The clock is ticking Im not counting Time Loops or games where time moves forward in a calendar type system actioned by the player Nothing against those types of games but Im very much only considerin...

ALT: a cartoon character is holding a bunch of money in his hand

YouTube video by Moon Channel

Rather excellent little platformer built around a unique pole vaulting mechanic (although it almost looks more like "Salto del Pastor" from my homeland) that works quite well as a traversal and puzzle tool. As expected from a physics-ish based platformer made mainly by one guy, its quite jank; but not enough to ever seriously fuck with the experience, largely because its a fairly forgiving game.<br><br>The usual wordless storytelling works well enough, largely because your Yorda equivalent (theres a few direct ICO nods funnily enough, so Im not just bringing it up for no reason) doesnt need to be defended from Monsters.<br><br>The collectible artifacts make for a 1-2 punch of being higher skill challenges to reach than the critical path and also provide some insight into the "lore" of this world with ocassional hidden flashbacks to the backstory of the place.<br><br>I noticed in a few of these a few WW1 allusions which might explain why the main character's head resembles a British "Tommy" helmet. Suffice it to say a mass produced army of robots being sent to die in the trenches by humans who could not give a shit about their well being is barely even a metaphor for the carnage of the late 1910s.<br><br>This theme also ties into the usual visual metaphor of the Megastructure as an unfathomably large beast of iron and concrete you can never escape from, which I have to admit, might be starting to wear me out a bit. Its done well here, and in Metal Garden and Lorn's Lure and the like, but its gonna start to get old real fast if the trend keeps up. I know its a cool setting, and most importantly one that is rather cheap to achieve compared to others, but there is such a thing as being overexposed IMO.