It’s a little odd to come back to Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet. I actually tried the game seven or eight years ago, but stopped with 52 minutes played. Did I give the game a fair chance back then?
I can’t remember, but restarting the game didn’t do me any favors.
ITSP is a very minimalist game, with an obscure story told without dialogue in a metroidvania-style map. The player controls a tiny alien ship and looks for upgrades while fighting the corruption… or something. It’s a bit hard to say. In any case, movement is fluid and quick and the upgrades are quick to swap between or solve puzzles with. I found myself flying through the game with ease, wondering why more people don’t speedrun the title.
I hit my first snarl after a short time playing. The game is so minimalist that it doesn’t explain its mechanics. I had glowing rocks, flame spouts, swarms of nano-shadows, a giant drill, and some shadow-attracking evil mushrooms. The nano-shadows were attracted to the drill once it worked its magic and started glowing, or to my rocks if I held them near a spout for long. Otherwise they would stay at the mushrooms.
That’s all that was given to me. Was I supposed to destroy the drill? Power it? Use it? And in any of the above cases, how? At least the map told me this was where I needed to be, but I had no idea what I was to do. I’m sure a similar block stopped me back when I first played the game. With such minimal, simple gameplay, I don’t feel a strong desire to push through this block or look up online how to continue.
Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet may be a good game, many people have enjoyed it, but it’s not drawing me in enough to finish it. I’ve played over an hour.
Verdict: 90 minutes played.
Kyle Adams 