In Stars and Time

2026-01-03

I don't know if i should be posting this one. This game hit way too close to home for me. This will get personal.

In Stars and Time is an RPG Maker game. If you're not familiar with RPG Maker games, then know that every RPG Maker game is: Isometric, 2D, top-down perspective, turn-based combat. On a technical level, there is nothing to write home about. Plays as one would expect. Runs as one would expect. Controls as one would expect.

In terms of looks.. the artstyle is what I would describe as medium resolution pixel art combined with hand-drawn images where applicable. It's a nice artstyle. I also find myself particularly drawn to the monochrome color scheme. As in black and white artstyles just appeal to me at this point. The sprites are well drawn, the designs of the characters, especially the ones the story deems deserving of hand-drawn portraits, are also great.

Worth noting is the sheer amount of portraits that the main cast gets. What I mean is.. with some games featuring a dialog system with a portrait of whoever is speaking on the side, sometimes you would get a disparity between the emotion portrayed in the portrait vs the emotion portrayed in the text and/or audio clip. Supergiant games' games tend to do this as their team prefers high-res, high-detail portraits, which limits how many they can afford to draw per character. Not that it's wrong, but it peeves me personally. Point being, that is absolutely not the case with In Stars and Time. I can't count the amount of different portraits drawn for a single character of the main cast.

The level design is... I'd describe it as adequate. As in, it stays out of the way, it does not intrude, nor does it take anything away from the experience. It feels like it's there to serve the rest of the game. Which.. is in part caused by a narrative limitation. And also partly caused by the engine choice. Not that i'm complaining. There were a few places where the environment got a bit more expressive here and there, which gave off a feeling of.. the devs being absolutely capable of going nuts on the environment design, but choosing not to. I don't know. I'm probably writing out of my ass on this point. Partly because the levels are definitely NOT the focus of the game.. moving on.

Gameplay... well.. it's RPG Maker. Quests consisting of 'Interact with Item', objectives consisting of 'Go here' or 'Talk to this dude'. A literal rock-paper-scissors fighting system. I've played games like this many times before. RPGs have a well developed formula at this point and it works.. rather well, in fact. It's almost like there's a good reason why an entire, specialized, templated engine for games like this exists, hehe.

Well.. the protein of this game is obviously the story.. and

..
.
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this game fell and landed onto the shelf of media which has successfully managed to make me cry.

For context, said shelf consists of

Three goddamn entries. Covering my entire life. I'm sure that any would be reader, if I ever felt comfortable about being this vulnerable on the internet, could deduce that I am the kind of person who has an iron grip on their emotions, especially ones that can be interpreted as showing vulnerability.

...

I'll just start from the top. You play as Siffrin. The starting cutscene shows you eating a star.

You wake up, in a field. Your friend Mirabelle comes over, looking for you. You go to the village of Dormont, north of you. She tells you that before your big day, the party should have a sleepover.

You've spent an undisclosed amount of time looking for some special orbs which would allow you to enter the house of Change at Dormont. Your quest being to defeat a King which has been slowly freezing the entire country of Vaugarde in time.

The player goes on to faff about in the village, have their sleepover, and the next morning they finally enter the house. Siffrin dies on the 6th room in. Crushed by a rigged boulder.

You wake up, in a field. The agony of being formed into a pancake now reduced to a scar in your mind.

Your first loop.

A reasonably well explored trope at this point, time loops. Eventually, through trial and error, and a few additional loops, you and your party complete what you thought was your objective. As you bask in the joy of victory..

You wake up, in a field. The ecstasy of seeing all of your friends elated now reduced to a nugget of comfort in your mind.

This bubbled up a memory of a feeling I am far more familiar with than I wish to be. You know the one. The dread of nothing having really changed for you despite the effort you put in. The resignation caused by a knowing inability to enjoy a victory because you JUST know that you will end up back there. Depressed.

Siffrin continues to attempt to break out. No matter what he tries, it does not work.

At first, they figure that they just need to better the lives of his party to break the loop.. so they do exactly that. Deal with repressed traumas, figure stuff out. Bond with the ones closest to him.

The newfound strength makes the journey towards the king far easier. The player gets to enjoy the happiest possible outcome...

You wake up, in a field.

Nothing works. No matter what you try to do, nothing fucking works. No amount of knowledge gained, no skills acquired, no experience gathered, none of that matters. You always just.. loop. back.

This game does an amazing job of portraying what that does to a person. This time loop.. it causes Sif's depression. And it is written so subtly it's not even funny. That's the thing about chronic depression. In my experience, I've had times when I could not tell if I was depressed or not. The more familiar you become with the mental state.. the less noticeable it becomes to you. One just learns to live with it. I've had days where I'd ponder what to leave on my suicide note .. and laugh at the funniest shit i've ever seen within an hour. This state.. THIS is what in stars and time has managed to capture. By the mid-game, Sif is a husk.. and yet they still laugh with the rest of the crew. They're able to function, but his team thinks that he's out of it.

What's even more relatable is that Sif is deathly afraid of coming forward about his condition. Both about the loops and the ensuing mental health problems. His pain is noticeable and people call him out about it.. but he just keeps claiming that everything is fine.

I've done this before. I know exactly why we both did it, too. Who in their right mind would want to burden others with their problems? On one hand, who the fuck would be happy about turning their problems into everyone's problems? And also.. why would one think that others would be willing to help?

By the end, Siffrin's found family start appearing as mere means to an end. He's distant, careless. One loop he manages to cause everyone around him pain, only to abandon his team and go through the house alone. He fails.

However, his team, despite being hurt and betrayed, figures him out. Despite Sif's best attempts, his team helps him. Not only to defeat the king for one last time, but also to break him out of his mental prison.

...

You know what got me crying? That in the end, Sif received unconditional help and love from his group. The idea of someone caring about me and helping me out in my time of need just .. does not compute. I cannot accept the concept. It just does not make sense to me. It felt.. fake.. almost.

That's the thing. Right now, I feel in a similar position to Siffrin, before the ending of the game. Someone who thinks that they should not be helped, that they do not deserve love or care. Someone who has forgotten how to hug. And in such a position, both him and I feel like we will never get help. Like .. we're beyond saving. Like there's no way out. Like there's no way to break the loop..

This game, through it's story, has managed to give hope to someone who feels utterly hopeless, even if it's just a spark.

Hope that even someone like me will be all right, some day.

I don't recall the last time a game has managed to pull a 10+ hour session out of me. I barely ate anything that day.

I don't think I can post this.

2026-01-23 I also think that I have to post this.