From time to time I stumble across the games I have something to write about, but not enough to warrant a separate review. Both Tick Tock Isle and The Girl and the Robot are games like that.
Tick Tock Isle is a puzzle platforming game, kind of. But it’s not really about puzzles nor platforming, actually. It’s a cute pixelated 2D game about time travel on a small island with a house, where the player needs to solve some issues in the future by fixing things in the past. A rather basic concept, that could be made into a good game if done right, but, sadly, Tick Tock Isle doesn’t.
Now, it doesn’t make it bad. It just makes it boring and not particularly interesting. Instead of actually solving puzzles across time, you stumble upon items and places where to use them in a rather linear fashion (because some things are not available until you do other things) and then the game is done. There are also horrible platorming minigames that should’ve been completely optional. But in the end, the game is cheap, very short (about 1 hour long), cute, has some nice humour in it and is not a terrible way to spend time. However, I really hope that next time developers make a good game out of this concept.
The Girl and the Robot, on the other hand, isn’t even much of a game, let alone a good game, but rather just a concept in the playable form. It tries to be ICO, it looks good, it sounds good but it plays like trash. The controls are horrible, animations are laggy. Jumping and combat never feel precise. “Puzzles” are more about frustration than any actual challenge, or sometimes about just “doing stuff”. The Girl dies if she gets touched by any enemy and even if the robot is one step away it’s an instant game over and replay from a usually rather distant checkpoint.
Even the cutscenes are badly constructed with gray screen between every cut and horrible optimization in many areas. Also, a lot of smaller things lack detail, a lot of things and actions don’t produce any sound. Oh and despite it not being said anywhere on the store page or even the official website (at this moment of writing at least) – the game’s actual name is The Girl and the Robot – Act 1. And according to the replies of the developers on the forums, they plan to make Act 2 a separate game. Which even despite the fact that there’s no actual “storyline”, and it feels more like sequence of rather meaningless events at the moment, is funny. Because I find it hard to call this one a proper game, but rather a teaser,a playable demo, a game jam project that’s very long (3 hours). Something to show other people and say “we will make an actual game out of this”. Except “this” is being sold as that “actual game”. And it’s such a waste.
Both games are not really worth checking out, but at least Tick Tock Isle achieves what it wants. Even if I wish it’d want something more interesting with that concept. The Girl and the Robot, however, is simply something to avoid. It’s not fun, not finished and, I might argue, not even properly started.