Like the protagonist Alan, two souls—well—dwell within my breast when I think of Time To Wake Up. On one hand, I have rarely played an ego-adventure that interweaves its gameplay so organically with level design and narrative. Even though the game plays out largely linearly and with little challenge, the shifting episodes in this trauma-processing dream provide a great deal of variety. On the other hand, Time To Wake Up hinders itself realizing its potential. Many elements only scratch the surface. The visual level design and large parts of the narrative lack the courage to give themselves a truly distinctive spin. And the narrative center surrounding the radical book falls far short of its possibilities. Nonetheless, while writing these lines, I promptly added Eye Blink Twice's upcoming project, Up or Down?, to my Steam wishlist. Because Time To Wake Up made it abundantly clear to me that we can expect quite a bit from this studio in the future, even if the adventure itself, standing on its own, still stumbles a little.

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