Out There Chronicles [$2.99] is a good idea. Take the mysterious, interesting universe of the survival/resource management game Out There [$4.99] and create a gamebook in the same setting that helps flesh the background out. A boots on the ground view, so to speak. It's even written by the same person that wrote the original game. The presentation is quite strong for a game of this genre, adopting much of the aesthetic of the core Out There experience, and it even attempts to incorporate a few of the mechanics, such as learning alien languages and trying to conserve resources. As a companion piece to Out There, it's pretty neat. But while it's good at evoking the feel of its parent, as a piece of interactive fiction, it leaves me a bit cold. You play as Darius, a survivor of the Ark Europa who has been recovered by descendants of the people of Ark America. You've been in cryostasis for an incredibly long time, which makes a nice excuse for why other characters might need to lay the exposition on a bit thick. While the people of America found you, the rest of your people were nowhere to be found. Locating them is your first priority, but there's another wrinkle in this tale. While the people of America have forgotten much of their history, your character remembers the sordid details of a raging war like they were yesterday. Without spoiling too much, Darius has a pretty hard time fitting in with the peaceful utopia of the new planet America.
Out There Chronicles is billed as...