3 Minutes to Midnight review

So (over)stuffed with wonderfully zany, cartoon sci-fi hijinks that you might not have time to fit it all in

You've gotta love a good conspiracy theory, whether it's mysterious lights in the sky that might just be aliens, sinister government mind control programmes, or all those fake moon landings. Spanish developer Scarecrow Studio must definitely be fans, because they've taken most of them and put them in a blender with a generous helping of surreal humour to create their debut adventure, 3 Minutes to Midnight. Set in the weirdness magnet of New Mexico in the early rock 'n' roll era, nothing is what it seems, everyone has a secret, and it's down to one rebellious teenager to save the planet. It looks like a Saturday morning cartoon, the plot twists and turns, the prank-filled puzzles are satisfyingly interlinked, and the characters are gloriously off-the-wall. If anything, it feels a little overstuffed, getting distracted by endless skits and digressions along the way, but if you can stay on track then there's plenty of fun to be had in the desert sunshine.

Picture the scene: It's the 1940s, and you're in a small town in the American Southwest. I could tell you exactly where, but then I'd have to make you disappear, or at least wipe your memory, so let's just say it begins with 'R.' Endless high desert fades into the horizon, broken only by the occasional cactus, and drive-in movies are the hot new thing. Inveterate trickster Betty Anderson is a thorn in her mayor mother's side, not to mention the bane of her teachers' existence, but it's late and her mischief-making is on hold while the town sleeps, so it's suspiciously peaceful and quiet. Listen carefully, though, and you'll hear the stealthy footsteps of a mysterious stranger at the local dam. Who just happens to be planting a bomb that'll soon go off, turning the lives of everyone in the area upside down. Or just maybe (because it's that sort of town) turning them right side up again.

Being woken in the middle of the night to the sound of an earthquaking, building-shaking explosion is bad enough, but coming to and realising that you don't know who or where you are is way worse. Especially when the phones are dead and the sheriff's radio is only picking up static. And did I mention the seemingly endless desert between you and the nearest town? No wonder an angry mob is demanding answers! Even as the mayor is mouthing platitudes and dodging pitchforks, Betty is out there stirring trouble for her with the protesters just because she can, so it's particularly ironic that it'll fall to her and her “innovative” approach to problem solving to save the day.

From the jump, 3 Minutes to Midnight makes a great impression, presenting you with lovely cartoon graphics packed with detail and wonky angles. Trees sway in the wind, dust motes dance in rays of sunlight, and you can just tell the artists had a great time creating these lushly shaded environments and smooth animations. Early on, the action focuses on the town centre, bouncing from the town hall and sheriff's office to the high school and even a night-time raid on a grand mansion. As you dive deeper into the mystery, though, your investigations take you to such tourist hotspots as the beautiful but creepy Crystalline Lake, a nearby military air base, an abandoned mine, and finally somewhere that would need to be even more heavily redacted to reveal.

Music shifts from the energetic rock riffs of Mike's Diner to the plaintive twanging of country guitars and banjos out in the desert, rarely coming to the fore but doing a great job of keeping the mood light and (mostly) upbeat, even as it's overlaid by howls of wind and rustling trees. Another highlight is the voice acting, which is full of character and verve to the point of being wonderfully hammy at times. Betty is an endearing mix of snark and wide-eyed innocence, while her mother plays her politician persona with lashings of polished insincerity, and Mafia henchman Luca is all gravelly menace.

Here I'd normally say that you alternate between playing as Betty and the mayor, but that's not quite right; you're more of a guiding force. Betty in particular is very aware that there's someone on the other side of the fourth wall putting thoughts in her head, and she's not always very complimentary about your ideas, to the point of straight up refusing to go along with some of them. At one point, she gets so tired of your obsession with a particular hotspot that she whips out a giant cartoon eraser and rubs it out of existence. She also has a remarkable Dr Dolittle-like talent for talking to every animal she meets, from a raccoon (predictably holed up in a trash can) to super-speedy hamster Jay Garrick. (And if that name sounds familiar, it's very much on purpose. You'll also find Nuka Cola, KITT from Knight Rider, and a TARDIS among others in this pop culture gumbo.)

If you're playing with keyboard and mouse, the interface is a slick but familiar take on point-and-click. Just click anywhere to move around, right-click on hotspots to examine them, and left-click to interact. Call up your inventory at the bottom of the screen, where you can examine, combine and use anything you've found. A hotspot highlighter will point out anything you've missed, and you can double-click on exits to get there faster. (In an unexpected bout of good behaviour, Betty is willing to jog, but only outdoors.)

