The Mortimer Paradox

Short and very overpriced platformer with interesting ideas but frustrating design, unclear mechanics, and poor visibility that make the experience unnecessarily confusing. Morty, short for Mortimer, is one of those lucky kids whose grandfather happens to be an eccentric scientist meddling with things far beyond his control. In this case, that means opening portals to other dimensions, tearing the fabric of reality, and unleashing hideous monsters that greet you immediately. Your character resembles classic platforming heroes and comes with a set of interesting abilities. The jump mechanic is a bit unusual. Instead of performing a double jump by pressing the button mid-air, you must land the first jump before jumping again to achieve a higher leap. The first jump is pressure-sensitive, allowing for a small hop with a short press or a full jump with a longer press. Tied to movement is a stomp ability that lets you damage enemies below. Although you also have a punch, it is ineffective due to the lack of targeting, often resulting in you swinging at nothing in a comical fashion. To make matters worse, some enemies cannot be killed at all and can eliminate you almost instantly. The game is extremely dark. While this adds atmosphere and makes enemies more ominous with their glowing eyes, it also turns everything else into an indistinct obstacle you constantly bump into. This lack of visibility is compounded by the game’s failure to explain its mechanics. After reaching your grandfather’s house, your objective is to find items to power the first portal. There are several portals in total, and the gameplay loop involves entering one, completing a stage, and earning an item to activate the next. The problem is that the game relies heavily on switches that are not highlighted in any way and are nearly impossible to spot in the darkness. This is especially strange because other elements, like notes and points of interest, do have visual markers. As a result, you are left to figure everything out on your own, and the first stage is a particularly poor introduction. Some crawling enemies can be defeated, but others, like invincible clouds, drain your health on contact, while flying books crash into you and deal massive damage. Some enemies are supposedly vulnerable to light, but this is unclear, as they often seem to die randomly while chasing you. Each stage contains scattered diamonds, with some dropped by defeated enemies. These are not optional collectibles but are required to power the exit portal. This crucial detail is never explained, and you only notice it when nearby diamonds fill a tube next to the exit. To make things more frustrating, death is frequent due to fall damage and relentless, unkillable enemies, and each time you die, you must restart the entire stage and collect all the diamonds again. Saving is also somewhat confusing. When you quit and return to the game, you spawn outside the house, which makes it seem like all progress has been lost. Fortunately, opened portals remain accessible and certain key items, like keys, stay collected. There is also a minor bug where the resolution drops each time you pause the game, though this is more of an annoyance than a serious issue. The first stage stands out as the weakest part of the game, as the later stages are much easier and more straightforward. The overall experience is also very short, with the game taking less than an hour to complete. There are two endings, but you can simply replay the final platforming section to see the alternative outcome. Even with its design flaws, this would still be a recommend if the gameplay offered value in line with its price. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. It's significantly overpriced and wouldn’t be worth it even at half the cost. While it may seem ungrateful to criticize the price of something received for free, there still needs to be a reasonable balance between the game’s actual value and what it delivers to the player.