About A Bizarre Day:
This time-based puzzle game reminds me of the GroundHog Day movie, but it’s happening to multiple characters – it’s similar to a game like Pocket Watch, but slightly more complicated. Let me explain how the gameplay works because it’s a little confusing. You can play as different characters during the same day, and when you change the character, the last playthrough will play out automatically – unlocking new events based on the current time. Reversing time does not reset your progress as long as you not playing the same character for adjustments, you can keep going unless you deliberately wait until around 7 AM (as far as I can tell). For example, if you pick up an item with a bird and drop it on the street, another character can pick up that item. Now the game has a leaderboard, which is a bit excessive in my opinion, but even if you not going to compete for the high-score, I think it has some really fun secrets and enjoyable achievements to hunt. It only took me about 15 minutes to figure out the rules, but I still think it would be nice to have an optional tutorial, even just a text box to explain how much time you have in a day – I assumed that reversing time would clear my progress, instead of combining it with other characters (it’s a relatively unique concept). The puzzle logic was mostly good with a few small consistency issues. I completed half of the tasks in 1 hour, so considering that everything is optional, I would say it has one extra hour of replay value, or more if you want to optimize your score. Aside from a few small visual issues like unclear platforms, the game has an enjoyable ambiance and decent art. More importantly, the secrets are very creative, and it takes some fun planning to get them. I love games that allow you to replay the same day to solve puzzles because it creates some unique scenarios, I think I played about 6 in total, it’s a relatively rare concept, and I like that this developer had a unique approach with individual characters on top of it. Pros:
- creative gameplay (combining your previous runs into one day) + multiple characters with different mechanics + some smart and occasionally funny puzzles + decent achievement support FeedbacK: Hard to see platforms – the only negative thing I can say is that I can’t tell what I can jump to, maybe it was intentional, but I find that it just wastes time when I already know where I am going. Probably could use an optional tutorial as well. Overall Thoughts: 8/10 Very creative game that made me think outside the box. The time-based mechanics make sense once you get more practice, even if they are slightly confusing at first. I found some of the hidden tasks pretty hilarious, well worth a few $ that I paid for it. In my opinion, having a high-score system takes away from the experience, I would prefer to have a chill exploration game with nothing attached, but I still enjoyed it. Also, thank you for a fair price, it’s perfect for 1-2 hours of enjoyable exploration.