Out by Midnight
Over the past ten years or so of IFComps, Art DiBianca has firmly established a niche of puzzle-box-style limited parser games. No frills, minimal story, just a small set of well-honed puzzle mechanics and maybe a map to explore. Out by Midnight sees DiBianca applying his signature style to an optimization-based treasure hunt in the vein of Captain Verdeterre’s Plunder or Sugarlawn.
After playing a few games that felt like their reach was exceeding their grasp in various ways, it was nice to sit back, relax, and go on a ride with a veteran author doing something that is firmly in his wheelhouse. I think this could be an instant new favorite for some people. Unfortunately, I don’t quite have the kind of brain that loves to latch on to this kind of thing. I enjoy the exploration phase, but once the new discoveries slow to a trickle (or dry up completely), I start to lose interest in the optimization part. (I’ve enjoyed replay-based optimization mechanics in games with a little more story/flavor, like Forsaken Denizen; when there’s a narrative I’m invested in, little tidbits of new stuff can keep me going for quite a while. But that’s not what Out by Midnight is about, and I respect that but it does make the game not the best fit for me personally.)
So although, as is common for DiBianca’s games, meeting the basic win condition turns out to be just the tip of the puzzle iceberg, I called it quits after getting there. Out by Midnight is a tightly constructed, nicely polished experience, a game that knows what it wants to do and does it without a hitch. It’s not my new obsession, but it might be yours.