Crushed In Time

Crushed In Time, from developer Draw Me A Pixel, released 10 June 2026 at US $24.99. It sits at Very Positive across roughly 1,267 Steam reviews at the time of writing, expanding a minor Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson subplot from the studio's earlier There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension into a full stretch-and-pull point-and-click. Its art, voice acting, and meta-comedy draw consistent praise, set against a specific, widely repeated complaint that its puzzles depend on precise timing and execution rather than the logical reasoning the genre — and the studio's own prior game — trained players to expect.

A beloved spin-off that mostly delivers on presentation

Multiple reviewers come in as fans of There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension, where a short, comedic Sherlock-and-Watson segment apparently made enough of an impression that the studio built a full game around it. The presentation largely earns that trust: art direction that reviewers describe as constantly reinventing itself chapter to chapter, strong voice acting, and a genuinely funny meta-story about a game-within-a-game losing control of its own narrative. One reviewer calls it "peak" and can't wait to chase full completion; another praises the sense of humor as "charming and wonderfully set up."

A specific, widely repeated puzzle-execution complaint

Set against that praise, one of the most consistent complaints — appearing in both positive and negative reviews alike — describes puzzles where the correct logical solution is clear, but execution fails it: mistimed inputs, overly specific positioning, or precise sequencing undoing what should have been a solved puzzle. One negative review states the problem plainly: "Great puzzle games work off sound logic with consistent results. Where Crushed in Time fails in its design is in requiring tight skill-based actions to solve puzzles... they have identified the logical solution, try it, and then it fails because some timing element wasn't exactly right." Reviewers who loved There Is No Game's purely logic-driven puzzles specifically flag this as a step down, even when otherwise positive about the game overall.

A developer confirming the hint system wasn't enough

This review pulled the developer's own "Ask The Devs" post published shortly after launch. Asked directly whether the hint system needed work, the team replied: "We are currently reviewing the clues. We will try to do this as quickly as possible" — direct, developer-sourced confirmation of a specific complaint several reviewers raised independently. The same post also acknowledges Chapter 9 specifically running too long, with the team confirming they were "in the process of streamlining Chapter 9 to make it flow better," matching multiple reviewer complaints about that chapter's pacing specifically rather than the game as a whole.

A documented Steam Deck compatibility problem

Distinct from the puzzle-design complaints, this review's check of the game's own partner-events feed found a dedicated "Steam Deck crash: temporary fix" post from the developer, confirming the game crashes under Proton Experimental and Proton 11, and requiring players to manually force Proton 9 compatibility to run the game reliably — with touchscreen input still broken under that workaround at the time of posting. That's an unusually specific and hands-on technical burden for a 2D point-and-click adventure, and worth flagging directly for anyone planning to play on Steam Deck rather than a standard desktop setup.

A clean origin with an active post-launch patch cadence

This review's check of the game's own Steam partner-events feed found a clean origin: a February 2026 demo period and pre-launch marketing history preceded the 10 June 2026 full release, with no earlier sellable version and no delisting found — consistent with a genuinely new release rather than a later listing for prior available content. The developer has kept up a fast post-launch patch cadence, with numbered patch notes appearing within days of launch and a chapter-selection feature added by mid-July in direct response to player requests.

Forty-six achievements and a run time some call padded

The game ships with 46 Steam achievements, including several tied to speed and completionist goals — one reviewer reports finishing a full completionist run in around two hours after already knowing the solutions, having originally taken several hours the first time through. That gap points to a design built more around discovery than mechanical replay depth, which fits the studio's meta-comedy pedigree. At the same time, several reviewers describe specific sequences — a Watson-vacuuming segment and a late-game bike chase among them — as dragging well past the point their jokes had landed, with one reviewer naming these sections directly as the parts they would have trimmed first. That's a distinct complaint from the puzzle-execution issue: less about difficulty and more about individual sequences overstaying their welcome inside an otherwise well-paced whole.

A story that divides reviewers on faithfulness to its source

Beyond the puzzle-design debate, a smaller but recurring thread questions how faithfully Crushed In Time honors the tone of its source material. One reviewer writes that beyond sharing names and character designs, "the only things Holmes and Watson have here are their names and appearances," suggesting the game's version of the characters departs significantly from what made the original There Is No Game cameo memorable. Other reviewers push back on this directly, praising the character writing and voice performances as genuinely faithful expansions rather than a departure. That split is worth naming on its own: it doesn't affect the puzzle-design complaints, but it's a separate axis on which reviewer opinion genuinely diverges.

Where it lands

Crushed In Time earns its Very Positive standing on real strengths: consistently praised art direction, strong voice acting, and a genuinely funny meta-story that successfully expands a beloved minor character pairing into something substantial. But a specific, widely repeated complaint about execution-heavy puzzle design — one the developer's own community post partially acknowledges rather than disputes — is a real, verified pattern rather than a one-off gripe, compounded by a documented Steam Deck crash requiring a manual workaround. A 7 reflects a visually and narratively strong point-and-click that a meaningful share of its own audience says doesn't fully honor the purely logic-driven puzzle design its predecessor set as the bar.