing space, you can walk around, look behind things, kneel or crawl, reach up high (if your ceiling allows it). There will be times you'll find yourself struggling to blink into a certain location and/or direction when all you have to do is take a step or two forward and turn your body. Remembering it's a room-scale game and you can walk a step or two will save you a lot of time and headache and adds to the immersion.

There are essentially three types of objects in the game, which can be told apart by the outline that appears when you get close and look at them.

• Objects without any outline cannot be directly touched or interacted with, although you might be able to interact with them secondarily (e.g., you cannot touch a fire, but you can might be able to use it to light something else on fire).
• Objects with a white outline can be touched and interacted with. Drawers can be opened, levers pulled, things picked up, turned over, looked at, dropped, or thrown. These objects cannot be stored in your backpack, however. If you try to put one in it, it'll just drop through onto the ground (and maybe break, depending on the object). If you want to take a white-outlined object somewhere, you have to actively carry it in your hand...and you cannot carry one between chapters. Examples include starfish, bottles, candles, fireworks, etc.
• Objects with a blue outline are almost identical to those with a white outline, except that these can be stored in your backpack and retrieved later. These will also carryover from one chapter to another. Blue-outlined objects are mostly key game elements (although a few are actually entirely optional).

You get the backpack toward the beginning of the first chapter, and there is a small tutorial which explains its use. Basically, to open it you reach behind your head with one hand, pull the trigger to grasp, the bring your arm forward with the backpack in your hand. Its outline will appear and you find a spot floating in space where you can release the trigger to place it open. Once it's open you can choose an item by touching its image, which causes it to appear in the center section, where you can then pick it up an play with it. Dropping the item will cause it to reappear in the backpack. To put the backpack away, grasp a handle, pull it back over your head behind you and release it. This is neither the best nor the worst inventory management system in the first generation of VR games, but it does take a little getting used to.