Glitchhikers: The Spaces Between review – existential ponderings on the road to nowhere

PC, Nintendo Switch; Fellow Traveller/Silverstring Media Inc
A game that wants us to think about the contradictions and complexities of being alive, but not very deeply

As a kid, bored out of my mind on the long train journey from Edinburgh to London, I used to be totally baffled by all the adults just looking out of the window, barely moving for hours. What are they doing? What are they thinking about? How are they not bored? Now that I am older and my head is busier, I get it. When you're travelling - on a long drive, waiting at an airport, staring out of the window of a train - thoughts tend to arrive in your head that you may otherwise never have time to consider. Given the opportunity, I reckon I could now spend most of a long-haul flight just having thoughts.

Glitchhikers: The Spaces Between plays with this idea, putting you in transitional spaces - a highway, an airport, a train, a park - and giving you nothing much to do. It prompts your thoughts with its strange characters, who sit there calmly until you start up a conversation. They talk about stories and death, post-colonial ideas, the power of the collective, self-determination, our place in the universe and other subjects you might expect to come up in the kitchen at a fresher's week party. I don't say this unkindly; these are important ideas, but ones that many people will have turned over in their heads a lot before coming to this game and its in-between places.

Glitchhikers: The Spaces Between is out 31 March; 10