Time travel, while not a completely unique gaming mechanic, is rarely done well. ‘Hank: Drowning On Dry Land’ by My Next Games is one such indie adventure game that elevates the concept in such a unique and erratic way. Upon investigation, though, I found our time-travelling hero, Hank, also appears in two prior games from My Next Games.

This bizarre and somewhat deranged tale drops you into the alcoholic shoes of Hank, a downtrodden vigilante. Relaxing at his local diner, where he is secretly poisoned by his tormentor and nemesis, The Unraveler, who thinks of himself as some sort of composer of chaos, when he’s really just a dweeb.

Punishing you for wasting your amazing time travel powers, you are now put through a test of your skills to save your friend (you didn’t even think you had friends), proving you are a hero and not just a degenerate. The narrative is very quirky, head-scratching at times, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

The gameplay is centred around completing an objective in a certain amount of time. Manipulating your time-travelling powers to do so, you must traverse obstacles, avoid enemies and control time in reverse and the future.

Despite avoiding death at every possible turn, the more innovative aspect of this is the fact that you can cause a time paradox if you run into yourself.

This can happen as you can use Time Portals to restart your run, giving your past self assistance to get to buttons in time. I really enjoyed this mechanic as it had me really strategising where to hide and how to avoid my two other past selves through my adventure.

I did have one ironic gripe, though. Expecting you to listen, then cuts off its own villain to remind you that time is running out, seems like a paradox in itself. A small, bizarre moment, but interesting when it’s a key issue to progress the story.

Speaking of which, the game generally ran well but did crash during the crucial moment, making me have to start the whole level all over again due to no saves. Luckily, I remembered my strategy, so it took me no time to get back to where I was, as the game is very short.

Visually, the game is stunning. You are thrust straight into a cutscene, and the vibe is instantly established. Very reminiscent of the gritty ‘Absolute Batman’ series, the comic book nerd in anyone would squeal at how impeccably animated and entertaining the still image cutscenes are.

This theme transfers well in the gameplay too, with the dark hues and tones contrasting with acid splashes of greens, reds and purples. The asethetics marry together the narrative and gameplay so nicely.

The dialogue is also delivered with comic-themed speech bubbles and, more excitingly, actual voice acting. The voice acting is very well done and charismatic; long-winded monologues aside (The game warns you the villain likes to talk a lot), these characters are very endearing because of it. The other sound effects are as you would expect.

With a drunken Batman and a dirty Gotham City vibe, Hank: Drowning On Dry Land is such an enjoyable little game. I would liken it more to an episodic game due to its short run time, which probably ties in with the other two titles I discovered. After this experience, though, I really find myself wanting to dive into what else My Next Games has done with our titular character, Hank.

Written by: Stacey