After hearing this game pop up in conversations a decent number of times these last few years, I'm definitely glad I finally sat down and played it. I didn't know at first how the concept would work, but once I got the hang of it I found myself rolling with the mechanic automatically; whether that meant streamlining my movements to squeeze the most out of those last few seconds, or syncing up my exploration with the incoming death to make the world's most morbid quick travel.
This game seriously makes good use of a very minimalist style and 1 bit palette, and aside from some points where I did end up looking up a tutorial (in my- and the game's- defence, I had to finish the game this afternoon so I could write an essay, so getting stuck wasn't gonna work), which was usually because I just wasn't sure what to do next or how to solve a problem, a lot of the mechanics and puzzles ended up being pretty intuitive to work out.
If there was one thing I could note needing a little bit of work, it was that sometimes there needed to be a little bit more of a visual clue or direct prompt for some actions, since getting reset every 60 seconds meant that the natural linear flow of games (and knowing where you're up to/what the next challenge is) does get interrupted. For the side-tasks and collectables the ambiguity works out, but I did only figure out some parts of the main quest through looking up hints or unintentionally hitting a button at just the right time.
Overall this game was a lot of fun, and right from the moment that clock ticked down I was sucked into an intense and thrilling experience, where I went from being on-edge and frantic to a confident flow state, back to a new level of frantic, and repeat. I don't often play hard modes, but this game might just have me coming back to give it a shot.
Such a neat game! I think I was stuck on Level 17, and couldn't work out how to get past that one, but overall it was interesting, a fun challenge, and responded pretty well when I did stuff. The mechanic was cool to play around with, too!
Having not really dived into interactive fiction before, and planning on doing a small entry to 'Interactive Fiction Jam #2,' I picked this up to look at an example of interactive fiction and get a feel for the medium. Any IF I'd seen before had been built for game play- this was a wonderful introduction to IF with the intent to tell a story.
Heartbreaking and full of sorrow, the writing here really put me in the shoes of the main character, as I followed her feelings step-for-step and finished the last scene with the same questions as she did. There's a subtle quality to the writing that really conveys the feelings of being a small child at the beginning, with the sense of confusion and powerlessness that comes with it. After the shift from child to adult the writing changes in small ways that manages to keep the confusion and powerlessness but with the mindset of a young adult behind it.
This is a short work of fiction but is still structured well and stands on its own, finding a somber kind of resolution and closure, for all the hints of world building and character dynamics would easily draw my interest into a larger, more fleshed out story.
This was such a wonderful little game. At times I was a little confused or unsure about what was happening, but that never got too bad before the design of the game gently swept my focus onto the next thing, so even if I didn't fully understand, I didn't get stuck on anything for too long.
The entire time, if nothing else, I really felt the mood and emotions of the story; the fragments of the narration matched really well with the choice for the background music, where I found myself quietly wondering what the next piece would be.
There are some times where the limitations of bitsy seem to trip the story-telling up a bit, mainly in the controls and interaction where it can be tricky to tell if something was intentional or if the controls were just being a little awkward, but ultimately that didn't take much away from the whole experience.
