Why real-time idle adventure games have "radical potential"
“At some point," says Joel Jordan, "Animal Crossing poses the question to you with alarming force: how do you want to spend your time?”
Allow me to open with the scoundrel’s refuge that is a seemingly weighty dichotomy: I reckon there’s two really special types of indie games. Those that work wonderfully despite their smaller scope, and those that work wonderfully because of it. It’s that second kind - the particular and peculiar voyages into the miniature and mundane - that really spin wonders. Games like Unpacking, PowerWash Simulator, and Dinkum. Games humble enough in scope, and curious enough in outlook, to be uniquely capable of framing everyday experiences so that their inner oddness and strange magic - unfairly dulled by familiarity - shines.
So, when Jordon - solo dev on the upcoming Time Bandit - brings up the question: how do you want to spend your time? I’m left pondering it for far longer than I think I otherwise would, thinking about it in context. The obvious answer here is: playing an videogame, please. But Time Bandit’s free demo doesn’t take long to make me almost uncomfortably aware that there’s more than one way to play something. I don’t even need to be anywhere near the PC. I might actually be playing it more when I’m not [X-Files music, but also I’m going somewhere with this].