Life’s Too Short: On Reflection

Even though I haven’t written about all of them yet, I’ve kept up on and played all of Pixel Ghost’s Life’s Too Short series – this includes the original, a Christmas story, a pirate-themed sequel, and this latest one from the Uncrank’d Game Jam (here are some other jams, if you’re interested).

On Reflection was made in just two days and, like the others, is just so wholesome. It’s only about 15 minutes long and adds some gameplay complexity like the multiple dialogue options of Life’s 2 Short: Unhooked (where the gameplay has basically evolved to a point-and-click adventure) to the more straightforward people-pleasing of the original game. It does the Dragon Age II thing of “we don’t have a lot of time to make this game so let’s re-use some background environments,” but guess what? This is a jam game and it tells a complete story and that’s totally fine! Putting something good into the world is the most important thing, and Ollie of Pixel Ghost always delivers.

Like in the other Life’s Too Short games, you’re a little ghost that helps people. It’s sort of your thing – not a bad way to spend the afterlife. The bad guy this time is a magic mirror at the top of a tower that tells the various fantastical creatures living in the tower that they’re not good enough. Guess what, mirror! Maybe you’re the one that’s broken! So you seek to fix it, too (both literally and figuratively), and help everyone feel like they’re enough just the way they are, whether that’s too short, or too ugly, or a dragon. It’s a 15-minute blast of dopamine, almost a cozy game because after you’re done, you can look outside and maybe the world isn’t so bad, actually. Beautiful, concise, and – like the others in the series – a Playdate original. I hope this series lasts at least as long as the Playdate does.

(Get it on Catalog — $1 from each sale goes to charity — or Itch.)