External Links

Have you played this game?

You can rate this game, record that you've played it, or put it on your wish list after you log in.

Playlists and Wishlists

RSS Feeds

New member reviews
Updates to external links
All updates to this page

The Binary

by Bloomengine

Episode 2 of Vicious Cycles
Science Fiction
2011

(based on 18 ratings)
4 reviews

About the Story

The Timeline must be sanctified. Relive the same few minutes over and over again, attempting to stop a bullet from changing history.


Game Details


Awards

11th Place - 17th Annual Interactive Fiction Competition (2011)

Tags

- View the most common tags (What's a tag?)

(Log in to add your own tags)
Tags you added are shown below with checkmarks. To remove one of your tags, simply un-check it.

Enter new tags here (use commas to separate tags):

Member Reviews

5 star:
(1)
4 star:
(6)
3 star:
(6)
2 star:
(5)
1 star:
(0)
Average Rating:
Number of Reviews: 4
Write a review


Most Helpful Member Reviews


4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
A Little Sketchy, But A Solid Idea, December 7, 2011
by Joey Jones (UK)
Related reviews: IF Comp 2011, short game, hypertext

The basic concept of The Binary is that you replay the same few minutes over and over until you get the right change in the time-line. You use things you learned from earlier play-throughs to proceed. Because the pace is moving so quickly, you barely have time to take stock of your surroundings before the time loops back again. But that's okay, because the time is always going to loop back again. This works well because when you want to get things done, there's a great sense of urgency and economy of action. When you don't need to get things done, you can look at things free in the knowledge that you can look at other things in the next go around.

Despite the non-linear timeline aspect of it, the plot itself is pretty linear, though there is one real and difficult choice to make near the end (I only played to completion once so I don't know if the other ending proves fatal). Like all of these non-parser games, figuring out what to do next is easy because you just exhaust all of your remaining limited options. The Binary had the additional time element (some actions would only work at certain times etc.) but even still I wouldn't have needed any hints or a walkthrough. Not to say that the game was a walk in the park: I'd say the challenge was on the lower end of well pitched.

The substance of the plot (working for a strange group of time travellers on an island with a man in your head interspersed with memories of your father and a dash of mysticism) was a little hit and miss. I liked the dual-narrative aspect of it, but the nature of the time travelling group and their motives seemed a little wooly. I suppose there is only so much I can ask for in a game this short.

Though not as smooth as The Play, The Binary works very well visually, refreshing what you can see each round. Ultimately, hyper-link games are limited in comparison to parser-based IF and so it's hard to compare. Compared to earlier hyper-text games, it's pretty swish.

Was this review helpful to you?   Yes   No   Remove vote  
More Options

 | Add a comment 

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
Good time-bending hypertext idea, but with a few sticky elements., February 6, 2013
by Wade Clarke (Sydney, Australia)
Related reviews: browser-based

The Binary is a browser based text'n'click game involving looping time travel. To describe it as a CYOA doesn't feel right, as the game keeps track of what you've done and also allows you to revisit locations, though the circumstances of the revisitings are unusual. In common with Operation Extraction, also from IFComp 2011, the timing of your actions is important in this timey game. I found the whole thing somewhat baffling to begin with, with a barrier to play in the form of potential initial uninterest. I think I'd rather The Binary had just told me what my goal was instead of making me work it out myself. Constant forward movement, albeit in a loop, can be mildly aggravating when you don't know what's going on yet and have no hook of intentionality to arouse your interest.

Once you do know what the story is about, it turns out to be as exciting as other stories of its kind often are - that kind being (Spoiler - click to show)stories about people trying to stop an assassination by locating snipers at the last minute. In the role of one of the guys I'm going to call Time Cops, you loop through the same few moments repeatedly, trying to string together the circumstances to bring about change. This scenario also brings about an eagerness to quickly return to the spot where you think you might next be able to best change things up, which is why the cutaway scenes which occur every time the repeating sequence ends are a distraction. They open a window onto a broader mythology, but not one that's too useful for the workings of this small game space. Once you've done some things over and over, it's frustrating to have to pass through the cutscene again, or just to have to wait before you're able to access certain links anew.

Ultimately The Binary is clever and becomes fun, and it's a smoother ride than its cousin (of sorts) Operation Extraction, but it could stand to be sharper.

Was this review helpful to you?   Yes   No   Remove vote  
More Options

 | View comments (1) - Add comment 

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
An early Javascript game about a time loop, April 18, 2016

In this game built using the javascript-fueled Bloom engine, you play as a time traveller trying to stop an assassination using knowledge from several loops.

Like Axolotl Project or Hallowmoor, this is an exploration and inventory based game driven by links.

I found the engine to be polished on both mobile and PC, and the writing to be descriptive. But I felt distant from the narrator and overall, vaguely unsatisfied.

Recommended for time travel fans.

Was this review helpful to you?   Yes   No   Remove vote  
More Options

 | Add a comment 

See All 4 Member Reviews

If you enjoyed The Binary...

Related Games

Other members recommend this game for people who like The Binary:

Vicious Cycles, by Simon Mark
Average member rating: (16 ratings)

Suggest a game

Recommended Lists

The Binary appears in the following Recommended Lists:

Time travel games by MathBrush
These are games where the main puzzles are centered on time travel. I'm splitting this off from my science fiction list. Many games include one or two time travel puzzles, such as Spellbreaker or Curses!. But this list is for games whose...

Polls

The following polls include votes for The Binary:

Games centered around a "groundhog day" loop by Merk
Two that come to mind, which I haven't played in years and may be remembering wrong, are Moebius and All Things Devours. Games with fail states, by their nature, fit the bill from a mechanical level, but I'm curious about games where...

Games about Time Travel by Estrong157
more specifically, games with time travel as a gameplay element.




This is version 6 of this page, edited by Tabitha / alyshkalia on 27 August 2023 at 1:06am. - View Update History - Edit This Page - Add a News Item - Delete This Page