Nowadays, video game development is not restricted to a few countries. Game studios all over the world are developing video games and trying to introduce their new ideas. Some of these ideas are brilliant and result in unique and amazing video games. Urnique Studio is a Thailand based independent game developer that has come up with one of these novel ideas in their upcoming game "Timelie": the idea of controlling time. The result is an original puzzle game that can easily attract one's interest. Timelie has won the World Championship in Games Category from Imagine Cup 2016, a software competition held by Microsoft. In the following, I give a short explanation of the game story, gameplay, and design based on a demo that the publisher provided me.
Story: A little girl (who we don't even know her name) wakes up in a surreal and strange world. She soon realizes that this realm is not safe at all. The aggressive robots and the demolished objects are big threats for her. She starts her journey to overcome obstacles and finds a way out of this mysterious abstract realm. Luckily, she is not alone in this journey, and a small cute cat accompanies her through all the dangers. The game doesn't have a deep and complex story and doesn't need to have one. However, I believe that the relation between the little girl and the cat is the key element of the story. In my demo experience, There were some moments that I could see this relationship and how it develops. I hope to even see more dramatic moments between these two characters in the final game.
Gameplay: The gameplay in Timelie has been developed based on the concept of controlling time. The main goal of each level is to reach the exit door. However, there are many obstacles such as closed doors, broken bridges, and aggressive robots on the way. The little girl has the ability to make a visual plan in her mind beforehand. She can rewind the time to undo her wrong actions in her plan, or seek the future and gain information. The time control ability helps her to find correct timings for passing by the robots, opening doors, and reconstructing bridges. When the girl finally solves each level's puzzle and devises the correct plan, she carries out the plan to reach the exit door. In most of the levels, the girl is not alone, and the small cat accompanies her. Therefore, the puzzles are even more challenging as the gamer should control the girl and the cat simultaneously. Additionally, it is usually necessary to use one character's ability to help the other character to overcome the obstacles.
Design: Timelie enjoys a minimalistic but beautiful art design. The developers have excluded the unnecessary details of the environment that can distract gamers when they are solving the puzzles. The animations including the characters' animations and objects demolitions are eye-catching and in line with the abstract design of the game world.
Timelie is undoubtedly one of the games that all puzzle lovers should play it. The game uses the novel idea of controlling time in a way that has never been implemented in other video games. After experiencing the demo, I should say Timelie has the potential to become one of the surprising puzzle games of 2020.
Timelie will be available on Steam on May 21.