Time Bandit – Part 1: Appendages of the Machine

Time Bandit is a Idle adventure stealth puzzle game. An interesting mix of genres, doing block puzzles where each move takes half an hour in real time. A real time work schedule, weather based on your location, sneaking around like Metal Gear Solid, long radio calls. CAPITALISM. It all clicks together satisfyingly. The main things I'd hope for in the sequel would be: - More variety with the stealth, there's only like two patterns for enemies, which I believe is based on the time of day. - Requiring more types of resources like the trees, that take time to grow and need to be chopped down. - A text log, to read back text as I've accidentally skipped some. - A text speed option. - 1440p support, it's capped at 1080p, although it's not a huge issue considering the art style. - A way to see keyboard controls without having to unplug my controller. - MORE, FEED THE INSATIABLE BEAST. BRING ME CONTENT FOREVERMORE. Honestly I'd just like more people to try it, it's very unique. Some of the writing really got to me.

This game is very unique and I like it's style and tone. The time it asks you to invest, however, does not seem worth the gameplay it offers, though. That might be the biggest issue. If everything were on a micro level (instead of 30minutes, make it 3; etc), where you could play in bigger chunks, I might have been more inclined to continue. It reminds me a little of Chulip and Moon, which I appreciate. Much like those games, this one stretched your patience and might not be for everyone. I appreciate the creator being true to his vision, so I'm glad I bought it.

"Capital is dead labor which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labor, and lives the more, the more labor it sucks. The time during which the worker works is the time during which the capitalist consumes the labor-power he has brought from him. If the worker consumes his disposable time for himself, he robs the capitalist. - Karl Marx" - Time Bandit ---- update so it's a few hours later in playtime, and a few days IRL. This game's consumed me. I close my eyes and I see boxes. I think about my next move on my commute to college. I wake up in the morning and I think "hmm, I hope gas prices are low today" and they never are. I wrote and published the TV Tropes page for the game. I send MS Paint scribbles of the puzzles to my friends and say "aha yeah this is probably fastest solution" and then I look up if I can legally stream a reading of The Communist Manifesto. This game's hypnotic. Enchanting. Serene experience.

Time Bandit is one of those special games that comes along every so often that just has a... feel to it. If you're looking at this store page, you probably know the type: Looks like garbage, has the audio quality of an electrical fire, and by all rights appears to warrant being thrown in the dumpster without a second glance. But then you take a second glance and realize there's something there. It's totally unique, and it feels almost like you're experiencing something entirely new. This game gives me the same sensation as games like Stephen's Sausage Roll, Cruelty Squad, and Kenshi. I feel like I'm playing an idea or an emotion more than a game. Anyway, this game is rough as ♥♥♥♥. Super unpolished, not buggy per se but definitely could use 3 or 4 more passes. But the core concept is super unique, and despite the extremely (EXTREMELY) long duration of the core gameplay loop, it also feels like it respects my time more than almost any other game I play. During my play through, I'd hop on Time Bandit for 10-15 minutes, plan out some moves, get things in motion, and then get on with the rest of my life until the next session. I'd love to see Part 2 polish and refine a lot of concepts, expand the story, and offer some more diversity to the puzzles as things progress. There's not much else to say other than this game is worth a try if you're willing to approach it with an open mind and a flexibility towards engaging with it differently than other games. Also you're gonna have to hear some long-winded ♥♥♥♥ straight out of the Communist Manifesto, but just pretend it's a Kojima game and you'll be fine.

I tried this game out on Deck, played for a bit and since a central mechanic of the game is waiting I left it open and went to make dinner. My deck went in sleep mode and when I got back the game interpreted the sleep mode as time travel and threw me in jail for 12 real world hours. This game is brilliant and even though I've barely made any progress I can tell it will stick with me. You have a chance to play it before it blows up.

Such a unique idea here: a game that asks you to wait real time for the effects of your actions to take place. Very well done, with a ton of great writing, and a world worth learning more about.

Time Bandit is a clever game mixing idle / sokoban / stealth and even some bullet hell mechanics, all wrapped in a story about capitalism and the use of our time under it. The main feature being that any action in the sokoban is executed in 30 minutes real time and cost you in game money on top of it, you're forced to spend some time to think about the puzzles to solve them in the most optimal way and even then it might happen pretty often to realise the second you set up an action in motion that you really screwed up ! There's nothing like realising that you made an action that will get your forklift stuck behind a block and getting basically softlocked for a full real time week until you get enough money to buy a second forklift to get unstuck (or you can also lend money at the bank for outrageous interests to get the money faster... your choice.) It's a game you can play in short sessions one or two times each days for a few weeks, with a satisfying progression and quite a few surprises along the way. I loved my time with Time Bandit !

So the game appears nice and i would love to play it but the fact that there are no options, no menue and the keybinds are all wrong makes it unplayable or at least unenyoable. Maybe start with a keybind menue or something similar. Finding out that a is z is doable (And maybe smth to do with american keyboard) but what is R2? No idea and there is nothing to check

The game sounds are painful to listen to. This might be an intended aesthetic, but it is a sensory nightmare. The intro cutscene is agonizingly slow as well. The game also requires you to wait real life hours for things to happen. There is no way to skip ahead in time. You literally have to wait 8 hours for your character to sleep. You have to actually schedule your life around the game. Now perhaps this is 'reasonable' in it being an idle game, but I cannot recommend it.

12 hours "play time", but Time Bandit is a game I tended to and thought about all month. It invited thoughtful examination of my relationship to time, work, and play. Every few hours I move my little forklifts around, and every few minutes I think about all the little forklifts in my life. Eagerly awaiting Part 2 - and I'll enjoy the wait. 👑