On paper, A Hat in Time  would elicit an eye roll and a sigh from the wearier among us. I shudder at the idea of another cutesy indie platforming collectathon funded by Kickstarter and powered by the Unity Engine. Images of outraged Steam comments and shrugging developers flood into my mind’s eye. But take heart dear reader, because ‘AHIT‘  is quite literally, a hit (haha!), at least in my book.

A Hat in Time – Features

• A little girl and her spaceship  –  In A Hat in Time you play as a tiny space-traveling girl with a big top hat. Her adventure is halted when all her fuel, the Time Pieces, is lost and scattered across a nearby planet. Hat Kid must now jump, fight and stitch new hats to make her way into every nook and cranny of this new world in order to restore her fuel and resume her journey.
• Murder on a train! Parades! Trespassing in a movie studio?  –  Every mission in A Hat in Time is unique! At one moment you’ll be solving the “Murder on the Owl Express” by finding clues and interrogating the locals, the next moment you’ll be the band marshal in “The Big Parade,” or sneaking through the bird-run “Dead Bird Studio”!
• Small child, giant worlds  –  Jump freely around in 5 massive worlds with new adventures to discover around every corner! Just like any child, Hat Kid loves to climb and explore, no mountain is too big for her sense of adventure.
• Cute hats, magical yarn and snappy badges  –  By finding and collecting rare magical yarn, Hat Kid can stitch new cute hats with a variety of abilities, including a witch hat that allows her to cook explosive concoctions, and a wooden ghost mask that allows her to peek into other dimensions.
• Community-funded, community-focused  –  A Hat in Time was successfully funded on Kickstarter, reaching nearly 10 times its goal!

Story & Setting

In A Hat In Time,  you play as an adorable bouncy girl who’s simply trying to get home. Sadly for our player character, home is millions of light years away, and our spaceship has spilled all it’s fuel onto the various planets below. This material takes the form of powerful time pieces we must collect in order to refuel and get back on the road. Our spaceship functions as the game’s hub world, and we unlock new worlds by finding time pieces on the planets below and restoring power to different segments of our ship.

These planets take on several different forms, including a nightmare realm in which we must sign our soul away, and a Super Mario Sunshine  inspired “Mafia Town”. Each world has its own cast of characters to encounter, and unique power struggles to dance around. Quality of voice acting varies between worlds, but the writing is consistently clever without being smug. For example, the description of the player’s closet when examined is “I don’t have too many outfits, so there’s plenty of room for skeletons”.

Why are you doing this?

If I had to choose one word to describe A Hat In Time,  I would choose ‘Charming’. Everything about the game is designed to make you say “Aww”. The upbeat music track sounds like something straight from a classic platformer. The ghosts in the nightmare world say the most ghastly things but somehow manage to be cute as heck anyway. Your spaceship even comes equipped with a seemingly sentient Roomba that you receive gems for abusing.

Smack it with your umbrella and gems pour out alongside cries of “My circuit board!”  and “Why are you doing this?”.  Yet even this objectively terrible abuse is adorable because the vac then does a flip in the air while giving a little beeping noise before bravely continuing on with its task. One could be forgiven for thinking AHIT  is exclusively a child’s game.

Gameplay

If I had to choose one word to describe the gameplay of A Hat In Time,  it would be ‘solid’.

There is nothing innovative about it. Jump, double jump, dive, hook and swing; all of the familiar platforming mechanics are here, and they all feel quite ‘solid’. And level design is slightly above par, effectively utilizing these mechanics.

As you progress in the game, you will collect hats and badges which function as power ups for your character. Yarn and Jewels are collected to obtain these power ups, respectively. Level design really shines when a new portion of a map or a new route to an objective is opened up by the hats and badges you unlock.

Unique enemy types spice up the simple platforming. These enemies are not unique to A Hat In Time  however, as they all seem to fit a profile of something you’ve encountered in a game before. Some steal your hat until you chase them down, others bully you off of cliffs if you get too close.

Nearly every new enemy encounter reminds me of my previous life as an Italian Plumber who just wants his princess back. I’m not saying A Hat In Time  has nothing new or unique to add in terms of gameplay; I am saying that anything I haven’t seen before blends in with the rest.

Audio & Visual

A Hat in Time  is an indie game made with the unity engine, and it shows. Everything has the same shiny playdough look to it. This lends itself to a game in which you are a child exploring cartoon worlds. The graphics will not blow you away, and you will sometimes grimace as you fight with the camera.

Clipping, falling through the map, and your character not grabbing ledges that they’re right next to are not issues you will encounter in the game. As these are typical of indie games and the unity engine, I’m SO happy I did not run into any of them. Everything appears to be well-made and tested.

The soundtrack in this game is FANTASTIC. The ability the soundtrack has to set the mood of a particular world or level is astounding. I found myself humming the theme from the Ghost world two days after completing the game without realizing I was doing it.

Infectious without being annoying, memorable without being mind-numbing, and cartoony without being obnoxious. This soundtrack won’t win any awards for complexity or emotional impact, but it fills its role perfectly.