Crushed In Time Review: Solid Comedy And Clever Tweaks Reinvent The Point-And-Click Adventure

The point-and-click adventure is a classic style of game that was a consistent presence in older generations. Franchises like Monkey Island highlighted the comedic potential of the heavily narrative-driven genre — but over time, this style of game fell out of favor while other adventure game subgenres took prominence. While there’s still a place for this type of game, it’s rarer than ever to see one that really breaks out in a big way.

That’s what makes Crushed in Time such a pleasant surprise. The latest game from developers Draw Me A Pixel is a wacky time-bending take on a Sherlock Holmes mystery that starts weird and gets sillier with each puzzle. Especially for fans of the genre or lovers of a good comedic game, Crushed in Time is a delight.

Review Score: 4/5

Crushed In Time Is A Goofy Sherlock Riff For Monkey Island Fans

Taking a plot that feels like the happy medium between Paper Mario and Rick and Morty, Draw Me A Pixel’s new game, after There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension, gives their silly version of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson their own adventure. Stepping into their shoes, players find that most of the world is interactable, with the plot largely moving forward only when players can find the right way to advance the story or uncover a mystery. Unlike other, more dramatic mystery games, the puzzles of Crushed in Time are wacky, strange, and meta.

The game focuses on the inept versions of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, who embark on a new mystery that begins to mess with the existence around them. Soon enough, the pair — along with new allies like Emma Files and the scarecrow Emmet Placeholder — are flung across time and space in a comedic adventure for the ages. It all plays into a goofy sense of humor and snarky writing that fits in perfectly with the vibrant color palette and appealing art design.

While some of the puzzles can be a bit obtuse as a result of the comedic focus, the game has enough of a sense of humor to make the goofiness land — and the tip system ensures that players can keep the momentum going even when stuck. As a point-and-click adventure, Crushed in Time feels indebted to earlier generations of the classic genre while still having a modern sense of humor. That includes a deliberate layer of meta comedy that actually finds some emotional depth to the usually ridiculous comedy of that subgenre.

Crushed In Time Proves There’s Still Room For Point-And-Click Adventures

What really separates Crushed in Time from the rest of the pack is the way it approaches puzzle design and game mechanics with a truly unique perspective. While the underlying gameplay retains a lot of the key elements of the point-and-click adventure game, Crushed in Time really does a lot of work reinventing the wheel when it comes to moment-to-moment gameplay.

The challenges are tweaked in creative ways, with plenty of the basic point-and-click puzzles that always defined games like Monkey Island alongside some different challenges serving as word jumbles, activating projectiles, or figuring out rhythm-based challenges. The game even breaks up those point-and-click beats with little minigames and challenges that keep the player guessing.

The actual point-and-click mechanic also gets a goofy element with its ability to propel stuff if it’s been pulled in the right direction, causing characters to be hit by parts of the environment or loosening locks. It’s an inventive approach to the genre that only gets more creative over time, with different puzzle types keeping players on their toes at every corner. The fact that the puzzles do a great job of reflecting the strange world and the goofy storytelling speaks to an impressive handle on the genre.

Why Even Point-And-Click Doubters Should Try Crushed In Time

As with many of the games in that mold, the character work, comedy writing, and world-building are crucial to the effectiveness of the game. Luckily, the team at Draw Me At A Pixel delivers a charming and colorful game that is funny from the first scene on and never lets up in terms of the jokes or creativity. The art design, voice acting, and overall tenor of the game are a delight, taking what worked in previous titles and making it feel perfectly modern.

While the overall game isn’t the longest in the world — a full playthrough only takes a couple of hours — the surprisingly emotional ending will leave you wanting more. While gamers who find point-and-click games may balk at some of the more traditional aspects of the underlying mechanics, there’s enough fresh blood in the game to keep players engaged. Constantly inventive and consistently hilarious, Crushed in Time may rely heavily on the core gameplay mechanics of the familiar point-and-click genre, but it does enough with the classical mechanics to stand out even from the rest of the games made by Draw Me A Pixel.

A Steam code for Crushed in Time was provided to ComicBook.com for the purposes of this review.