400 Years

400 Years is a puzzle/platformer flashgame by "Scriptwelder" with music by Kevin MacLead.

I'd seen this game recommended by Vsauce3 on YouTube and was also on the main page of Kongregate when I visited the site today.

I must implore you to go and play this game for yourself because its hard to do it justice in words. The pixel art is very well done creating subtle detail and yet being simply beautiful. The music is very relaxing, I finished the game a good half hour ago and I have left it running in the background to listen to it! Even though the game can be finished in about 10 minutes, there is a story which is simple and yet captivating.


The controls are simple, moving left and right with arrow keys, climbing up and down with arrow keys, waiting with the space bar and everything else is left to the E key. The most impressive thing about this game is that the designer made it by himself in a month! All the art work and coding and fixes in less than a month - I will leave a link to the developers blog and everything else mentioned at the bottom.

*Possible spoilers bellow*

The game places you in control of a character which was inspired by an Easter Island Moai figure. The character feels some sort of calamity coming in the future and it is your task to find and stop this from happening - in no more than 100 years. The key mechanic to this game is waiting - so maybe not something for impatient people. Each cycle of waiting advances the game forward a season which allows progression at different stages - for example crossing a body of water in the winter. The games time frame is realistic in context to the time waited, like the growing of wheat taking a year or the development of a settlement occurring over decades.

I would advise this game to anyone who has a spare 10 minutes and a computer. Its beautifully put together to make a nothing but pleasurable experience. I managed to finish in under 200 years - let me know how you get on in a comment.

Thanks for reading!

Links
Developer: www.scriptwelder.com
Game Music: www.incompetech.com
Vsauce3: www.youtube.com/vsauce3
Kongregate: www.kongregate.com
My Kongregate: www.kongregate.com/accounts/Maticus