Out by Midnight

I always look forward to Arthur DiBianca's games, which tend to be tightly organized around a single concept and to be minimalistic in verb usage and text.

This one was a timed optimization puzzle (turn-based time, not IRL timed), where you wander around looking for 10 objects in a map. Most objects have duplicates. Each room has 0-2 interactable objects or doors that take a fixed amount of time to open. There are shortcut items as well including scissors, wd-40, paint remover, etc.

So it becomes a challenge to find all 10 minutes before the end of the day.

I get 5 easily, and started mapping it out, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of reward for it. There's not much story or surprise. I did like the ambient messages. If this were a first-time author's game, I'd say it was amazingly well-implemented and interesting. I guess that Arthur DiBianca just has so many good games that, compared to his others, I'd probably place it 10th to 12th. (just looking over his past list to verify this, there are so many fun ones on there like Skies Above or Variety Box). Out of parser games I've played this competition though, I'd say it's definitely above average.