
Here’s the thing: there is a hint system, but just like anything featuring a deal with totally-not-the-Devil-I-swear, there’s a caveat. This is a game all about racing against the clock in order to get to the final puzzle before an arbitrary time limit expires, after all. When you play the game for the first time, it feels like nothing makes sense at all, and I do think this was intentional. You do one thing in order to unlock another completely unrelated thing just so you can unlock a brand new area where you have to do another thing.
#Summertime madness series#
The game is comprised of a series of puzzles that, sadly, feel beyond cryptic at times. Summertime Madness felt like playing a pretty escape the room game set in an open area. The game starts off with an introductory cutscene featuring some excellent voice acting. The problem lies on the execution of said puzzle-solving gameplay loop. The basis for a good puzzle adventure is all featured in here.

Your character also moves insanely fast for a game in said genre, which was a shocking and pleasing revelation. Summertime Madness is a first-person walking sim, first and foremost, but it does feature pretty painting-like visuals and a soothing soundtrack. I even liked the overall presentation and gameplay. I like that, there’s nothing bad with it at all in this regard. Got it, nice premise, digestible reason for the gameplay to exist, stakes at play. He now has a few hours to escape it, or else his soul will get stuck inside this alternate canvas dimension forever. One day, a mysterious man (totally not the Devil, I swear) offers the painter a chance to escape this reality by transporting his soul into one of his paintings. The uglier the war gets, the more he paints. You control a depressed artist who wants to escape the horrors of war. The game is set in Prague during World War II. Summertime Madness starts off with a fully voiced intro cutscene detailing its plot.

Not exactly a next-gen title when it comes to visuals, but still pretty. Should the summer’s animated offerings impress at the box office, it will be a worthy reminder for studios to keep the year flush with animated films going forward.Summertime Madness is a pretty game. and DC’s “Shazam! Fury of the Gods” in March. One big reason “Super Mario Bros.” did so well was because of how the early 2023 calendar was otherwise led by films targeting older audiences, like “John Wick 4,” “Creed 3” and “Scream 6,” with superhero fatigue ultimately catching up to Warner Bros. the Machines,” it’s the kind of film that could lead the quieter weeks of August if “Haunted Mansion” doesn’t do much for family audiences. Directed by Jeff Rowe, one of the filmmakers behind Sony and Netflix’s critically acclaimed “The Mitchells vs. “Haunted Mansion” in turn risks competition from Paramount’s animated “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” in the first weekend of August. Theoretically, July would be a good time for one of the studios to offer families something mellower than Cruise’s high-octane action, but Disney only has a live-action “Haunted Mansion” reboot scheduled at the end of the month.

July is clear of animated movies and is bound to be dominated by the first of two final “Mission: Impossible” films starring Tom Cruise, following “Top Gun: Maverick’s” chokehold of the latter summer months in 2022.

2019’s photorealistic CGI remake of “The Lion King” was a major hit for Disney, so similar success for “The Little Mermaid” could in turn eat into “Elemental’s” debut. Serious turnout for that film could also spell trouble for Disney’s live-action “The Little Mermaid” remake, which will close out the May calendar. With that many options for the family, it will be difficult for “Elemental” to stand out for very long, especially if “Across the Spider-Verse” maintains significant momentum throughout its June run. Disney-owned Pixar does have new IP “Elemental” bowing June 16, the second film to break the spell of Pixar titles having gone straight to Disney+ after “Toy Story” origin story “Lightyear” had a subpar summer run last year, partially due to releasing just before Universal and Illumination’s “Minions” sequel.īut “Elemental” is sandwiched between “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” the highly anticipated sequel to Sony’s surprise 2018 animated hit that will kick off June, and “Ruby Gilman, Teenage Kraken” from Dreamworks Animation and Universal, which bows at the end of the month alongside Disney’s fifth “Indiana Jones” entry.
