Life’s 2 Short: Unhooked
When WiiWare was available years and years ago, I was finally able to play Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom, a NES game that was already worth over $100 as a loose cartridge and is several times that now. On the Wii? Five bucks. It was a text-based adventure game on a console that – in North America – didn’t have a lot. And, since it was supposed to appeal to children as much as adults, the logical leaps that the game asked of you were not nearly as unforgiving as, say, King’s Quest V, or even Maniac Mansion. And it was much more actually beatable as a result!
Yet there was still one part, many hours in, where I just could not figure out how to advance. I seemed to have done everything right, and it wasn’t until consulting multiple guides online that I figured it out – I was supposed to exit one room by walking back through the three previous rooms to the hallway, instead of simply leaving the room I was in by the other convenient hallway-bound door. Otherwise, the correct cutscene would not trigger. And, I wasn’t able to re-enter the room from the hallway because the door locked behind me, so I had to do the loop again. I loved the first Life’s Too Short, the Christmas one, and On Reflection, but this sequel sometimes had me in the same state as Princess Tomato.
This one is a lot longer than the previous titles, and even has a save feature. Sadly, the save also added to my frustration, as when I gave up for a while to let my brain puzzle out what I did wrong, I came back and found one of the obstacles no longer traversable (needed a particular item to unlock a path, but the game remembered that I picked up the item so it was no longer there, while the path was in its pre-item closed state). So I restarted the whole game, blazed through it until I got back to the part I was stuck on, found one person on Reddit that had the same issue I had, and beat the game. I’m not a fan of “You need to talk to these particular people in this particular order, but there is no indication what that order actually is,” but that was my problem here.
Anyway, I know I just complained for three paragraphs about some little thing that doubled the length of the game for me… but that doesn’t change the fact that Life’s 2 Short: Unhooked is just as sweet, kind, and delightful as the first two Life’s Too Short games. Pixel Ghost is one of the most prolific Playdate developers, with around a dozen unique games on the system so far, and nearly every single one shares the straightforward and important message: be kind to each other. When the games are 30-minute, focused experiences like the other Life’s Too Short games, then the excessive game mechanics don’t get in the way of this message. This one had the classic adventure game “talk to every character about every single topic” trope, and – while all the characters are so delightful and based off real people that the developer met while traveling the world doing charity work(!) – there was just too much text to scroll through, and the order in which you needed to complete the various tasks for the islanders wasn’t clear. Why can’t I help the cats or pick up the glass bottles strewn about the beach yet? It’s because I didn’t select the correct dialogue option out of the ten that were available after first selecting a different dialogue option with another character. Hint for those stuck at the end like I was: talk to the weightlifter again after you think you’ve already completed her questline! And there are multiple cat dialogue options for the café owner!
It's rough because I really did like this game, even though it’s firmly in a genre that I’ve never been able to master. The “game” parts of it got so in the way of the wonderful “story” bits that it will not hold the same place in my heart that the other Life’s Too Short games hold. I know this is an homage, but it’s an homage to a game style that has never been my type. Maybe it’s yours, though! I might just not be smart enough for this kind of game. I love this world, and these characters, and the message. But there’s a reason that this style of game has fallen largely out of fashion in the modern era. I’m sure I’ll bounce off Shadowgate PD, too, but you know I’m gonna get it, come on now. Maybe I’ll understand it this time! (I won’t.)