Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle
Game
Game2017
Zarya-1: Mystery on the Moon
Developer Your Story Interactive
Text based quest, mix of Sci-Fi and horror in the veins of Alien and Dead Space. From the Steam store page
44 reactions from 1 source (Steam reviews) · newest Sep 13, 2026 · last updated Oct 8, 2026 · How this works
Audience score
80
LovedLoved
35 positive · 9 negative
95% range 65–89%
| Source | + | − | = |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam reviews | 35 | 9 | 0 |
Steam's own rating
Very Positive
161 of 183 reviews positive (all languages, per Valve)
What people are saying
Summary pending — the reactions are listed below.
Reactions
44 of 44 · most liked firstI'm pretty sure I've gone through and found all possible choices and endings for this game so I feel relatively certain I can give a proper review on the game. My feelings are somewhat mixed, there was clearly potential but a lot of bad decisions dragged the game down for me. The short of it: Good atmosphere, amusing characters, decent horror, very short story, bad monster, mechanics undermine the horror and the mystery aspects of the game, very bad and time wasting mechanics to fast-forward…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Excellent writing, but very primitive game design Zarya-1 is a "Choose Your Own Adventure" story that is written like an audio drama, but presented in text with a dozen of still images thrown in. As a commander sitting on Earth, you are leading a mission to investigate a mysterious signal on the moon. You will "listen" (but actually read, since there is no voice acting) to the reports and the banter of the team members on the moon, and occasionally you can choose between 2 or 3 alternative…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Zarya-1 is a "choose your own adventure" style story, but the interactive elements are very rare, quite limited, and -- which is the worst aspect -- the game is full of unnecessary and unskippable mechanics which only wastes your time and contribute nothing. The story is about a small team of explorers/soldiers who are conducting an investigation on the Moon. You can read the conversation between the team members, and -- as being the commander who remotely oversees your team -- very rarely get…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Super visual novel on the space theme. Excellent graphics, texts, characters, plot. The project is definitely worth every cent.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Awesome Sci-FI text adventure, the story is really well written totally worth the small price
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I played enough of Zarya-1 to concede that the story *is* pretty interesting, but the execution of the gameplay makes going through it a mind-numbing chore. The game has several endings that are either failures or "partial successes", but to get the good "success" ending, you have to make a few seemingly random choices that you would never know lead to a good ending. Completely random choices can kill you unprompted. While it is interesting to find out which action causes what ending and what…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →🎮 Introduction Zarya-1 Developer: Your Story Interactive Publisher: Your Story Interactive Release Date: February 28, 2017 Platforms: PC, iOS, Android Genre: Interactive Fiction, Adventure, Horror, Sci-Fi Zarya-1 is a text-based interactive adventure where you guide a team on a lunar exploration mission through real-time communications. Your decisions shape the story, leading to multiple possible outcomes. Are you ready to uncover the dark secrets hiding on the moon? --- 📖 Story &…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Minor spoilers, nothing that will give to much away For a text based game it manages to pull off a sense of tension, dread and urgency. The story is interesting all the way through. there are tonnes of endings, and you have a good amount of control over what the characters do, although once or twice they ignored my orders and sometimes i wished for more options. over all though there is a good amount of meaningful choices to make. there are 10 chapters (if you get the good ending) and 7 if you…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I like it. Kinda like playing a text adventure with limited still image graphics on a C64. I would say that this is for once a game where I actually want to find all possible endings, and find the truth of what's going on.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Alright, I was terribly bored mainly due to how much of the story you have to replay every time you die. It drops you at the beginning of chapters with no possibility to skip to the next story branch point. Instead you have to skip message by message, which is barely faster than letting the text scroll on auto speed (and then there are sometimes even loading times between messages...). I was literally folding my laundry and doing dishes while I waited for the game to catch up to where I had…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Best game i ever played
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →An interesting little game with an interesting story. I would love if they would take the story and concept to other forms of media, like films or other games. A 3D game in this universe would be awesome.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →▀▄▀▄▀▄ Zarya-1: Mystery on the Moon ▄▀▄▀▄▀ Zarya-1: Mystery on the Moon is a choose your own adventure game similar to something like Lifeline on iOS. The story is well written and there are some nice quality of life additions (at least in specific version on Steam) that you don't see with other games like this. (Like skipping the real world timers for example) Be ready to "fail" and try again, it lets you restart at certain checkpoints in the story, but each path usually reveals more of…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I have been surprised by this game, to be honest. I have not played anything like this before, very inventive and thrilling way to make a horror game. (Even though I think this may not be the first text based horror game) The writing is great, scary and entertaining and it makes everything a lot better that you can interact sometimes. The crew is believeable and interesting, the story is as spooky as it should be. The only, but not so small negative is that when failing the mission, you can…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →A nice dose of nostalgia, thank you for the lovely story.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →An Odyssey on the moon! The tale is immersive, the characters are friendly, and the story is actually interesting and original
