Like many people, I was confused when I first saw Stuck in Time. It had the exact same visual style as Loop Hero. It had "loop" in its name. Was it related, a sequel, the same devs? No. For some reason the game had chosen to ape the style of a completely different game, possibly hoping to ride its coattails. And then, once I played Stuck in Time, I was confused again. It wasn't a copy or clone of Loop Hero; they were nothing alike. And, more importantly, Stuck in Time was fun on its own merits. It was an interesting game without needing to resort to the tactics it did.

So that's where I started with Stuck in Time, but I'm glad to say that's not were I ended.

Stuck in Time is an idle/looping game about exploring and finding more and more efficient paths through a world in a single period of time before you reset to the beginning of the path once you run out of resources. It's much more of a puzzle and problem solving game than anything else, and despite the idle tag it's played quite actively. There can be periods of idling thanks to a specific mechanic, but it's mostly trying to find efficient paths.

The core mechanic of Stuck in Time is, well, time. You have a certain amount of time before you reset your progress and you spend a certain amount over time by moving or taking actions but, importantly, you become more efficient at any given action the more times you've done it, including just moving over a tile. Thus the game becomes a fun balance between letting a specific path run over and over until you're very efficient at it, and exploring all new paths that you're quite slow at and finding the most efficient route through them.

The game paces the complexity nicely, letting you understand the efficiency mechanic before it starts throwing more and more complexity at you. It also has a route saving feature, allowing you to keep your completed paths while simultaneously trying new paths for efficiency and unlocks. Then, by the time you're at the very end of the game, you can combine all your paths into one enormous loop, completing the challenges of every zone in the game in a single, unbroken loop.

It's very satisfying.

All told, Stuck in Time is quite a unique game and very interesting to complete. The mixture of puzzle and idle is fascinating, and solving problems through efficiency-based repetition scratched a weird itch in my brain.

Please dev, could you make a version of the game not idle?

This game is too grindy as a "main" game. I dont recommend if you like to play games "actively" (aka you just play the game and not do something else at the same time) (aka you enjoy the game enough you dont have to do something else at the same time (question mark x3)).

It takes more than 1h30 to max a relationship with a 5 min loop at 2x speed. And the character just initiates 200 times the same conversation per loop. It s not a fun or exciting gameplay.

5x less grind for relationships,
1x or 2x less grind for affinities,
remove the agility as a campfire stat and make it an affinity (for example) that activates proportionally to the lenght of the loop, so that when players get into longer loops the game goes quicker (and they earn more agility affinity)
... and it should be enough, really.

All the rest is great!

I like the mechanic of the game, the story, the graphics... but playing it is a long and grindy chore. Unlocking the story is kept behind raising relationships which takes hours of numbing loops. That s so sad.

This game deserves better.

Cant recommend as is.

Best,

I am not finished with this game as of right now but I am enjoying my time tremendously. It's easily the best idle game I have ever played and does things that I would really be interested in having in other games.