Love This
The other day I was trying to remember a game that had this really cool mechanic where you had to navigate rooms in a non-linear way (I’m explaining this badly), and I eventually remembered that it was actually just one of the levels in Love You to Bits, called The Quantic Library. Then I remembered (or, strongly suspected and later confirmed) that I had never written about my deep and abiding love for this game. It’s super, super good.
Love You to Bits is an adventure game in which you travel through different worlds to gather the pieces of your robot girlfriend (it’s not gross, I promise), who has been blasted apart by the boss enemy. Along the way you can also collect bonus items, which are attached to memories. I highly recommend finding all of these and watching all the little videos, because whose black heart doesn’t need a little warming nowadays? Try the App Unwrapper walkthrough if you need a little nudge for some of them.
Each level is a discrete world, with its own puzzle mechanics, and an absolutely ludicrous amount of care and craftsmanship. It’s really almost 30 small adventure games, which actually makes it perfect for mobile. Each one can be completed in a short play session, or if you have more time you can do a bunch at once. I started playing the game shortly after it launched, so in three chunks as more levels were released; if you start today, though, you can play straight through if you want. I have no idea how many hours of gameplay that is because it doesn’t matter: it’s such a delightful world with such a fantastic emotional payoff at the end that an accountant’s view of a game like that is even more irrelevant than usual (which is very irrelevant).
The whole thing is just so clever and well-made and with such a beautiful story: I really can’t say enough good things about it, so just go get it and experience it for yourself. Oh also, if you’re a long-time gamer, you will be able to play an amusing meta-game of “spot the homage” to a bunch of different classic video games.
Links!
Love You to Bits on iOS*
Love You to Bits on Android
The episode of Unconsolable in which we talked to one of the developers of the game
*iTunes affiliate links net me a small sack of nickels if you click one and then go on to buy something within some mysterious timeframe. It’s probably not actually mysterious, but I’ve never looked up what it is. So.














