A Bottle from the Future

You chance upon a bottle, one which carries an important message about a city which destroyed itself.

A Bottle from the Future is a game with an environmental message. You have plenty of choices, from ignoring warnings given to trying to pursue them, which in fact reflects the decisions we can make in real life with regards to the coming environmental crisis. There is a good amount of branching, and also a quiz, a puzzle which I brute forced, a link to a carbon footprint calculator and so on. Ultimately, it carries some important messages about learning from the past and deciding between action and inaction.

That said, I’m taking off a star due to the game’s presentation style. Some of the text is overlaid against a colorful picture, which looks pretty from a distance but make the text really painful to read. At some parts, boxes are put behind the text to improve readability, but some of the selections for color contrast really hurt my eyes. I appreciate the design work, and I personally understand (from making my own crappy art) how hard it is to balance colors with readability at times. Still, I think even taking away that massive picture and using something more low key for a background would have been better.

There is a fair bit of replayability with different options and branching. The game also does a good job of conveying its message. Still, some parts can be pretty tough on the eyes.