Mini Review: OneShot: World Machine Edition – A Brilliant And Bittersweet Indie Darling

You’ve only got OneShot.

A cat-like child named Niko wakes up in a decrepit house, locked in a room with a bookshelf, a password-locked computer, and a TV remote control on the floor. It’s too dark to read the books and there’s no sign of a password anywhere – it’s up to you to find a way out. Not long after, Niko stumbles upon a massive lightbulb in the basement. Carrying this prize into the lightless wastes, a prophetic robot claims Niko is the saviour – a messiah meant to carry the sun to the tower at the centre of the world to restore daylight. This is the set-up of OneShot: World Machine Edition, a short point-and-click adventure game originally developed in 2014 with an endearing, sombre story.

Games like OneShot are difficult to review because to delve too deeply into the narrative would ruin the experience. Just know this: developer Future Cat makes you – the player – a character in the story. Niko’s quest is framed as a game installed on a PC that functions as both a menu and narrative device. Options to choose wallpapers, change the colour scheme, view achievements, and the like take the form of desktop icons. Niko will frequently break the fourth wall to address you by your Nintendo Switch profile name as you guide her through a dying world. Future Cat makes clever use of this dichotomy between the desktop PC and the game within to add creative layers to an already compelling adventure.

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