Can this small robot change the past?
Time Loader is a story-driven, physics-based puzzle platformer with a twist. At the helm of a small robot, you’ll travel back to the 90s to prevent a tragic accident. Explore the house of your creator, solve brain-teasing puzzles, acquire unique and powerful upgrades, and see common household items from an entirely new perspective! But remember meddling with time has serious consequences. You may succeed in changing the past, but can you deal with the result of your actions?
The game lets you control a robot that has to save a man called Adam from an accident that leaves him in a wheelchair by travelling back in time to stop the event itself but doing that isn’t as simple as it seems, and it soon becomes apparent that you’ve messed with time a bit too much and need to fix it. The robot moves throughout Adam’s family’s house during different time periods, so you’ll end up revisiting certain rooms, but they will be different depending on the year you are in. You can also leave items for Adam to find that inspire him to be a scientist or to keep them hidden, which ultimately influences what type of ending you get.
Being such a small robot, you see household objects are much bigger than you and you’ll need to get through them to reach new areas. You’ll grab upgrades to help you move objects or to grapple to them as you push through to gathering items needed to stop the accident. The robot itself does take a while to get used to controlling at first, especially considering he can’t jump particularly high, but it will get easier towards the end of the game.
The game itself isn’t actually that long though, I was done in a few hours. Having said that, there are a few different endings to be found and getting them, all does add a bit more onto it. The game does have Chapter Select as well, so getting the other endings shouldn’t require a full replay. The puzzles are pretty smart and the design of the game to make you look small, even in a room with a miniature train set is clever.
Visually, the game has a charming look to it, but it is a bit simplistic overall. The framerate is mostly consistent, but it did drop here and there, while the load times were short. The robot’s voice-actor does a decent job and there are some nice throwbacks to different eras of tech including an original PlayStation and a SNES to name a few.
The Verdict
While it doesn’t reinvent the puzzle platforming genre, Time Loader is an enjoyable experience with a decent story and an interesting premise. Definitely one to not let get lost in time.