GAME > It Only Takes a Second (Andrew McCluskey)

It Only Takes a Second is an atmospheric 3D platformer with a clever concept. Playing as a time bomb, you must bounce through each level before finishing it with only one second left. The catch is that you can’t see what number the timer is on, except when the number which is present on the bomb turns green, after which you can count down manually to determine when to complete the level. The physics are very tricky to master and putting one foot wrong can mean disaster. A clear annoyance is the arguably overused wall jump; while this is a fairly clever feature used to increase the difficulty and strategy needed, it becomes very tedious and downright maddening, particularly once you get to the comparatively long levels. However, there is a video guide (though it would have been nice for it to actually be included in the game…) that goes through the basics of IOTAS in detailed fashion. There are a total of twenty levels; five in each of the four environments (with even more specific rules for each one), making this a pretty comprehensive game if you consider the ‘SPEEDRUN’ mode as well as the high amount of online functionality. The 3D visuals are very nice and fading the walls out to black worked well, creating an intimidating feeling, ideal for the objective of the game. Something that definitely stands out is the creative menu, which entices you to play on and gives good visual feedback. There’s no music in-game, because of the need to count ticks, but where necessary, there’s always sound to account for your needs. If you can take frustration, you should definitely give this Game Jolt ‘Axioms’ competition entrant (Andrew’s second) a play through.

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