Confession time: I haven’t played There is No Game: Wrong Dimension, the previous work from Crushed in Time developer, Draw Me A Pixel. But after a preview session with the team, I’ll be buying it pretty much as soon as I can.
That’s how much of an impression the opening 15-or-so minutes of Crushed in Time made on me. It’s been some time since a demo has left me so impressed, borderline invigorated at the sheer creativity and wit (and dare I say it, charm and silliness) on display, and left me wanting to play it right away. Sadly, however, I’m going to have to wait until 2026 to do so, which is when the game is currently planned for.
The reason I tell you that I haven’t played the studio’s prior game is that there is a link between the two that is slightly lost on me. Now to be clear: you don’t need to have played There is No Game to understand what’s going on in Crushed in Time. The long and the short of it is that Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson (yes, that Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson) are about to star in a new video game, but one of the NPCs has gone missing. They previously appeared in There is No Game, but this title is a brand new experience that puts them at the centre of things in their own game. Meta enough? Well, strap in, because it gets better.
Remember Super Mario 64? Of course you do. Remember the intro screen where you could pull all elements of Mario all over the place, in an elastic fashion. That’s the core conceit of Crushed in Time: everything’s elastic. I cannot stress how bizarre it first appears, with the entire main screen being malleable in this elastic fashion, and once you realise this is the main mechanic of the experience, it only gets more interesting.
I’m going to try and break down one of the opening scenes for you: Dr Watson has taken delivery of a letter from a very huggy postman. Taking it to Holmes, a locked door and a sleeping detective of the Sherlock-variety stands in the way of this first mission. Crushed in Time is a point and click adventure with a gorgeous cartoon aesthetic, and you will get rooms to explore that might host interactive elements you can use the elastic gameplay upon.
Holmes is asleep, and you need to wake him up. You can grab his moustache and ping it back, but that’s not enough. You can even slap the phone using its own elasticity, but again, not enough: it needs power. Tugging on a door handle at the right angle (this is vital to most puzzles) makes it drop off. Next up: move the door handle by bouncing it along the floor until it hits a drawer under the phone, adding a handle to an otherwise shut drawer.
With me still? Good. Next you’ll need to drag that handle to the left of your screen, causing the elastic to snap back and fling the door open to the right. This dislodges the phone’s power cable, which you can bounce toward the outlet nearby, then slap that phone, and wake up your sleeping detective friend.
This is just stage one of the overall, larger puzzle, and the game soon evolves with more mechanics, ideas, and wit, and every moment I got to see seemed better than the last. As you might be able to tell, I’m rather enamoured with the creativity here.
Speaking to Fred Malavasi, Associate Producer and Communications Manager at Draw Me A Pixel, I got to hear how development has been ongoing for quite some time, so while the team wouldn’t be drawn to quite when in 2026 it’d be coming, it does seem it shouldn’t slip any deeper. It seems that story is important, and when I asked about Holmes’ basset hound appearing, and whether he’d be as elastic as well, the team weren’t ready to share those secrets just yet.
What I do know is that there are plans for two forms of hints, should the puzzles be too tricky. First up, there will be audio cues from the characters that you might want to pay attention to, as they can help. On top of that, there are plans for a more robust hint feature, though again, Malavasi didn’t go into full details on what that might be just yet.
Regardless, what we have here is a modernised point and click adventure that oozes character, with a lovely visual flair, and fully voiced characters displaying plenty of humour and charm. Crushed in Time seems to hit that sweet spot when dealing with “meta” fun and doesn’t take itself too seriously, which is another boon to an already phenomenal prospect. I can’t wait to play this, and the team does hope (though not guarantee) to try and get some form of demo out there at some point.
Next year may be heating up with the likes of some big releases, but I implore you to at least watch the lovely trailer for Crushed in Time, and see what it’s all about. I can’t wait to get hands-on with this one.
Crushed in Time is coming to PC, Mac, iOS, Android, and Nintendo Switch in 2026.