Time Bandit – Part 1: Appendages of the Machine

Rolled credits after 10 hours but that took many weeks due to the game's specific conceit: Everything plays out in real time forcing you to carefully schedule your in-game actions. It's definitely rough around the edges with limited music and "voice acting" that's just grunting, but I'm excited to see what comes next.

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. 👑

I feel really, really bad giving this game a thumbs down. At it's roots, I think I should love this. It has great writing, a cool aesthetic, an overt anti-capitalist message (a big thumbs up from from me), and an interesting central gimmick; it's a Sokoban-like block pusher, except it takes half an hour of real time to move each block. How novel! But... Do you ever have an idea that sounds really great in theory, but in practice is awful? This is a Sokoban-like block pusher, where [b]it takes half an hour of real time to move each block[/b]. This is the most prominent of multiple interlinked systems which all serve the same purpose; to make actually achieving anything in this game a frustrating and time-consuming experience. And, like, that's deliberate, let's be clear. from an [i]artistic[/i] standpoint, 10/10, doing a great job. But I'm less than 3 hours in, and somehow it feels both like I've spent so, so much longer than that on the game, and that I've achieved so, so little in that time. The worst bit is that, because of the nature of the block-pushing puzzles, doing the wrong thing, or even just not doing the most efficient thing, is far more punishing than it otherwise would be. Push a block the wrong way? Welp, in the [i]best[/i] case, you're now going to waste an extra hour, and a day's in-game wages in fuel, on fixing your mistake, and it can be far more than that. I get this is all intentional, but... For me, that doesn't really mean much. If you punch me in the groin, you don't get a pass because it's what you [i]meant[/i] to do, punching me in the groin was the [i]point[/i]. I'm still not going to recommend being punched in the groin. As far as I know, the game does at some point unlock ways to ease this pain, cutting down the waiting time. I just don't have the time or patience to get that far. The capitalist hellscape this game is about, where most of your time is taken up on busywork for not enough pay with just a little free time before you need to sleep, is far too close to my actual reality to spend another minute booting this up in order to set my forklift going again. I wish the devs well, I really do. I hope this game is selling great, and that they get to make Part 2 that maybe goes even harder than this one, and that it's received really well. But the question a Steam review is asking is a simple one; do I recommend it? And I don't. I can't imagine anyone I know giving it as much time as I did, let alone the amount it probably deserves. I'm judging this as a game, not a political statement, and as the former, I think I'd rather just play old-school Sokoban, ...I wonder if anyone's done a speedrun of this?

Stop reading, play it. If you found your way this far you want to keep going.

I refused the simulation and the game deleted my save. Beautiful weird outsider art, this is definitely my stuff.

Neat game with really interesting atmosphere.

A unique experience that's rough around the edges. The time-gated actions, fluctuating fuel prices, predatory loans, and restrictive saving system all serve the themes, although said themes are about as subtle as a sledgehammer. I really enjoyed the vibe of being able to drop in, play for 10-15 mins, drop out, and then come back whenever. At time of writing, the frame-rate does tank at certain camera angles, but otherwise runs well. My only real criticism is Part 1's final encounter, which isn't foreshadowed, and feels anti-climactic given how quickly it ends. If you're looking for a game with new ideas, maybe let Time Bandit steal some of your labour.

THEY TOOK MY CRYSTALS

explicitly marxist Sokobon through the stealth espionage lens of Metal Gear Solid with thrilling REAL TIME WAITING for you to recover your energy to go back to work the next day. the perfect game to play for 5 minutes a day while you're clocked in to your real world job

it's something to have a game warp how you live your life momentarily. i played this for a month during my own working days: just launching up the game and setting the my machines in motion at the start of the day and during lunch and once i'm done with work for the day (and sometimes during working hours too haha). it's a neat meditation on how time is continually taken from us and the efforts we must go through to take wrest control of our time back. also the time gated progression provides a unique motivation for figuring out optimal sokoban solutions which is super neat.