I’ve probably said before that one of the double-edged swords of covering games is how often you can miss something like Crushed in Time. Before being offered a preview of it, I had no idea it was a pseudo-sequel to an equally irreverent There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension. Such is the problem when you try to spotlight Indie games as much as I do—sometimes there are just so many, a few are bound to get lost in the shuffle.
Thankfully, CGM got a chance to sit down with Draw Me A Pixel to take a look at Crushed In Time—a bizarre and truly unique point-and-click adventure game, building off of the LucasArts-inspired Sherlock Holmes point-and-click from their previous game. Associate Producer & Communication Manager, Freddi Malavasi, gave us a roughly fifteen-minute demonstration of the game, and I think it’s safe to say, there’s nothing quite like it.
Crushed In Time unfolds within a game itself, as the newest Sherlock Holmes title is about to hit the market—until one of its main characters disappears and a litany of problems ensues. Players are not so much playing the game as interacting with it, pulling and stretching elements in a world designed to be completely elastic.
“Crushed In Time is not your regular point-and-click game.”
“Crushed In Time is not your regular point-and-click game,” said Malavasi. “Rather than clicking everywhere, here you have to switch things, which opens the door to a new type of interaction.” Unlike most point-and-click games, where players collect everything in sight and mash it together until a solution appears, Crushed In Time encourages the use of characters, items and even the environment in inventive, slapstick ways to create puzzles.
It can be as simple as snapping an object from its resting place. During the demo, Malavasi retrieved a key from a shelf by shifting a seated Sherlock after slapping the newspaper he was reading and knocking his hat off. Objects can also be ejected into open spaces with a snap. Once the key hit the ground, Malavasi launched it into a keyhole, unlocking the door.
It was fascinating to see Crushed In Time maintain the kind of pretzel logic that defines many old-school point-and-click games, but in a way that feels fresh and unique. It recalls the Super Mario 64 title screen, where Malavasi admitted to spending hours stretching Mario’s face and admiring the different ways players could interact with a game.
“While it’s still a work in progress, Crushed In Time looks to be an incredibly fun interpretation of one of the defining genres of video games.”
But it is not just the inventive mechanics that make Crushed In Time stand out. With a name like that, players might expect Sherlock solving mysteries across different eras of history. Instead, following the lead of its predecessor, Crushed In Time takes a meta approach: Sherlock and Watson travel through different periods of their game’s development, moving from prototype to beta and eventually to alpha.
This approach allows Crushed In Time to play with its premise and layer in meta humour alongside its already comic proceedings. It works in surprising ways. As Malavasi noted, Sherlock is a complete jackass, and the pair are so uniquely inept that their comedic dialogue doubles as a hint system. Interactable items are marked with indicators to assist players, but the dialogue helps guide them on how to proceed while remaining entertaining in its own right.
While it’s still a work in progress, Crushed In Time looks to be an incredibly fun interpretation of one of the defining genres of video games. Draw Me A Pixel seems set to build on one of the interesting ideas they had from their first game and flesh it out into a whole incredible production.
