Time Fcuk

Conceptually one of the coolest games that Edmund McMillen has been a part of. Time Fcuk is a confusing, surreal fever dream that feels as if its deadset on disorientating the player at every turn while also acting as a pretty interesting puzzle platformer. It feels like this is much more of an atmospherically focused game rather than one that's quite as interested in some of the more standard gameplay conventions you'd come to expect, particularly in teaching the player how everything works. While there's definitely some tutorialisation in early stages, the mechanics of flipping dimensions feel intentionally obscured and complex to a degree almost to make the player feel constantly lost. While this definitely is something that could have backfired and led to a painfully unsatisfying experience that felt very style over substance, it ended up contributing to the vibes of the game even further. This feels mainly due to the fact that even when things are confusing, it still is relatively easy to fumble your way through most situations presented to you, with the difficulty only really coming strongly in the last few stages where it forces you to grasp onto understanding just that bit more.

The dimension flipping not only works as a unique puzzle solving tool, but also contributes to some more precision and skill based challenges that give the game more variety. This especially comes into play for chapter 2 of the game where the skill based side of things comes in a lot more rather than focusing on more elaborate puzzle solving, which I think was a good decision considering the way that the game almost seems to not want to be perfectly figured out to the point where it could facilitate these long winded logic puzzles. Probably one of the artsiest things that Edmund has been a part of, and just really cool in general, if this were longer and a bit more developed into a full fledged game then I think I'd love it and consider it one of his best works. As it is it's still pretty cool but the small scale and more flawed elements of it, kinda hitting a point where things stop evolving and begin to stagnate in particular, stop it from being truly great in my eyes in its current state, though still something I'd definitely recommend.