If Groundhog Day took place in a dystopian future, it would be like Three Minutes To Eight.
THE GAME
Three Minutes To Eight is a point and click puzzle game developed by Chaosmonger Studio and distributed by Assemble Entertainment. In the distant future, we follow the story of the nameless protagonist, who wakes up unconscious in his apartment while his intercom rings incessantly. While trying to understand what is happening, at 7:57 pm on the clock, he dies. However, he is soon back in his apartment, as if nothing had happened. And, at 7:57 pm, again, he dies. And the cycle continues, always dying at the same time and in different ways. Thus, our protagonist has a short time to explore everything and find out what is happening.
MY IMPRESSIONS
The premise of the game is simple. You have a short period of time to explore the map and discover some ways to reach one of the proposed endings. I would have liked the idea if it wasn't so random. Many endings have no connection with each other, some being completely meaningless. I couldn't feel empathy with the protagonist, much less care about whatever purpose he had, because it's all so random. If it were a more on-center story that had ramifications as it progressed, it would be great. The game is in Portuguese-Brazil, which is very helpful in understanding what to do or where to go.
Another thing that really bothered me was the amount of useless and/or repetitive elements. You have a button that shows you literally everything you can interact with in the scenario, but half of them (maybe even more) are completely disposable, don't give you relevant information or even tell you any story. Furthermore, there are events that always happen, regardless of what you do, that slow you down and start to get annoying after a certain time, like, for example, when you enter your apartment and your girlfriend appears. An animation occurs, a dialogue, a selection of responses opens, she responds and another animation happens. Yes, there are endings that need this event, but when they don't, it's a pain. You just want to keep going, but you're stopped by this moment.
I feel like the game tries to be more ambitious than it manages to execute. Although the game's art is beautiful and the voice acting helps to ambience and bring the characters to life, this randomness makes everything in vain. Some characters may or may not appear in each loop, which is a very annoying way to keep the player in the game. It had the potential to be something very unique, but it lost its ambition.
ACHIEVEMENTS
Basically, by completing all possible endings, you will get an achievement related to them. Additionally, there are achievements about how many time loops you've had, but you'll normally get this achievement by trying to discover all the endings. There's not much of a secret here, 100% comes easily if you finish the game in every way possible.
CONCLUSION
Unfortunately, the game lost me in many ways. As I said, it should be more contained so that you have some attachment to some aspect of the game, be it the story or the characters. I felt that Three Minutes To Eight tried to be a 2D The Stanley Parable, with endings outside the box, with moral and even comical dilemmas. And when you've played this classic, hardly anyone comes close to doing it so well. Because Three Minutes To Eight doesn't have a fixed story and a real ending, it seems all about a multiverse, since many endings don't talk to each other and even contradict each other at times.
I wish I had liked the game more, but, for me, it is very inconsistent and stuck, both in gameplay and in story. If the game creator's idea was that, that's fine, but I didn't like it. Even though you can take items from one loop to another, avoiding redoing several processes, many dialogues are repetitive and tiring. The general idea has a lot of potential, but it wasn't executed well. If it's better polished, it might be more interesting. Even so, I know that the game's creator tried hard, so I value his work, even if I didn't like it in some aspects.
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