You Have 10 Seconds (2023)

You know that feeling of browsing your discovery queue, getting to a game you're sure you'll beat easily under an hour but severely underestimating its potential? Indeed, as its title says, You Have 10 Seconds (2023 edition) is a game where you have to beat each level under a timer of, well, 10 seconds. It comprises 25 areas, each with its own gimmick, background art and corresponding track. It plays like your typical 2D platformer and it features a variety of achievements to get along the way. With that description one could sum up the experience from a surface level. However, once you get deep into it you'll start to notice that the gimmicks aren't as simple as what they seem. They add to the experience in a way where you'll have to rework your way of traversing through levels, increasing the difficulty in the process. Some are unexpected while others can come out of nowhere and throw you for a loop. But once you get through all of it, all of the areas, guess what, you can keep going with S ranks since unlike other games where they merely serve as bragging rights they do unlock stuff increasing the playtime. This really was a surprising game that was leaving so under the radar I had to submit it to IGDB manually. It features my favorite soundtrack (so far) of 2023 and is quite easy to pick up and give it a go. No money required to get it either, just quite literally a little bit of time.