For a game titled after this very mechanic, it’s interesting how minor the fact that you can (theoretically) only play through OneShot the one time before it’s contents become permanently inaccessible feels, in the grand scheme of the entire experience. Perhaps it’s a leftover from its initial freeware release where merely closing the game would mean you’d (theoretically) never be able to play it again, but the two other games I know that share this idea often have it as the forefront mechanic, and one that goes line in line with the themes the game is trying to convey. While Awkwardsilencegame’s One Chance uses this core idea as a way to paint choice as irreversible and death as final, while Marcus Richert’s You Only Live Once mostly wants to poke fun and look at what would happen if platform game mechanics were applied to the real world, OneShot’s rendition of this mechanic… doesn’t even feel primary compared to the many different things it’s trying to do, and thematically… feels far more subtle about what it’s going for than other games of its ilk.
It’s… a bit difficult to talk about this game without delving into spoiler territory, but I’ll try my best. You play Niko, a cat creature who wakes up in a world far, far away from where they came from. They soon come to learn that the world they’re in has long past ended, and that they’re the only one who can hope to bring it back — sending Niko on a journey from the outer edge to the centre of the world, carrying the sun itself with them to try and fix what once was broken. Gameplay… feels typical for an RPGMaker adventure game: explore areas, solve puzzles, interact with a cast of quirky characters, but from the start it’s apparent that you’re dealing with something much more than what’s been placed in front of you, and the realms of narrative and ludonarrative aren’t so much layered but one and the same.
And it’s this level of ludonarrative — and how the game makes the player interact with the fourth wall — that provides this game with its defining strength. A lot of the stuff this game manages to pull off is unreal — especially for what’s ostensibly an RPGMaker game — and it’s super neat how these elements interact with the gameplay just as much as it does the story. Puzzles make you interact with things outside the game window just as much as within it, and there’s a real thrill to figuring out just what precisely the game is expecting you to do. It never feels gimmicky or unjustified by the narrative, either: near every time it happens it’s congruent with what’s going on in the story, and there’s a thematic throughline throughout which… I think seeks to examine the relationship between player and player character, and questioning where exactly the line between the two lies. It’s low-key, but it’s an interesting thing to think about, and even if I probably would’ve been into the meta elements regardless of how they intertwined with what was going on — mostly given how impressive it is that the game can do what it does — but having that extra layer where it almost parallels the diegetic narrative really does turn what… could’ve ended up being just a gimmick into a legitimate and strong part of the experience.
But the meta elements wouldn’t be as effective, I feel, if the writing and diegetic narrative weren’t. Luckily, they are! I’m especially fond of the character writing, and how that works in conjunction with what… honestly feels like a road trip plot in ways. Your quest is to head to the tower in the centre of the world, exploring and puzzling through each of the 3-5 major areas (depending on how you count them), and each one is filled with a bevy of fun, distinct characters that you get to interact with. You never see them again once you move on to the next area (with some exceptions), and there are generally no storylines or major arcs attached to them, but this works in the game’s favour: having people you meet, have fun with, get a little attached to, then never see again works well with this type of story and… actually kind of fits in with how you can only play the game once: you’re never going to be able to see these people again after leaving them behind just like how you (theoretically) can’t play the game again once you complete it. It’s neat, and once again even beyond anything thematic the writing works in its own right: it’s fun and the characters are distinct and likable and it does a lot to sell all the other elements of the game.
(As a sidenote to the above: I also really love Niko! There’s not much to exposit beyond how they’re super cute and how they’re really good at interfacing with the more complex elements of the plot and its themes but I think they’re one of the strongest parts of the game’s writing and I think it would be a mistake to not mention them in this review, so, like, yeah. Niko great.)
If there’s a thing I do have an issue with, it’s mostly the map design and how that interfaces with the non-meta puzzles. Unlike games of OneShot’s ilk like Ib or The Witch’s House, which typically keep to small rooms and areas — and where everything you need to get to the next room or area is right in the room you’re in — OneShot’s map is expansive, boasting large areas with landmarks far apart which you kind of need the fast-travel function if you wanna get from one end of the map to the other anytime soon. It’s a worthy experiment, and an interesting point of comparison, but in practice I feel it mostly proves why these sorts of games tend to keep things small. Areas are large enough that it’s easy to miss what you’re meant to find, and there are enough things and items to interact with located far apart that oftentimes it can be unclear what you can and are supposed to do. Maybe the problem is potentially me just being bad at adventure game puzzles but even then, I often felt like I had more of a clue on what I was doing whenever the puzzles were localized to a single room or left the game window. While it is cool, again, to see a more open world in an RPGMaker game, and while it’s cool to see conventions of genres played with or experimented on, the world exploration itself and how it futzes with the puzzle-solving aspect was one idea, in particular, I think didn’t really work in the game’s favour.
