Things Too Ugly REVIEW - clock in, clock out
Rhianne Ward
My first game review of 2024! Yayyyyy!!! I think I said this last year and subsequently did not follow through on it, but 2025 will be the year that I review every new game release I play to the end (obvious exception for games without a conventional, roll-credits ending). As such, here's the first of hopefully many!
Things Too Ugly opens on a very strong declaration. It has no save states, and it expects you to play it through in one go. I don't think I've ever seen a game demand that kind of commitment from a player, so right from the start, I was intrigued. In practice, the effect this had on me mentally while playing was surprisingly strong. The game doesn't have any timers - at least, none that I noticed - and there's no consequences for getting something wrong. The only punishment the game inflicts upon the player is that they simply aren't allowed to move on to the next file. You would think this approach might reduce the tension, but in actuality, the simple inability to turn the game off and come back later if I got stuck made the entire ordeal so much more engaging. It's that feeling of being at work or a social event, hating it, wishing it were done, but knowing that you can't just leave because there would be consequences for that which aren't worth the brief respite you seek.
However, in this game, the feeling is simultaneously something closer to FOMO. I knew that turning the game off meant essentially abandoning it. There was no way I'd go through the entire process of booting up my computer, booting up the in-game computer, listening to the supervisor's rambling dialogue, and inputting all the right answers a second time. So, when I inevitably got stumped by a task, I muscled through, because I needed to see how the whole thing shaked out. It mirrored the likely experience of the player character nicely - a regular office worker thrown headfirst into a conspiracy. Your supervisor even tells you that it's okay to back out, but of course you don't… you're already this far in, after all.
I don't think Things Too Ugly would work quite this well, however, were it not for its incredibly convincing environment and props. The player's desk feels very worked through; a calendar with different important dates and little doodles sits in front of you, a fighter jet model fills a gap in the middle of frame, and notes about good radio stations to check out on night shifts are scattered across the room. It's all so tangible and lived in, and acquiring the muscle memory to intuit where every tool and piece of information is placed is something I appreciate, especially in a game that confines you to a desk for its whole runtime. The fundamentals here are simply rock solid.
The files you dig through for information feel similarly authentic. There's a lot of obtuse technical jargon used that makes little sense to me, but I can tell it would read perfectly fine for someone in that field. The trick is to sort through all the junk and pinpoint the specifics, and that means cross-referencing documents to figure out what everything means. For how simple a premise it is - finding information on a page and inputting it into a computer - it is surprisingly dense. It reminded me of late-game Papers Please, where the sheer volume of information starts to make your head hurt. When you make sense of it though, and you begin to see the stitches keeping the fabric together, it is unbelievably satisfying. This game had me taking notes in real life; that's how invested I was!
For a game as short as this one, there's not a whole lot for it to realistically suck at. Things Too Ugly has a goal, and it meets expectations. For a project of this scale, that's perfectly fine by me. I can't say I was ever blown away by what I was playing, but I was thoroughly entertained by it. I would love to see a more ambitious project from Professor Space Games, because the attention to detail here demonstrates the kind of talent and care that makes me excited to play games. I wish them all the best!