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →https://youtu.be/WTHPsCurac8 The slow pacing and lack of configuration options show the mobile elements of this PC port a bit to heavily. The engaging content provide can't keep up with the lack of QoL efforts for the port.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →A brilliant game! Amazing story and writing! I love the pictures which are received through the story. The game would be event better with achievements and cards though.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The concept simple and underwhelming. Text based horror with the occasional Photo. The game lacks graphical artwork.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Its possible to oneshot the good ending, but personally, it took me a while cuz I was trying to map out the decision tree i was drawing. Good. But dont play this if you dont like reading.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Zarya-1: Mystery on the Moon takes a minimalist approach to science-fiction horror, building its experience almost entirely around communication, uncertainty, and the consequences of giving orders from a safe distance. Developed and published by Your Story Interactive, it casts the player as a mission-control operator overseeing a four-person expedition sent to investigate a mysterious signal originating from the far side of the Moon. Instead of walking across the lunar surface personally, the…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →They could've added more interaction. The game have really basic design plus lack of interactive medium makes it really bland. Other than that the characters and storyline do give sense of horror.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The game does itself a great disservice by not allowing you to instantly go back to a certain chapter. I don't want to be stuck in the same gameplay loop I've already played, until everyone dies just so I can take another route. It really kills the "exploration" part as some loops take way too much to end. Because of this, I had to follow [url=https://www.mindmeister.com/910574228/zarya-1-landing]this God d*mn walkthrough thing that might've given me internet AIDS to avoid wasting so much time.…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Really well written, you felt like someone far away advising on mission. Static, and delay with chat kept up tension really well. Absolutely phenomenal music and sound design ! Really liked clever mechanic of fast forwarding mission time. Also really liked concentration on design details of the 'structure' and it's insides. Banter and interaction between the characters was good, but could be better. From bad things - revving back mechanic felt too clunky (seriously clicking LMB multiple times…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →There's a certain something to the atmosphere of the game. The story's not bad. But it's incredibly slow-moving, repetitive and boring to 'play', so I don't recommend it. Basically, you're just watching dialogue run by and making the odd decision - most of which change nothing - then when everyone dies you need to go back and run it all over again until you find the right decision to choose. The correct choices aren't logical in any way, it's just trial and (many) errors...
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →nice short story game
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →used to play this on mobile 3 years ago now bought a PC version, was too overhyped the game is actually interesting and scary at some points but it actually gets on nerves when you have to go back every time you kill your team and complete all the steps one again + devs abandoned this project u cant even see mistake you made, thats what turns me off from zarya 1 tho i recommend it
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I bought this game only because I remembered the time when I played it on my phone years ago. It's cool but I wish there was more to it. Worth its price but don't expect someting mind-blowing.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Intriguing, but simple text based game that is a few steps away from being a visual novel. The mystery is great and I love how you can't learn the full truth about it if you only go for the "best" ending. Shame the game doesn't really have gamestates and it is just a choose your own adventure.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →interesting plot but requires a lot of rewinding because right choices are not made on any logic, just random so in order to pass you have to rewind and listen to all dialogs which quickly become boring and annoying.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Underrated NASA propaganda.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Nah... Quote from the end of the review: Overall, the game follows a very boringly presented story using very boring game mechanics. If it were free [...] but it costs money - not much, admittedly, but still too much. Text-based RPGs aren't eveyone's cup of tea, but this one is even boring for fans of the genre. This isn't really a text-based RPG by definition, because those usually have descriptions of what's going on or what you see etc. This game's story is only conveyed by dialogue in the…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Great story, though it can get tedious going through all the decisions and endings.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →best battle royale
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Great story 10/10. Don't expect gameplay
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →replayed this game from when i had it on my phone, and i still love it just as much
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Chase is literally me fr
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Fun text adventure, worth its price.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →More of an interactive story than game - gameplay elements are sparse and basically only serve to put the pleyr in the story. But it's a well made interactive story. It's very well written, intriguing, gives enough answers that you sort of know what's going on but not so much that the mystery loses its shine, and doesn't overstay it's welcome. Plus it's cheap.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Very well written, looks great visually, and an intriguing story. The only downside is that you can't really speed through past dialogue when exploring different routes unless you spam click, but that's a minor gripe. Would recommend for fans of text-based horror!
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Zarya-1: Mystery on the Moon is definitely one of the games ever made.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Interesting plot, characters are interesting and can be liked. You have to think when choosing, and if not, trial and error method. There are several endings, which makes it worthwhile to go through it several times in different ways.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I enjoyed this choose your own adventure game with a lovely underbelly of horror. The premise is very interesting. In it you're the command lead of a team investigating an unknown signal on Mars, with you being remotely patched in to them on the ground from back at command HQ. You talk to them, listen to their chatter (even when they go on private channel to hide their dialogue from other members of the squad), and can ask them question and give direction by making decisions and giving…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →One hour and a half of playtime definitely worth it if you like text-based games like this. Epic one
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →
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