The setting of a solar system war is a familiar setting, that’s been explored in various stories. Stories From Sol: The Gun Dog is a visual novel set in a universe where such a war has concluded. The allied front of the Martian Territories and the Jovian Unified Colony Fleet has defeated the oppressive Earth-based Solar Federation. Your character is a Jovian, meant to take part in a battle during the final days of the war, but your mech had engineering issues. Those issues lead to almost all of your squadron getting killed.
The story of Stories From Sol: The Gun Dog opens aboard the Jovian Carrier JFS Kalyke. Your character, who you can name, is a fresh conscript who is trained as a pilot, but training has all been done in simulations and not in real-world situations. In this opening, your frame, aka mech, does not disengage from the Kalyke, leading to the aforementioned squadron wipe out. The game moves on from this opening to four years after the war, where your character is made a lieutenant following years of doing security detail, and is transferred to the JFS Gun Dog, a very small ship with a small crew.
Before you meet the crew you familiarise yourself with the gameplay screen, which has five options on the right hand side. Those options are move, use, look, talk and item. Look lets you observe surroundings and gain information about locations, use is for interacting with things in the rooms, item lets you see and use the items you are carrying. The talk button brings up who is available to talk and interact with. Later on, a function button is made available that gives access to your task list, a map of the ship allowing fast travel, and an info tab which gives background about items and the game’s lore. What I found a great design choice here was that when you clicked on a button there was a hefty clunk sound, providing satisfying feedback and playing into the retro design feel of Stories from Sol: The Gun Dog.
Stories from Sol: The Gun Dog looks green throughout, with the graphics fundamentally being different tones of that shade. It evokes the sense of playing on a retro handhold, and it mostly looks great. The function screen could be a bit better since the words on the options are blurred. Understandably, it is done to maintain that retro feel, but a modern touch here wouldn’t take away from the overall impact of the game’s look. Music is very good and maintains a retro feel that the game is going for. It has that sci-fi feel to it, while also feeding into that classic old-school gaming setup, while the music matches each scene I played through very well.
The crew of the Gun Dog include Cassandra, love interest of the main character who has also been assigned to the same ship after some playing around with admin. She is described as someone who jokes around a lot, and this is the reason why she doesn’t have her own ship command, though she is high-ranking in the hierarchy. Captain Bartermews, captain of the Gun Dog, appears to be quite laid back and you later find she has a bit of a drinking problem. Mackenzie Cathays,  is the Chief Engineer and will go into lectures and tangents about various engineering theories and terms.
Dylan is the gunner, who spends much of his time in the gunner room, listening to albums. Seifer Rosarium is the ship doctor who doesn’t care much for patient confidentiality, while Cadet Dalton Grange is the junior engineer based in the hangar. There’s also Haru Rumney, pilot, and Hansen Crwys, only other survivor of the Kalyke squadron that was killed and former squadmate of your player character, who blames your character for that failed mission. The relationships and how they evolve will depend on your actions and decisions. Throughout Stories from Sol: The Gun Dog, you will face various decisions and choices, from how you deal with interpersonal conflict to bigger choices that will impact the whole crew.
The story of the game is really promising from the initial demo, and if you want to check it out it is available at the following links:
- Stories from Sol: The Gun-Dog Demo (playstation.com)
- Stories from Sol: The Gun-Dog on Steam (steampowered.com)
- Stories from Sol: The Gun-Dog | Nintendo Switch download software | Games | Nintendo UK
Stories from Sol: The Gun Dog is due to release in the winter.
