Overmorrow, the debut launch from solo developer PixelManta, manages to be philosophically attention-grabbing, is evocatively written, visually distinct, and lovingly crafted. But, the notion of re-playing it – which you’ll successfully must do by design – is a tall order, and therein lies the unlucky downside with this in any other case commendable maiden indie effort.
When we reported on Overmorrow’s central mechanic of a participant’s save knowledge being deleted after 30 in-game days, the remark part was abuzz with dialogue over the deserves of such sport design. A participant’s time is valuable, and holding a sword of Damocles over save knowledge is without doubt one of the most provocative selections a developer could make.
Overmorrow units you on a seemingly abandoned island with 30 days to uncover its secrets and techniques earlier than all progress resets. You acquire elemental magic spells that manipulate the setting and are important to puzzle-solving and development. However spells may be deployed in a really restricted amount every day and might solely be restored after an evening’s relaxation at a campfire.
Every passing day brings you nearer to the approaching doom of Overmorrow, a save-wipe that serves as a metaphor for the fleetingness of life itself. Ephemeral themes abound within the sport’s evocative writing, imbuing it with a way of Memento mori. To make certain, there’s magnificence in Overmorrow’s message and inspirations. With a singular, triangular mosaic artwork type, nothing else fairly appears to be like prefer it. As every day passes, headstones seem in a scenic graveyard that immediate us to replicate on those that lie beneath. However the arduous reality is that such a sport lives or dies on its gameplay fundamentals, and there are core points right here.
Chief amongst them is that the launch Model 1.0.0 of the sport comprises a bug that forestalls the marketing campaign from being accomplished. The developer is conscious of the difficulty and a patch is on the way in which. Although we weren’t capable of full the story in consequence, we’ve seen the lion’s share and have spent loads of time with it to kind a transparent opinion. We spent as much as 4 hours on every of our playthroughs attempting to see every little thing, however the sport may be tackled in round one to 2 hours if you understand what you’re doing.
Time loops characteristic in video games like The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Masks, Outer Wilds, and Minit, with every necessitating, in several methods, the administration of your actions inside a set time. Frequent to those acclaimed titles is the danger of squandering time and dropping progress whereas retaining data gained from earlier loops. In such video games, a stable basis is important.
Whereas Overmorrow attracts heavy inspiration from these mechanics, its unguided exploration suffers from flawed design decisions that necessitate a trial-and-error strategy to fixing its many riddles. There are finite alternatives to really clear up its usually cryptic puzzles and lots of alternatives for unfair deaths or unintentional inputs.
The percentages of beating the sport on an preliminary playthrough unguided are nil. Aside from a short linear part at the beginning to familiarise you with utilizing magic, there’s little rationalization of aims or signposting of hints. A number of early limitations to progress are by no means clearly indicated, and we found the options largely by likelihood. You might be free from the onset to discover the island and discover magic crystals that enhance your day by day allotment of spells, that are enacted by holding down the shoulder button and urgent both ‘A’, ‘B’, ‘Y’, or ‘X’. Overmorrow doesn’t at all times clearly specify which button every elemental magic is tethered to, which created an excessive amount of pointless preliminary confusion for us.
It doesn’t assist that the sport’s summary artwork type usually makes it troublesome to discern which elemental magic to deploy in a given scenario, usually resulting in a mistaken expenditure of assets and a poorly utilised day. Because of this, an preliminary sense of discovery quickly gave strategy to immersion-breaking frustration that detracted from the general expertise.
There have been additionally quite a few cases the place we questioned whether or not one thing was a bug or a intentionally designed factor. Navigating via the sport’s toxic mushroom forest, for one, is meant to kill you, however we had been capable of brute-force our approach via by exploiting pockets inside the map, which didn’t look like an supposed or elegant strategy to proceed.
As soon as we collected all our base elemental magic and developed a clearer understanding of what the sport anticipated of us, we had been capable of hit the bottom operating and rapidly opened up new areas of the island, in addition to puzzle-laden dungeons and hidden areas. Overmorrow is at its greatest when you’ll be able to uncover with out an excessive amount of second-guessing or friction. It is designed for a number of playthroughs, with the preliminary run being certainly one of discovery and a failure to race the clock, and subsequent runs made simpler with retained data. However such design is premised on the notion of gameplay being compelling sufficient so that you can need to do all of it once more. Overmorrow assumes an excessive amount of of you.
Whereas we bought deeper down the rabbit gap on our second playthrough, the novelty of crisscrossing its world and re-solving its puzzles pale and have become laborious. Save-wiping could also be a compelling thematic and metaphorical system, however in gameplay phrases, it got here to really feel like an extreme setback, notably given the sport’s broader lack of steerage.
In Overmorrow’s second half, temporary bodily contact with obstacles like black holes, jellyfish, or falling into lava after making the incorrect management enter over a slim dungeon path prices you a complete day. Theoretically, one might nonetheless have just a few days to go earlier than the save-wipe and never have enough shares of magic found to even end the sport, which is an actual drag. There’s no timer on in-game days, which final till you come to the campfire together with your magic depleted, or when you succumb to taking harm from a few of the aforementioned threats.
Overmorrow’s soundtrack was composed by Canadian singer-songwriter Jim Guthrie, who labored on the acclaimed Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP. His music definitely builds on the environment of the sport’s numerous environments, although you may anticipate to listen to the identical tune on loop when you’re caught with a selected puzzle. The sport’s sound design is usually a little uneven at occasions, although, notably within the mushroom forest space the place a discordant melody can abruptly reduce out and in relying on the place you stroll, which felt unrefined.
Although the body fee didn’t usually perceptibly chug, we did expertise at the least one crash and two bugs that necessitated a reboot: one concerned the participant character clipping right into a wall and being caught there, whereas in one other part the map utterly disappeared, and we had been left wandering throughout a nondescript blue display screen. Yikes.
Conclusion
Overmorrow has its share of satisfying eureka moments and is a compelling idea. Whereas there’s a real purity of intent behind its growth, it could profit vastly from extra fine-tuning and playtesting. If its quite a few bugs and points are ultimately ironed out, and quality-of-life enhancements added, it could certainly be a journey price taking for gamers considering its premise – however be ready for moments of frustration alongside the way in which.
