We really liked There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension. Back in 2020, this cute little title—which to this day sits with overwhelmingly positive reviews—was one of the most unique and funniest adventure games around. Understandably, we were beyond curious to see what Draw Me A Pixel would do next. Thanks to the wonderful people at Cosmocover PR, we were able to secure a review code and check out the recently released game, Crushed In Time.
And boy oh boy, what a doozy of a game this is. It takes Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson and drops them into a weird mystery that directly messes with the game’s own code. Yes, we are breaking the fourth wall here in the most hilarious way possible! More on this after the trailer jump!
A Point-and-Stretch Detective Story
We start in a studio where our Sherlock Holmes game is flooded with negative reviews. Apparently, the main character disappeared because of a massive bug. We hear people panicking and begging to fix the situation. The gameplay starts by stretching icons. It’s all about clicking and dragging things—even the menu screen and selection options. It’s a very cool idea that is realized in a novel way.
Finding a fix isn’t easy. The best way is to backtrack and see how the bug can be squashed in its early stages. So, your adventure begins by dragging Holmes and Watson backward through the actual software development cycle.
As we’ve mentioned, it’s not about clicking items to put them in an inventory. The whole world is elastic. Interaction is based on grabbing, pulling, and letting go. To put it differently, one does not simply pick up a key. It needs to be stretched and then flicked into a lock. Thanks to this, the puzzles feel very physical and satisfying in a completely new way.
For example, Sherlock is sleeping and we need to wake him. Pulling on him doesn’t work, so we pull on the doorknob until it falls to the ground. Then we flick it until it lands in a drawer. We pull open the drawer to get the phone cord, which we then flick into the power outlet. The phone works, and by flicking it, we finally manage to wake Sherlock. And that’s just the first ten seconds in the game.
At one point, we attached a shield to a suit of armor and pulled it back to bounce sunlight across the room and light Watson’s candle. Later, we physically grabbed a candle’s wick to stretch it out and guide him through a dark basement. Physically messing with the environment to figure things out is the only way to go forward in Crushed in Time. The whole gameplay is built around this mechanic, and the more we played, the more we craved it. We thought we knew everything about adventure games and how fun they can be. We were wrong. Draw Me A Pixel took their game to the next level and we couldn’t get enough of it! This is not just because of the physicality of the mechanics, either; it’s also about the art style.
Playing Through the Code
Because you are moving backward through development, the art style changes constantly. You might be in a completely normal 3D room one moment, and a minute later, you drop into a flat, blue-tinted beta version of Sherlock’s apartment. While playing this game, we also played a mini-game of our own: guessing what the screen would look like in the next scene.
It’s all very cleverly done. We love game development and we’ve had the chance to see what many games look like at different stages of production. If you like stuff like this, then you will be absolutely mesmerized by the sheer cleverness of the devs and how they use these different alpha and beta stages to tell one unified, intriguing story.
This, of course, would not have been possible without the charismatic personalities of the characters. Sherlock is lazy and arrogant, while Watson is superstitious and jumps at every weird glitch they find. The voice cast makes the ridiculous situations work incredibly well. All of the aspects of the game brought such joy to our senses.
Intentional Bugs and Broken Logic
Since the whole game is built around the idea of a broken launch, the concept leans heavily into looking like a live development disaster. Understandably, we ran into broken game logic all the time. This is not a bug, but a feature. :)
Initially, these issues may look like genuine software problems. Underneath it all, however, the glitches are the actual puzzles you have to beat. Thankfully, the game is forgiving. If you mess up a shot, you just try again without any penalty. There’s also a very useful and inventive hint system. Our brain cells were thankful!
The Final Verdict
Crushed In Time is a funny, weird look at game development. The stretchy physics and changing art styles make it stand out from typical adventure games. It’s imperative to get used to the unusual controls, but the writing and the back-and-forth between Holmes and Watson kept us playing until the end. It’s a short, clever and immensely endearing game that knows exactly what it wants to do.
We give it an 9/10
- Developer: Draw Me A Pixel
- Publisher: Draw Me A Pixel
- Platforms: Windows (PC)
- Release Date: June 10, 2026
- Genre: Adventure
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