Overmorrow, the debut release from solo developer PixelManta, manages to be philosophically interesting, evocatively written, visually distinctive, and lovingly crafted. Still, the idea of replaying it – which you’ll actually have to do by design – is a tall order, and therein lies the unfortunate problem with this otherwise commendable first indie effort.
When we reported on Overmorrow’s core mechanic of deleting a player’s save data after 30 in-game days, the comments section was abuzz with discussion about the merits of such a game design. A player’s time is valuable, and holding a Sword of Damocles over save data is one of the most provocative decisions a developer can make.
Overmorrow places you on a seemingly deserted island with 30 days to uncover its secrets before all progress is reset. You acquire basic magic spells that manipulate the environment and are essential for puzzle solving and progression. But spells can be cast each day in a very limited amount and can only be recovered after a night’s sleep by a campfire.
Each passing day brings you closer to the impending doom of Overmorrow, a rescue mission that serves as a metaphor for the fleeting nature of life itself. Ephemeral themes abound in the game’s evocative writing style, lending it a sense of depth Memento Mori. Certainly, there is beauty in Overmorrow’s message and inspirations. With a unique, triangular mosaic art style, nothing else is quite like it. Every day, headstones appear in a picturesque cemetery, prompting us to think about those who lie beneath them. But the hard truth is that such a game lives or dies based on its gameplay fundamentals, and there are core problems here.
Chief among these is that the game’s launch version 1.0.0 contains a bug that prevents the campaign from completing. The developer is aware of the issue and a patch is on the way. While that didn’t allow us to complete the story, we saw the lion’s share and spent plenty of time forming a clear opinion. We spent up to four hours on each of our playthroughs trying to see everything, but the game can be played in about one to two hours if you know what you’re doing.
Time loops appear in games like The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, Outer Wilds, and Minit, each in different ways necessitating the management of your actions within a set period of time. Common to these critically acclaimed titles is the risk of wasting time and losing progress while retaining knowledge from previous loops. A solid foundation is essential for such games.
While Overmorrow draws much inspiration from these mechanics, its unguided exploration suffers from flawed design choices that require a trial-and-error approach to solving its many riddles. There are limited options to actually solve the often cryptic puzzles a lot of possibilities for unfair deaths or accidental inputs.
The chance that you will beat the game the first time without guidance is zero. Apart from a short linear section at the beginning to familiarize you with the use of magic, there is little explanation of the objectives or signage of hints. Several early barriers to progress were not clearly identified at all, and we discovered the solutions largely by chance. You’re free from the start to explore the island and find magical crystals that increase your daily spell count, which are performed by holding down the shoulder button and pressing ‘A’, ‘B’, ‘Y’ or ‘X’ to press. . Overmorrow doesn’t always clearly specify which button each elemental magic is associated with, which caused us a lot of unnecessary initial confusion.
It doesn’t help that the game’s abstract art style often makes it difficult to discern which elemental magic to use in a given situation, often leading to misspent resources and a poorly utilized day. As a result, an initial sense of discovery quickly gave way to immersion-breaking frustration that detracted from the overall experience.
There were also numerous instances where we wondered whether something was a bug or an intentionally designed element. Navigating the game’s poisonous mushroom forest, for example, should kill you, but we were able to brute force our way through by exploiting spaces on the map, which didn’t seem like the intention or elegant way to proceed.
Once we gathered all our elemental magic and developed a better understanding of what the game expected of us, we were able to get started and quickly open new areas of the island, as well as puzzle-laden dungeons and hidden areas. Overmorrow is at its best when you can explore without too many doubts or friction. It is designed for multiple playthroughs, with the first run being one of discovery and failure in a race against time, and subsequent runs made easier with the knowledge retained. But such a design is based on the idea that the gameplay is compelling enough to do that want to to do it all again. Overmorrow assumes too much of you.
As we got deeper down the rabbit hole during our second playthrough, the novelty of criss-crossing the world and solving the puzzles wore off and became laborious. Clearing saves may be a compelling thematic and metaphorical device, but gameplay-wise it felt like an inordinate setback, especially considering the game’s broader lack of guidance.
In the second half of Overmorrow, a brief physical contact with obstacles such as black holes, jellyfish, or falling into lava after making the wrong control entry along a narrow dungeon path will cost you an entire day. Theoretically, it could take a few more days for the save wipe to occur and not enough magic to be discovered to even complete the game, which is a real hindrance. There is no timer on in-game days, which lasts until you return to the campfire with your magic depleted, or if you succumb to damage from some of the aforementioned threats.
The Overmorrow soundtrack was composed by Canadian singer-songwriter Jim Guthrie, who worked on the critically acclaimed Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP. Its music certainly builds on the atmosphere of the game’s various environments, although you can expect the same tune on loop when you’re stuck with a particular puzzle. However, the game’s sound design can be a bit choppy at times, especially in the mushroom forest, where a dissonant melody can come in and out abruptly depending on where you walk, which felt unrefined.
While the frame rate didn’t drop noticeably often, we experienced at least one crash and two bugs that required a restart: one had the player character clipping into a wall and getting stuck there, while in another section the map was completely blocked. disappeared, and we were left wandering across an unremarkable blue screen. Yes.
Conclusion
Overmorrow has some satisfying eureka moments and is a compelling concept. While there is a real pure intention behind its development, it would benefit greatly from more refinement and playtesting. If the myriad bugs and issues are eventually resolved and the quality of life improved, it would indeed be a worthwhile journey for players interested in the premise – but be prepared for moments of frustration along the way.