Though aside from that, I had a fun time! Again, it’s difficult to go into specific detail about what exact cool things this game does, but if you’re willing to take the game at its word you get something that… between the way its meta elements (which are super creative and fun even on their own) interface with a well written, fun diegetic narrative, you’re going to get something that sticks with you, even after everything’s done and gone. 8/10.
It’s… a bit difficult to talk about this game without delving into spoiler territory, but I’ll try my best. You play Niko, a cat creature who wakes up in a world far, far away from where they came from. They soon come to learn that the world they’re in has long past ended, and that they’re the only one who can hope to bring it back — sending Niko on a journey from the outer edge to the centre of the world, carrying the sun itself with them to try and fix what once was broken. Gameplay… feels typical for an RPGMaker adventure game: explore areas, solve puzzles, interact with a cast of quirky characters, but from the start it’s apparent that you’re dealing with something much more than what’s been placed in front of you, and the realms of narrative and ludonarrative aren’t so much layered but one and the same.
And it’s this level of ludonarrative — and how the game makes the player interact with the fourth wall — that provides this game with its defining strength. A lot of the stuff this game manages to pull off is unreal — especially for what’s ostensibly an RPGMaker game — and it’s super neat how these elements interact with the gameplay just as much as it does the story. Puzzles make you interact with things outside the game window just as much as within it, and there’s a real thrill to figuring out just what precisely the game is expecting you to do. It never feels gimmicky or unjustified by the narrative, either: near every time it happens it’s congruent with what’s going on in the story, and there’s a thematic throughline throughout which… I think seeks to examine the relationship between player and player character, and questioning where exactly the line between the two lies. It’s low-key, but it’s an interesting thing to think about, and even if I probably would’ve been into the meta elements regardless of how they intertwined with what was going on — mostly given how impressive it is that the game can do what it does — but having that extra layer where it almost parallels the diegetic narrative really does turn what… could’ve ended up being just a gimmick into a legitimate and strong part of the experience.
But the meta elements wouldn’t be as effective, I feel, if the writing and diegetic narrative weren’t. Luckily, they are! I’m especially fond of the character writing, and how that works in conjunction with what… honestly feels like a road trip plot in ways. Your quest is to head to the tower in the centre of the world, exploring and puzzling through each of the 3-5 major areas (depending on how you count them), and each one is filled with a bevy of fun, distinct characters that you get to interact with. You never see them again once you move on to the next area (with some exceptions), and there are generally no storylines or major arcs attached to them, but this works in the game’s favour: having people you meet, have fun with, get a little attached to, then never see again works well with this type of story and… actually kind of fits in with how you can only play the game once: you’re never going to be able to see these people again after leaving them behind just like how you (theoretically) can’t play the game again once you complete it. It’s neat, and once again even beyond anything thematic the writing works in its own right: it’s fun and the characters are distinct and likable and it does a lot to sell all the other elements of the game.
(As a sidenote to the above: I also really love Niko! There’s not much to exposit beyond how they’re super cute and how they’re really good at interfacing with the more complex elements of the plot and its themes but I think they’re one of the strongest parts of the game’s writing and I think it would be a mistake to not mention them in this review, so, like, yeah. Niko great.)
If there’s a thing I do have an issue with, it’s mostly the map design and how that interfaces with the non-meta puzzles. Unlike games of OneShot’s ilk like Ib or The Witch’s House, which typically keep to small rooms and areas — and where everything you need to get to the next room or area is right in the room you’re in — OneShot’s map is expansive, boasting large areas with landmarks far apart which you kind of need the fast-travel function if you wanna get from one end of the map to the other anytime soon. It’s a worthy experiment, and an interesting point of comparison, but in practice I feel it mostly proves why these sorts of games tend to keep things small. Areas are large enough that it’s easy to miss what you’re meant to find, and there are enough things and items to interact with located far apart that oftentimes it can be unclear what you can and are supposed to do. Maybe the problem is potentially me just being bad at adventure game puzzles but even then, I often felt like I had more of a clue on what I was doing whenever the puzzles were localized to a single room or left the game window. While it is cool, again, to see a more open world in an RPGMaker game, and while it’s cool to see conventions of genres played with or experimented on, the world exploration itself and how it futzes with the puzzle-solving aspect was one idea, in particular, I think didn’t really work in the game’s favour.
Though aside from that, I had a fun time! Again, it’s difficult to go into specific detail about what exact cool things this game does, but if you’re willing to take the game at its word you get something that… between the way its meta elements (which are super creative and fun even on their own) interface with a well written, fun diegetic narrative, you’re going to get something that sticks with you, even after everything’s done and gone. 8/10.