Three minutes to eight IM tests – trial and error

Three minutes to eight A game that deals with philosophy, morality and ethics in a futuristic society. The experience is characterized by deliberate repetition, making each small new discovery more exciting. A refreshing take on the point-and-click genre, somewhat reminiscent of Roguelite. You’ll find out in the test if it convinces me as an old LucasArts fan.

We have kindly provided a key for testing.

Repeat play loop

You wake up in your apartment. 7:33 pm You are disoriented, and although your surroundings and identity seem familiar, you feel that something is missing and there are many gaps in your memory. While trying to figure out who you are and reconstruct the world around you, you die at exactly 7:57 p.m. Suddenly you wake up in your apartment again. The clock still read 7:33 pm. This is how the game loops between three and eight minutes. You have to find a way to break this loop and get to the bottom of the story. Because every time you change rooms or smoke a cigarette, the game moves forward one minute. An otherwise static point and click adventure becomes more lively, but more challenging.

Blade Runner Atmosphere

The action takes place in a beautiful, futuristic city with stunning 3D pixel graphics and an atmospheric soundtrack reminiscent of Blade Runner. In terms of audio and visual quality, three minutes scores an eight. The atmospheric sound effects that bring the city to life work really well. But it’s unfortunate that we can’t explore more of this world except the road that is between three minutes and eight. Unfortunately, locations are limited and LucasArts games are not available. It’s not just the lack of alternative settings that makes the world of Three Minutes to Eight feel overwhelming. As a point-and-click puzzle game, I was surprised to learn that the only answer to interacting with objects on the street and in apartments is whether they are useful. There is no background description, no explanation of the technology or purpose of the items. Even a notice in the hallway that we cannot read because it is not useful is hidden from us. Being told “I don’t need this right now” or “I don’t need to move this” over and over again when you’re trying to get more information gets annoying quickly. Interacting with the environment is limited by whether what you are interacting with has a purpose or not. Unfortunately, a lot of the depth that the beautifully designed environments are meant to convey is lost.

A kind of adventure roguelite

After you die at 7:57 p.m., you’ll have the option to choose an item that you want to keep with you permanently in the loops so you don’t have to pick it up again. At the start of a new loop, certain items may be in different locations, such as your wallet and apartment keys, unless you want to keep them with you throughout the loop to save valuable search time. Three to eight minutes is primarily based on the principle of trial and error. There are a total of ten different endings to discover, and many of them depend on being in the right place at the right time or having certain items on hand. It’s all about identifying patterns and making sure you try every possible scenario. What if you’re in an elevator when an explosion occurs in the middle of a time loop? Of course, this means that you have to repeat things over and over again, constantly walking down the same road in the hope that the game will eventually help you out. This makes it really hard to keep track of specific endings, because if you’re on track of one of them, you might not know how you triggered it. If you run out of time, you lose track and have to start over.

an endless circle

One annoying thing I noticed while solving puzzles between three minutes and eight was that many of the solutions didn’t make sense. After gathering new information you must contact each NPC, as one of them may have the information you need. Person waiting for a friend outside the club? He knows how to build a time machine. I also found the dialogue between minutes three and eight incredible. You go up to a random person on the street and tell them about you I don’t know what I’m doing and I’m stuck in a loop experience, and they’ll probably tell you their life story. What should be positively highlighted is the English language output, which I liked. My biggest issue with Three Minutes to Eight, however, is the constant repetition. You can skip lines of dialogue, but not entire conversations. And while you can pick up items from previous loops, you’ll need to retrigger the necessary events to resolve the issues associated with them. For example, if you build a time machine and collect all the ingredients you need, you still have to explain to the owner of the chicken stand that you’re stuck in a time loop, get the idea to build a time machine from him, and then ask the person at the front of the club. Approach and ask if he knows how to build a time machine. This can be really frustrating. I actually liked the idea of ​​the time loop, it gets very tedious doing everything over and over again.

Conclusion:

I like three minutes to eight because of the visuals and the setting. The game mechanics are also good, but unfortunately doing the same thing over and over again becomes very tedious. Similarly, many paths and actions sometimes do not seem logical. But if you look at minutes three to eight as a whole, it’s a successful experiment, although it has some weaknesses and requires a certain tolerance for player frustration.