Reviews by Will
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Challenging, tight design, October 27, 2021All Things Devours has been on my radar for a couple years, but only recently have I gotten around to actually take a serious crack at it. And what serious crack it is.
The narrative consists of a very light premise, more for setting the scene than to add substance to the gameplay, which consists wholly of a singular, large puzzle involving managing time loops without triggering inconsistency paradoxes. There are relatively few elements in the work - you won't get lost in the world or struggle to keep track of inventory any time soon - but what is there is all very cleverly constructed to plant subtle obstacles for you to overcome, many of which you might not realize to be problematic until having experimented with the time loops yourself.
The experience is one of iterative, layered discovery - formulate a theory with what you know, implement it, fail, work out just what it is that you've overlooked, have a eureka moment, then go on right ahead with another theory. It's a simple loop but very engaging, largely aided by the game's clean design (basic commands, time system, clear feedback on failure) and short length. Which is great, because you'd likely end up needing a spreadsheet to keep track of the order and timing of events.
The normal game is rather forgiving when it comes down to it, with lots of room to play around and several viable solution paths. It took me a short couple of hours to figure out, and I ended up over-optimizing in a couple places when I didn't need to. The final solution was enjoyable to craft, but felt a little unrestrained and empty given the potential of the premise, and I found I had several theories that ended up going unused. This was going to be a high three or low four in rating for me due to that - until I discovered that there was a challenge mode. And challenge me it did.
The challenge mode provides three simple but significant changes to the structure of the setup. My efficient solution from earlier now looked utterly silly! Nothing fits where it should, and I had to abandon several previous assumptions just to move forward at all. What followed was several lovely a-ha moments one after the other, as I discovered techniques I haven't envisioned before to structure my moves in a way that made the impossible possible. My unused theories from earlier also came into play, much to my delight. Even with all this, I repeatedly failed at the final steps - it must've been four or five times that I confidently entered a solution I thought must work, only to have it blow up in my face near the end! It took a couple more hours of meticulous optimizing, leaving no move unscoured, making small adjustments each run-through, were I finally able to achieve success. The catharsis it offered was incredible.
In short, All Things Devours is a clever, efficient, and challenging puzzle package. It isn't likely to leave you hopelessly stuck, but will definitely offer you a couple hours of dedicated puzzling fun. And I highly recommend that you not skip the challenge version. In my humble opinion, that is the true version of the game, and it's where its self contained premise really shines.
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