ibb & obb - 20/20 hours

What?! Ten hours in two days! How is that possible, when the game was virtually unplayable?

Well. . . it's not.

I've actually only got two hours in two days. But I couldn't take it any more. The thing where I have to move two different characters in two distinct ways simultaneously while also avoiding enemies and dealing with reversed gravity just wore me down.

But then, some time into my 11th hour, I noticed something - my total time played was at more than 19 hours. I was less than a half-hour away from my goal . . . if I could somehow count the 8 hours I'd previously played with my friend, back in January.

But why couldn't I? My vow was to play every game on my list for 20 hours, and I had done that. Granted, I have, for four years now, set a precedent where I did not count any time played before my "initial thoughts" post and while that was never a formal rule, it would still be a shame to break it with only one game to go, but . . .

I really don't want to play this game any more. I'm confident I could limp across the finish line in a few more days. Just wait until my next day off and power through the remaining 6-7 hours, staring horrified at the pause screen between pointless deaths, screaming internally at the farce my life had become. But, those previous eight hours (and the bulk of my most recent 12) I played with sincerity. I wasn't trying to pad my time with dubious experiments in alternate modes of play. I was just enjoying seeing those cute little blobs bounce around the screen, navigating obstacles and jumping to places they had no earthly business getting into.

And if I can construct my 20 hours out of time spent enjoying myself in honest good spirits and an untroubled heart, then why should I bother with a gimmick? I mean, it's not as if I'm cutting myself off from experiencing the game - my friend and I already beat it. And all told it had less time-stretching shenanigans than, say, Golden Axe or Sakura Spirit.

So if I had technically completed the challenge by the letter of my goal, and I also played the game to its utmost in the spirit of my goal, do I really need to bother following my unspoken rule and ensuring that all 20 hours were in one chunk, starting with my first post about the game?

Of course, that's a rhetorical question. I'm really trying to convince myself here. And I think I succeeded. If there's a lesson to be distilled from playing these 200+ games for more than 4000 hours, it's that arbitrary rules and deadlines that confine games to a particular bloc of time, regardless of the intent of the creators or the actual merit of the experience, are a bad idea.

It forced me to play Star Wars: Dark Forces II twice and to waste time on any number of games long after I realized they weren't for me. And, of course, there were all those games I would have liked to play for more than 20 hours that I abandoned prematurely in my race to complete the blog. If I'd been thinking clearly, I would have chosen a more sensible and flexible goal from the start, but what can I say, the concrete and objective nature of my criteria appealed to me.

I suppose I should wrap this post up by bringing it back to ibb & obb. What is there left to say about this game? If you get the opportunity to play it with a friend, do so. It's delightful. If you're thinking of taking it on solo, don't. It's not meant for that and you will feel it every second you persist in such defiance. If my friend is interested, I'd be open to playing it again, though in the short term I see no reason to make it a priority.