Time Bandit – Part 1: Appendages of the Machine

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

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?

Got my forklift trapped and Alt F4ed out of the game. Remembered that I could buy another forklift, only to boot the game back up and be put in jail for 12 hours. I also realized I would have had to wait for 4/5 days of daily wages anyways to be able to afford a new forklift. I was almost getting into a flow with it, logging in periodically while I was working from home in real life. But I was excited at the thought of me softlocking the game, so I took that as a sign that I shouldn't play this. This is where the story would have ended had I not continued playing the game to completion after this. I waited the 5 days to get my forklift unstuck and continued, with the strong desire to see where this game went, and I'm glad I did. The music grew on me. I like how it changes depending on time of day. The dystopic capitalist town also grew on me over time. I enjoyed coming back to it every day, to steal more time crystals. There was a nice sense of community and solidarity with the few characters you interact with. Though, sometimes people would just call you and talk a novel at you about this or that. I ended up skipping most of these towards the end. I generally understood what they were trying to say. The kinda rough Unity-looking artstyle grew on me, too. It felt as detailed as it needed to be given the drab tone of the whole town. I wasn't sure about the slow sokoban gameplay at first, but it's a nice change of pace to think about the puzzles 2 3 steps ahead because of the pace in which you solve them. Also, it probably helped that they weren't too challenging. I had actually took my gaming laptop with me to my parents for the holidays and played off my Steam Cloud save to continue to log in at least once a day. When I got back home, the saves somehow duplicated a forklift and trash compactor, so I got 2 extras for free. I felt like I cheated the system to benefit the greater good. Though, the same day I discovered this glitch, I got crushed by a mine cart and got sent to the hospital with a big medical bill, so I guess it all equalizes in the end. There was a part of the game where you have to push these mine carts to a finish line. I couldn't figure out how to do this until the last cart. Before then, I somehow glitched the mine carts into the finish line, which I take as a win. I do really vibe with the overall anti-capitalist message, though. It is quite well designed around the mundanity of work and the slow but inevitable progress of change. It was not always fun to play this game, but overall I quite enjoyed it. It did help that there were some light stealth mechanics, which I'm a sucker for. I await the sequel.

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

THEY TOOK MY CRYSTALS

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.

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

Neat game with really interesting atmosphere.