A Hat in Time
FROM CROWDFUNDING TO CROWD PLEASING. US$30 | PC; PS4 and XO coming soon | hatintime.com
DIMINUTIVE SPACEFARER HAT Kid was on her way home, her cushy wood-paneled and pillow-filled spacecraft stocked with fuel. It was all going so well — until a burly Mafioso came floating through the void and tapped on the window to demand local taxes. One heated altercation later and all the fuel falls to the strange world below, along with Hat Kid herself, and only a lot of running, jumping and collecting of shiny objects can save the day.
Fortunately, Hat Kid is more than capable of rising to the challenge, and her game offers the smooth, responsive platforming controls to enable it. Her ultimate goal is to recover the 40 Time Pieces that power her ship, scattered across the surface of a strange, cartoony Earth. A Hat in Time kicks off on Mafia Island, the first of four environments that serves as a tutorial. It’s a playful and creative place, indicative of the game as a whole.
After completing certain chapters or collecting enough yarn, you’ll unlock a new hat, each bestowing a power on Hat Kid such as a ground-pound attack that lets you travel via marked springboards, or the ability to turn hazy green outlines into briefly tangible footholds. There are a lot of abilities and platforming skills to learn, from a flexible wall-climbing scramble that can be chained into a wall jump, to a traditional doublejump that can be extended in mid-air with a horizontal dive.
Each world has a different aesthetic, scale and characters. The fourth world, Apline Skyline, is a massive non-linear web of interconnected platforming challenges demanding mastery of every ability. It feels like the game is gaining confidence in you. A fair number of Time Pieces also reside in hidden levels, the majority of which are abstract platforming spaces. These hidden levels are not only beautiful to look at, but some of the purest platforming challenges in the game.
A Hat in Time never loses focus. Where other platformers give in to temptation and use minigames or expendable single-use mechanics, this game remains true to itself and draws strength from that conviction.
It does lack consistency in other ways, though. The first world establishes a conflict and a primary antagonist which is almost entirely forgotten right up until the grand finale, for instance. And while as much a strength as a weakness, the worlds are disconnected, with each feeling almost like a different game built around the same mechanical hooks. And the camera, while usually well-behaved, can get squirrelly in tight corners.
These are only minor gripes. When it’s firing on all cylinders, it’s a rival to some of Nintendo and Double-Fine’s greatest bits of design.