Game review
Ratatime
7.5 / 10
- Developer
- BuyMyBeard
- Publisher
- BuyMyBeard
- Released
- 1 June 2023
- Platforms
- desktop
- Genre
- platformer
- Monetisation
- free
- Players
- false
The short version
A visually polished pixel-art Unity platformer built for GameDev.js Jam 2023, with genuinely working A/D-and-Space keyboard controls (plus full controller support) confirmed via real held-key testing on desktop. Correctly and honestly shipped desktop-only, since the title screen itself only documents keyboard and controller schemes with no touch alternative anywhere.
Biggest strengths
- Controls confirmed genuinely correct through direct testing - held A/D keys produced real leftward and rightward movement, and Space triggered a jump that visibly shifted the whole world into a dramatic alternate time/scale state, matching the game's name and premise
- Clean, appealing pixel-art presentation with parallax city silhouettes, a live timer and score HUD, and a title screen that documents both keyboard and controller schemes clearly
- Unity WebGL build loads reliably and boots cleanly with no console errors, despite a substantial ~34MB payload
Biggest weaknesses
- No touch support of any kind, so it is unavailable to phone visitors by design rather than through an oversight
- A jam entry (GameDev.js Jam 2023) rather than a deep, long-form game - built around one central time/scale mechanic rather than broad content
- Sound wasn't deeply exercised in this pass beyond hearing ambient audio cues during play
Who it's for: Fans of short, good-looking jam platformers with a neat central time/scale gimmick, playing on a real keyboard or controller.
Our recommendation: play
7.5 / 10
Opening
Ratatime is a pixel-art platformer built by BuyMyBeard for GameDev.js Jam 2023, running on Unity WebGL. You play a character navigating a stylised city, with a central mechanic tied to the game's name: jumping doesn't just move you upward, it visibly warps the world around you.
Correctly desktop-only, and confirmed why
The title screen documents exactly two control schemes: Keyboard (A/D or arrows to move, S to drop, W to interact, Space to jump) and Controller (D-pad/joystick plus face buttons). No touch instructions are offered anywhere. Loading the game on a real phone-sized touch viewport (390x844, hasTouch: true) confirmed this directly - the same keyboard-only title screen renders, with no on-screen touch controls appearing and no alternate touch-driven interaction path. It's correctly and honestly shipped here under the desktop-only tier rather than being forced onto a touch shelf it was never built for.
Controls, confirmed with real input
Rather than trust the title screen's promise alone, movement and the core jump mechanic were both tested directly with genuine held key presses (not instantaneous taps, which can fail to register with per-frame input polling). A held "D" key moved the character right across the screen; a held "A" key then moved it back left. A held Spacebar press triggered a jump that visibly and dramatically altered the entire scene - the world shifted into a different colour palette and scale, consistent with the game's core time-warping premise. All three inputs produced clear, unambiguous, correct in-game responses.
A polished jam presentation
The build loads reliably despite a substantial ~34MB Unity WebGL payload (verified via direct byte-for-byte fetch of the loader, framework, wasm, and data files, plus the itch.io CDN-hosted template assets), and boots cleanly into a WebGL 2.0 context with no console errors. The visual presentation - parallax city silhouettes, a live score and countdown timer HUD, and clean pixel-art character sprites - is a cut above most jam entries.
Final Verdict
A good-looking, correctly-labelled Unity platformer whose keyboard-and-controller controls are proven to work exactly as promised, including its distinctive time/scale-warping jump. A solid pick for desktop players who enjoy short, polished jam games with a clear gimmick.
Pros and cons
Pros
- Controls confirmed genuinely correct through direct testing - held A/D keys produced real leftward and rightward movement, and Space triggered a jump that visibly shifted the whole world into a dramatic alternate time/scale state, matching the game's name and premise
- Clean, appealing pixel-art presentation with parallax city silhouettes, a live timer and score HUD, and a title screen that documents both keyboard and controller schemes clearly
- Unity WebGL build loads reliably and boots cleanly with no console errors, despite a substantial ~34MB payload
- MIT licensed, no third-party analytics found in the shipped build
- Correctly and honestly shipped desktop-only - confirmed the title screen offers only keyboard/controller instructions, with no on-screen touch controls or touch handling of any kind on a real phone-sized touch viewport
Cons
- No touch support of any kind, so it is unavailable to phone visitors by design rather than through an oversight
- A jam entry (GameDev.js Jam 2023) rather than a deep, long-form game - built around one central time/scale mechanic rather than broad content
- Sound wasn't deeply exercised in this pass beyond hearing ambient audio cues during play