Review: A Hat in Time

A new addition into the 3D platformer genre in video games is the charming crowd funded video game A Hat in Time by Jonas Kærlev and his small studio Gears for Breakfast came out last fall on PC and to consoles XBOX One and PlayStation 4 a few months later.

Back in 2013, Gears for Breakfast launched a Kickstarter for the game and surpassed its initial goal of $30,000 with over $296,000 and released in 2017 after numerous delays. With the release, A Hat in Time was met with critical praise from gamers and critics alike for its quirky story, its imaginative world and characters, solid gameplay and its tribute to previous 3D Platforming games.

A Hat in Time follows the adventures of a little alien girl named Hat Kid, who is traveling through the galaxy home when she’s stopped on a nearby planet by a Mafia man and crashes with her magical hourglass that act as fuel for her spaceship scattered all over the planet. It’s up to Hat Kid to travel the planet’s locales to find her hourglasses and get home.

Along the way, she’ll meet with various characters like a Little Red Ridinghood-esque rebel named Moustache Girl, a pair of avian film directors and a spooky trickster obsessed with contracts.

The gameplay is familiar to 3D platformers of video games past as Hat Kid’s moves consist of jumping around, using a grappling hook, fighting enemies with an umbrella and sliding around the various locations within the game.

A unique feature of A Hat in Time is collecting balls of yarn, which can allow the player to create new hats to gain new abilities such as running faster or throwing explosive potions at crates and enemies.

Graphics-wise, A Hat in Time gives of the charm of an old school 3D platform with its cell shaded graphics and detailed environments. Each level is also introduced with an art card featuring Hat Kid and each mission, whether she’s sneaking through a haunted house to find a time piece or leading a parade of penguins on the moon for a movie by a disco penguin.

The setting takes the player to four various locations throughout the game to find the missing time pieces and to collect currency and new items to create new hats. Some locations include the Dead Birds movie studio in “Battle of the Birds”, where each level’s final score adds up based off what you collect to the two feuding directors movies in their bid for a movie award or the spooky Subcon Forest with a terrifying yet goofy ghost obsessed with contracts.

An endearing part of A Hat in Time is its writing and dialogue that delivers humor and charm into little details in the dialogue between characters and the animation of the characters. One example is if Hat Kid is idle, she would occasionally pull out some toys and play with them or she can either tease people by making a face or blow a kiss. Gears for Breakfast also promises to release new DLC in the incoming months for free to players.

Overall, A Hat in Time is an energetic and goofy ode to platformers of old that is sure to please fans of game like Mario 64 and Psychonauts.

A Hat in Time is available on PC on Steam and on PlayStation 4 and XBOX One. The game is rated E10+ for Fantasy Violence and Alcohol and Tobacco References.