Indie Games.
It's the future (refer to previous post)! If there's one thing I hate to love but love to hate its Steam. If there's a sale on, be it Christmas or Easter, Steam usually gets the majority of my money. So after massing a collection of 100+ games, and not paying my mortgage, I decided to actually play some of the things I'd bought. I will be coming back to my collection of Steam games but I'm only going to cover one today.
No Time To Explain! Or it's abbreviated self N.T.T.E, is an indie game which was released on Steam January 2013. It was actually a flash game on newgrounds but managed to get a kickstarter, even $2000 from Minecraft creator Markus Persson (Thanks Wiki!). Now whilst I'm sure that many have played this game, every time I mentioned this to one of my friends they stared at me dumbfounded! So I decided to explain to them why they need to play this gem. First off, I checked some of the reviews which only gave it 5/10 and I don't know why!
The game starts with the character dancing in his front room when all of a sudden there's a bright flash and your wall breaks down with some one saying,"I am you from the future, there's no time to explain! follow me to...Oh Christ!" aaaand in comes a giant crab and takes him away. I shit you not that's exactly how it starts! Fucking awesome right?! But anyways your future self drops this laser gun which you pick up and here comes the core mechanics of the game! N.T.T.E is much like Super Meat Boy or Mario in that you go from A to B to complete the level, but the creators have put so much thought into the game. The character can only move and jump but the gun is where it's at! The gun is controlled using the mouse and essentially helps you fly across the levels. It's difficult at first but once you get the hang of it, you'll be shooting yourself through the levels...literally.
The levels are well thought out and obviously increase with difficulty as the game goes on. You die. A lot, but the creators made it so when you die you respawn at your last grounded location (you more or less fly across the map). After getting used to the laser gun, they add in other elements to test the player. One of the parallel dimensions put in a cake which makes you get fat and limits the height you can jump/ fly. But it allows you to smash through to areas you otherwise wouldn't be able to reach. Another, and possibly my favourite, is the art dimension. It's more or less a blank, white canvas but when you fire your gun it shades the platforms for a period of time before disappearing. It's well done and helps to add a new and exciting element halfway through an already smart game. It even has Fur Elise playing in the background this dimension...as you do.
Even the story and the dialog is fun and quick witted. It is genuinely humourous and made me chortle and laugh (not lol cause we all know when someone puts lol, we all know it's just bullshit). There wasn't a moment during one of the cut scenes where I didn't make some sort of laughing noise. There's even hats to collect, which sounds tedious and boring, but once you're dressed as a fat horse, flying the air, it's easy to forgive. The put bosses at the end of most of the universes test the player and what they've learnt so far, in that area. This ranges from a giant crab to a weird shark/octopus which drops mines (sharktopus?). Once again you'll die, but the game is quite forgiving.
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The game starts with the character dancing in his front room when all of a sudden there's a bright flash and your wall breaks down with some one saying,"I am you from the future, there's no time to explain! follow me to...Oh Christ!" aaaand in comes a giant crab and takes him away. I shit you not that's exactly how it starts! Fucking awesome right?! But anyways your future self drops this laser gun which you pick up and here comes the core mechanics of the game! N.T.T.E is much like Super Meat Boy or Mario in that you go from A to B to complete the level, but the creators have put so much thought into the game. The character can only move and jump but the gun is where it's at! The gun is controlled using the mouse and essentially helps you fly across the levels. It's difficult at first but once you get the hang of it, you'll be shooting yourself through the levels...literally.
The levels are well thought out and obviously increase with difficulty as the game goes on. You die. A lot, but the creators made it so when you die you respawn at your last grounded location (you more or less fly across the map). After getting used to the laser gun, they add in other elements to test the player. One of the parallel dimensions put in a cake which makes you get fat and limits the height you can jump/ fly. But it allows you to smash through to areas you otherwise wouldn't be able to reach. Another, and possibly my favourite, is the art dimension. It's more or less a blank, white canvas but when you fire your gun it shades the platforms for a period of time before disappearing. It's well done and helps to add a new and exciting element halfway through an already smart game. It even has Fur Elise playing in the background this dimension...as you do.
Even the story and the dialog is fun and quick witted. It is genuinely humourous and made me chortle and laugh (not lol cause we all know when someone puts lol, we all know it's just bullshit). There wasn't a moment during one of the cut scenes where I didn't make some sort of laughing noise. There's even hats to collect, which sounds tedious and boring, but once you're dressed as a fat horse, flying the air, it's easy to forgive. The put bosses at the end of most of the universes test the player and what they've learnt so far, in that area. This ranges from a giant crab to a weird shark/octopus which drops mines (sharktopus?). Once again you'll die, but the game is quite forgiving.
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| ...Seems legit. |
Don't get me wrong N.T.T.E is a fun game but I did almost throw my laptop into space during certain levels. This is one of those games where it will just more or less send you into a rage, much like Super Meat Boy. But, after completing the level you feel a sense of actual achievement because of the time and effort you've put in to it. So luckily my laptop is in full working condition...for now. In total one play through will last about 4...ish hours, you can do speed runs on some of the universes but I personally found I got distracted collecting hats and dressing myself up with monocles and the like.
It's definitely worth how much it costs, even the soundtrack is well done and helps dictate the pace of the game.
So to sum up, No Time To Explain, an excellent little game, with its laugh out loud (it counts) humour, masterful soundtrack and well designed levels and concepts. It's definitely worth a buy and a mention to others.
O.E.G.
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