Crushed in Time

Crushed In Time is a simple point-and-click adventure pushed to its limits. While some pain is involved, there are also a lot of cool ideas born in this far-flung space. If you’re looking for a puzzle adventure with a full roster of fascinating twists, Crushed In Time might be just what you need.

Crushed In Time is a fantastic example of how creativity can turn a simple idea into a great visual novel. Its mechanics—based on stretching and manipulating the world—seem limited at first, but they eventually reveal themselves to be a surprisingly versatile toolkit capable of sustaining dozens of hours of puzzles, humor, and experimentation. The overarching narrative is masterfully executed, the characters are charming, and the game’s ability to introduce new ideas is admirable.

Despite a few dispensable sequences, Crushed in Time is an excellent point-and-click adventure that manages to bring a touch of freshness to a gameplay formula that has already been thoroughly tested for decades. Add to that a delightfully unhinged metafiction that brilliantly draws from every form of humor, along with more or less glorious tributes to video games and game creation as a whole, and you have a generous and memorable experience on your hands.

Crushed in Time subverts traditional adventure formulas, delivering a fresh tactile experience through ingenious level design and witty meta-humor. While it suffers from occasional frustration and late-game control fatigue, the game shines with its genre-defying concepts and high level of polish.

Crushed in Time is a clever adventure game that manages to provide a compelling meta narrative and use it well. The vibrant world of Holmes and Watson is constantly changing around in a way that pays homage to game development itself as well as the genre’s different possibilities without breaking from its physics-inspired “point-and-pinch” format. While the narrative loses itself in a poorly handled drama in the end and the hint system feels lacking at specific moments, the full result is an impressive experience worth exploring.

While the overall game isn’t the longest in the world — a full playthrough only takes a couple of hours — the surprisingly emotional ending will leave you wanting more. While gamers who find point-and-click games may balk at some of the more traditional aspects of the underlying mechanics, there’s enough fresh blood in the game to keep players engaged. Constantly inventive and consistently hilarious, Crushed in Time may rely heavily on the core gameplay mechanics of the familiar point-and-click genre, but it does enough with the classical mechanics to stand out even from the rest of the games made by Draw Me A Pixel.

Crushed In Time is a delightful new style of point & click adventure, making the whole world elastic and taking you, Holmes and Watson on a journey through the travails of game development. There's definitely a game in Draw Me A Pixel's second title, but they'll need your help to finish it.

Crushed in Time is a fantastic concept for a classic adventure game, and modernises the genre wonderfully for the modern era.

Crushed In Time is one of those games that just 'clicks', even if it has some minor but annoying flaws. Thanks to the immeasurable amount of creativity at Draw Me A Pixel, Crushed In Time overcomes the repetitiveness that comes with relying on a single gameplay mechanic of picking at stuff to make it move, bounce or fling. Fair warning though: certain scenes might turn you rabbid #IYKWIM.

Crushed in Time is a charming meta point-and-click adventure sending Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson on a hilarious journey through time and game development. With clever puzzles, a solid hint system and a fully voiced cast in delightful British English, it balances accessibility and challenge well. A save-game bug slightly dampens the experience, but the witty humour and elastic gameplay make it well worth the trip.

Draw Me A Pixel is back with a clever and unusual adventure, this time following Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson as they puzzle their way through a glitching video game. There's a lot to love here, but the stretchy control gimmick is not going to be for everyone.

If you like adventure games with a large helping of puzzles and fourth-wall-breaking humour, Crushed In Time delivers in spades. The oddly limited control scheme unfortunately frustrates more than it aids. However, if you can look past that, Crushed In Time has a good amount to recommend for point-and-click adventure game fans.

Crushed In Time's story and gameplay are both unique, but it never knows quite what to do with it. It throws so many things at the wall, and a few too many don't stick.