Time To Wake Up : close your eyes to better face your memories

The mechanics of the blinking is clearly the central idea of Time To Wake Up.

A pressure is enough to switch between two versions of the same memory. A platform appears, an obstacle disappears, a room changes completely from orientation or an element of the decor suddenly becomes accessible.

At first, the principle works very well. Some puzzles even ask to change from reality in the middle of a jump, which brings a bit of rhythm to an essentially narrative experience.

The problem comes mainly from repetition. Several passages exploit the same principle for a little too long and some sequences end up losing their impact.

The idea is excellent. Its exploitation would simply have deserved more variety.

Time To Wake Up has a real visual personality.

School memories are transformed into impossible, sometimes colourful, sometimes deeply disturbing spaces. Libraries, toilets, corridors and playgrounds are gradually becoming distorted representations of the past of Alan.

The game never seeks realism. It prefers to build an almost dreamlike atmosphere, with simple forms and sometimes very strange compositions.

This artistic direction also allows the game to remain visually consistent despite obviously more modest means than a large production.

Audio plays an important role in the atmosphere.

The atmospheres are discreet, the environmental sounds well accompany the changes of scenery and the music knows how to stay back enough to let the heavier passages breathe.

The dubbing is more divisive.

The voice that accompanies Alan is voluntarily very present and some players will appreciate her character. Others will soon find her too insistent, especially when she regularly comments on actions or mistakes.

This is where Time To Wake Up works best.

Alan is trapped in a cycle of obsession, loneliness and painful memories. The journey through her childhood allows us to gradually understand how some injuries have shaped her adult life.

The game deals with school harassment, isolation, addiction and the difficulty of giving up certain things that you hang on to to survive.

Not everything is treated with the same finesse and some themes would have deserved further development.

But despite its short duration, the adventure has enough personality to continue working the player after the credits.

Time To Wake Up is a short experience.

It takes about two to three hours to complete the story, depending on the time spent on puzzles and exploration.

The format works rather well for this type of game. The experience never seeks to artificially extend its content and goes directly to the essential.

Technically, the set also seems quite clean, without major problems widely reported in the tests consulted.

The life span is necessarily limited and the replayability is low, but this is clearly not the kind of adventure that seeks to occupy several tens of hours.