Overmorrow, the debut release from solo developer PixelMant, manages to be philosophically engaging, evocatively written, visually distinct and lovingly crafted. Still, the idea of replaying the game – which you’ll actually have to do by design – is a tall order, and therein lies the unfortunate problem with this otherwise laudable first indie effort.
When we reported on Overmorrow’s central mechanic of deleting a player’s save data after 30 days in-game, the comments section was abuzz with discussion of the merits of such a game design. Player time is precious, and holding the 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 undone. You get elemental magic spells that manipulate the environment and are key to solving puzzles and progressing. But spells can be used in a very limited amount each day and can only be renewed after a night’s rest by the campfire.
Each passing day brings you closer to the impending doom of Overmorrow, a salvation that serves as a metaphor for the transience of life itself. Ephemeral themes abound in the game’s evocative writing, imbuing it with feeling Memento mori. To be sure, there is beauty in Overmorrow’s message and inspirations. With a unique triangular mosaic art style, nothing else looks like it. As each day passes, headstones appear in the picturesque cemetery, prompting us to think about those who lie beneath. But the hard truth is that a game like this lives or dies on its gameplay fundamentals, and there are key issues there.
Chief among them is that the game’s launch version 1.0.0 contains a bug that prevents the campaign from being completed. The developer is aware of the issue and a patch is on the way. Although we didn’t get to finish the story because of it, we saw the lion’s share and spent enough time with it to form a clear opinion. We spent up to four hours on each of our playthroughs trying to see everything, but the game can be completed in about one to two hours if you know what you’re doing.
Time loops are features in games like The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, Outer Wilds, and Minit, each requiring, in different ways, to manage your actions within a certain amount of time. Common to these acclaimed titles is the risk of wasting time and losing progress while retaining the knowledge gained from previous loops. In such games, a solid surface is essential.
While Overmorrow draws strong inspiration from these mechanics, its unguided exploration suffers from poor design choices that require a trial-and-error approach to solving numerous puzzles. There are a limited number of opportunities to actually solve its often puzzling puzzles and abundance opportunities for wrongful deaths or accidental entries.
The odds of beating the game on initial unguided play are zero. Aside from a short linear section at the beginning that introduces you to the use of magic, there is little explanation of objectives or hint signs. Several early obstacles to progress were not clearly indicated at all, and we discovered the solutions mostly by accident. You are free from the start to explore the island and find magic crystals that increase your daily allocation of spells, which are performed by holding the shoulder button and pressing ‘A’, ‘B’, ‘Y’ or ‘X’. Overmorrow doesn’t always make it clear which button each elemental magic is tied to, which created a lot of unnecessary initial confusion for us.
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 wasted resources and a day poorly spent. As a result, the initial sense of discovery soon gave way to immersion-breaking frustration that detracted from the overall experience.
There were also numerous cases where we questioned whether something was a bug or a deliberately designed element. Navigating through the game’s forest of poisonous mushrooms, for example, is supposed to kill you, but we were able to rough our way through using pockets within the map, which didn’t seem like an intended or elegant way to proceed.
Once we collected all of our basic elemental magic and developed a clearer understanding of what the game expected of us, we were able to hit the ground running and quickly open up new areas of the island as well as dungeons and hidden areas full of puzzles. Overmorrow is best when you are able to reveal without too much guesswork or friction. It’s designed for multiple passes, with the initial run being one of discovery and failure in a race against the clock, and subsequent runs made easier with retained knowledge. But such a design is based on the idea that the gameplay is compelling enough for you want repeat everything. Overmorrow takes too much from you.
As we went deeper down the rabbit hole in our second playthrough, the novelty of traversing the world and solving its puzzles again faded and became a chore. The wipe save can be a compelling thematic and metaphorical device, but in terms of gameplay, it’s become an excessive setback, especially given the game’s broader lack of direction.
In the second half of Overmorrow, a brief physical contact with obstacles like black holes, jellyfish, or falling into lava after making a wrong control entry through a narrow dungeon path costs you an entire day. In theory, you could still have a few days before a save-delete and not have enough discovered magic supplies to even finish the game, which is a real problem. There is no countdown for in-game days, which last until you return to the campfire with depleted magic or succumb to damage from one of the aforementioned threats.
The soundtrack for Overmorrow was composed by Canadian singer-songwriter Jim Guthrie, who worked on the acclaimed Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP. His music certainly adds to the atmosphere of the game’s various environments, though you can expect to hear the same tune on loop if you’re stuck with a particular puzzle. The game’s sound design can be choppy at times, especially in the mushroom forest area where a discordant melody can suddenly turn on and off depending on where you walk, which felt unrefined.
While the frame rate didn’t drop noticeably often, we did experience at least one crash and two glitches that required restarts: one involved the player character crashing into a wall and getting stuck there, while another saw the map completely disappear and we were left wander through an indescribable blue screen. Ouch.
Conclusion
Overmorrow has its share of satisfying eureka moments and is a compelling concept. While there is genuine purity of intent behind its development, it would greatly benefit from more fine-tuning and testing. If its many bugs and issues are eventually ironed out and quality-of-life improvements are added, it would indeed be a journey worth taking for players interested in its premise – but be prepared for moments of frustration along the way.
