OneShot review

I had OneShot on my radar for a while. I saw it recommended a lot in some parts of the internet, and found the idea of a game that heavily breaks the fourth wall appealing (but was yet to find one where I liked both the genre and the story). It took some tinkering with computers and nagging from friends, but here we are.

The gist

A cat-like child, Niko (who insists on not being a cat) wakes up in a strange dark house. Eventually, the kid makes it out of there, and finds a… lightbulb? A robot turns up and explains that this is the sun. And that Niko is the messiah. And that you are a god. What follows is a funny, well-made adventure about saving a dying dead world. The music is great, the art style is charming. And you get to go into your PC’s documents, yay!

What I liked

The presentation was nice. Sure, it’s RPG Maker XP, so janky movement and low resolutions ahoy. But as with many other titles made with the engine, it compensates with great music and pixel art. There is a lot of style clashing – robots, bird people, …people with TVs for a head?! But it strangely didn’t feel out of place, and instead contributed to the “vibe” of the world. At large, said vibe is what carried the game for me for me, elevating it from an otherwise simple and unremarkable adventure.

The fourth wall being demolished is obviously the signature thing, and it was neat. Especially once you get to the second part of the story. I can’t deny hoping for more sophisticated puzzles in that regard. But this isn’t a CTF contest, is it? I wish it was.

What I disliked

Practically all of my gripes with the game are technical. I am a Linux user, and although I don’t expect dedicated support for a relatively niche platform, it was nonetheless annoying to run a virtual machine with Windows just to play a game. Especially since there was support for some distributions previously, and I run Fedora, a relatively common one. Urgh! Kind of fits thematically, I guess.

2025 Update: a World Machine Edition of the game, complete with an imaginary desktop, is now available to enjoy on Linux and even the Steam Deck. Perhaps not as cool as the real thing would be, it’s a way out.

There was also lots of techno babble related to computers. It got tiring towards the end, especially as it’s central to the story’s premise. But as a fan of To the Moon and The Talos Principle, I have come to accept that games don’t need a “realistic” depiction of computers or science (or Computer Science!) to be enjoyable. Plus, I doubt those who aren’t in a related field will really notice or have an issue with this.

Also #2, at times it was a bit confusing to figure out what to do next, but that was probably just me…

All in all, minor issues that an average person won’t experience!

Conclusion

Is OneShot worth your time and money? Well, it’s dirt-cheap on Steam sales, takes around four hours to complete, and you’ll experience a nice, cozy-ish (end of the) world complete with sulky robots and pancakes. So… unless you’re like a fire fighter or penniless, the answer to both is probably yes.