Thank You Kodansha for providing us with a review code! In His Time is a little different than most of the other games that I have reviewed before. While I’m no stranger to reviewing games created by people of the Christian faith, this is the first time I am aware of that the developer Tearyhand studio is a Japanese-Christian development studio. Pretty interesting considering that less than 1% of the total Japanese population practices the religion. Olly is a young boy who is going through tough times. His dad passed away due to events before the plot, and his mother is constantly sick so he has to do the vast majority of chores both inside and outside the house. A trio of bullies who go by Bobby, Mila, and Hugo constantly tease him and force him to join them in their mischievous antics. The teacher of the school is also strict toward Olly specifically and his grades suffer among his peers. Life just doesn’t seem to be good for poor ol’ Olly. After getting roped into another antic of the trio, the four find themselves inside a mansion, where they all steal parts inside from a large machination. Turns out the owner of the mansion is the clockmaker Joseph, who has quite the reputation in town. Joseph manages to catch up to Olly and strikes a deal with the kid. If Olly is able to retrieve the stolen parts, none of the kids will be reported to the police for theft. Considering that Olly dislikes the kids and they dislike him in turn, this will be a task that is a lot harder to accomplish than it sounds. In His Time is a 2D puzzle adventure game where the player controls Olly (among other characters) and explores his town in a 2D side-scrolling method. You’ll have Olly interact with his world in basic tasks such as watering the plants and washing the dishes, to puzzles that resemble point-and-click adventure games, having you interact with the environment, and paying attention to your surroundings to solve the issues at hand. The player may even use items collected to interact with people or other objects. The interface seems to be very mobile-friendly, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see an iOS and Android port down the road.

A lot of these puzzles are pretty imaginative such as one puzzle that has gears represented by specific symbols. After finding out how to get these gears inside the machine, it asks you to turn the machination clockwise or counterclockwise, and you find out which way to turn these by referencing the symbols. Tearyhand studio recommends taking some notes on the side and I will admit I had to do it for at least three separate instances. But as long you pay attention, you shouldn’t struggle too long on any given puzzle. Not all puzzles are created equal, as the playing card puzzle did have me stumped the longest despite knowing the solutions due to its reliance on randomness. And every time you fail, you’re forced to watch the opposing character clear the board of cards in a rather lengthy animation. Paying attention to your surroundings is also one of the main themes of In His Time as Joseph shortly becomes a mentor figure to Olly. Joseph instills the act of forgiveness to Olly as there are some people you learn to forgive, even if they wronged you in the past. It also asks the player the question: despite Bobby, Mila, and Hugo being bullies, constantly getting into trouble, and committing acts that they shouldn’t, were these kids always like this? There’s always a reason why people act the way they do. Sometimes, there are valid excuses, and other times there are not. Even Joseph has his reasons. Why is Joseph focusing on Olly specifically? Tearyhand studio depicts the characters as jet-black stick figures with beady pure white eyes and three fingers representing claws. It reminds me of the time when the internet was young and a lot of animation shared during that time had the stick figure art style. Despite the extremely simple designs, the characters are given distinct clothing and colorful hair, making them memorable and stand out from each other. The way the characters move incorporates a bit of tweening animation, having me look at the setting as some sort of interactive papercraft or children’s book. The style and animations amuse me, especially the small animations that happen when items are acquired, given, or discarded. If an item is discarded, the dialogue box is tossed into the trash, while if an item is given to another, you’ll see one hand give the dialogue box to another hand. It’s so small, but you never appreciate something subtle like that until it actually happens. In His Time uses a lot of piano and string instruments for its soundtrack. The music incorporates dynamic elements in the puzzle sections as the instruments become louder and more intense the closer the player gets to solving the puzzle. While not every video game could or should use dynamic music, I feel it works in In His Time’s favor because of the anticipation of seeing what lies beyond or the secrets the characters hold inside. There are also loads of other sound effects used for hitting a ball, turning levers, and even when Olly is taking quizzes in class. The characters speak in gibberish, but I believe I may have heard traces of Italian in the voices. In fact, the setting might be inspired by Italy due to the focus on religion in such a close-knit town.

One of the main themes of In His Time is loss. Every main character has lost something. Olly lost his dad for one and has to pick up the burden of not only his dad’s early death but the aftershocks of such an event. Bobby, Mila, Hugo, and Joseph have all lost something as well and Olly comes to understand them all once he figures it out. While Mila, Hugo, and Joseph all get sections that focus on their loss and resulting guilt/trauma, Bobby strangely enough gets the least focus on his plight, despite him being the main perpetrator of the events in the story. When the narrative reaches Bobby, there are only 15 or so minutes left before the narrative ends and there are still other plot points that need to be wrapped up as well. I do like the way Bobby’s struggles were represented by a game of marbles between Olly and Bobby. In general, the ways the characters' struggles are represented visually are done exceptionally well. A family growing distance is represented by cracks in the house until eventually, the chandelier falls. An addiction is represented by a sense of flooding and drowning. Getting into the morals, there are things represented in In His Time such as stealing, breaking and entering, vandalism, cheating in games, and even other things such as alcoholism and gambling. There is some general mischief such as Hugo having cigarettes in a locked box and Bobby interfering with one of Olly’s quizzes. Of course, all of these are presented as negative traits within the story, and each of these aspects also wraps around the theme of loss and forgiveness. Tearyhand studio also uses this to represent sin in the narrative. Pride is represented by how Olly refuses to forgive the trio of bullies at first. Greed is represented by the casino section late in the game with its depictions of gambling and alcoholism ruining a family dynamic. Violence is kept to its minimum while existing in the narrative. The worst it gets is when Mila slaps Olly after he barges into her home demanding she return the stolen object. Language used is also fairly minimal. “crap” is said a few times while I did see “d*mn” used at least once. In His Time surprised me coming from an unlikely source. I would have never known the studio were Japanese developers if I hadn’t looked further into the development of the game. The puzzles are engaging and the narrative has plenty of important lessons to teach in a gentle approach. Understand the people in your life, figure out where they are coming from, and learn to forgive them (and yourself) for their flaws and moments of weakness. The delicate approach to loss and how to deal with it can also be an important lesson for children going through it. While it isn’t a long adventure, only taking me 5 hours to see it all through, I can recommend In His Time for people wanting to experience a story from a different perspective. It ended with a quote from Revelation 21:4 so I’ll end my review with it as well: “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”