In Stars and Time (2023)

I love RPGmaker games. So I was very excited when I found out about In Stars and Time, or, more accurately, its prequel START OVER, through a random lil tumblr post. You don't have to play it to understand what's going on though, it's more like extra narrative.

This game is a labour of love and it shows! The space it takes place in is relatively small (a town + 3 floors of house) but the care and dedication to sprinkling new tidbits each time you play through a time loop is mindblowing. Unfortunately for Siffrin, it's new tidbits of going insane over the repetition.

You can REALLY feel them spiralling, torn between their love for their friends and playing their part perfectly to ensure the best outcome, the guilt for being so removed from the situation and feeling like he's manipulating them, and the exasperation of just wanting to be done with it.

It all wraps up spectacularly too! The last 2 acts left me unblinking for fear of missing out on even a second of it.

Overall please give it a try if you're a fan of meta-narratives, found family stories and tragedy (with a happy ending!). Everything and their mother gets compared to either Undertale or Dark Souls, but this really feels like Undertale in spirit in the sense that you're bending over backwards twice in a double mobius pretzel so that EVERYONE is happy, and after you're done playing you feel like the biggest piece of garbage for even considering opening the game again because they are happy, finally happy, let them rest, they've escaped the menu screen because they've finally escaped this loop and they're travelling with their friends! Great game, I cried, 10/10