3 Minutes to Midnight

Genre:	Comedy, Science Fiction
Presentation:	2D or 2.5D
Theme:	Outer space, Savior
Perspective:	Third-Person
Gameplay:	Puzzle, Quest
Control:	Point-and-click
Game Length:	Long (more than 10 hours)
Difficulty:	Medium
Graphic Style:	Cartoon

Plug in a controller, though, and everything changes. Now you steer Betty and her mother around using tank controls and cycle through hotspots with the left and right shoulder buttons, starting from the nearest one. All the hotspots are also faintly highlighted, removing the need to press a button to see them. This does mean some can be a little tricky to spot, but since you can cycle through them all with a little persistence, this isn't really an issue. Overall, even if it's still not quite as comfortable as using the good ol' keyboard and mouse, this is the best controller implementation I've seen in an adventure game, and I had a great time with it on my Steam Deck in particular.

The puzzles are mostly inventory-based, managing to be both agreeably convoluted and fairly logical (at least as long as you can get into a teenage prankster mindset). You'll have to cobble together a super-sized science project to rescue a hamster, freak out the local mobster/barber with a horse's head to help out a friend, and use your mother’s Necronomicon to summon a janitor, all before you've even left town. Many of the puzzles, especially in the early- and mid-game, have multiple solutions, and several of these have consequences for Betty later on, resulting in variant endings. Encouraging an obsessed diver to set aside his family’s multi-generational quest to slay the sea beast known as the Great Sherman and just go home to spend time with his family, for example, might seem like a cunning and easy way to get him out of the way, but it also means he won't be around to help you later. Unfortunately, the puzzle quality dips noticeably towards the finale, with a couple of particularly obtuse (but thankfully skippable) code-breaking puzzles, followed by a poorly clued and fiddly final challenge that I'd rather forget. That said, the developers have continued to polish the game, making some notable changes since release, so maybe these rough edges will yet be smoothed out as well.

There is a hint system, but it's so well-integrated that you might not notice it's there at all. There's no handy hint menu, or even an in-game hint line. Instead, Betty (ever ready to blurt out whatever's on her mind) can drop any issues she's having into her conversations, even with people who don’t seem directly connected to them. Sometimes she'll get jokes or outlandish suggestions in return, but more often than not there's at least some useful advice in there. Taking a moment to ask around when you get stuck is generally good advice, but it's more helpful than ever here!

That advice does come with a bit of an asterisk, though. Because (and this is going to sound like a pretty weird complaint, so bear with me) there are too many jokes. If (like me) you're cursed with a completist mindset and you try to wander down every conversational highway and byway you find, the game will cheerfully talk your head off and you'll probably regret it. Taken individually, the jokes are often funny, diving headfirst into a mix of absurdist riffs and pithy commentary, but there are just... so... many of them. What could have been a throwaway line about Betty's loathing of a certain green vegetable gets developed into a whole bit about Big Broccoli's increasingly outrageous attempts at mind control and the quantum entanglement of broccoli florets, for example, while Jay will squeak the whole story of his rise and ignominious fall as a pro racer if you let him. It's telling (and very welcome) that several recent updates have focused on streamlining the storyline, because it's all too easy to get stuck in long and meandering conversations. If you can stay focused on your mission and dip in and out of these narrative rabbit holes only when you feel like it, you should have a much better time.

The residents of Betty's world are flamboyantly eccentric, from the school physics teacher who's channelling Dr Strangelove, to the sweet middle-aged greengrocer with a side hustle in arms dealing, to the local sheriff who's obsessed with chipmunks. (As in, organised gangs of them who pull off outrageous heists, clad in black with the cutest little night vision goggles.) There are some definite caricatures too, such as redneck Ben, who loves to sit out in his yard shooting at passersby; local diner owner Mike, whose food is so bad it's better classified as a biological weapon; and an inquisitive reporter with a strong Russian accent who can’t quite keep track of who she works for, but even they have stories to tell. In fact, nearly everyone does: pay attention and you'll find out about the mayor's lost love and the origin of a local rivalry, the priest's adventures in South America, and the local Mafioso's journey from Sicily via witness protection.

The story, too, is delightfully convoluted. Spread over five main chapters and anything from fifteen to twenty-five hours of gameplay (depending on how many of those rabbit holes you dive down), each comes with a major twist that leaves you wondering what actually happened and who the Big Bad is. Was it a freak accident, a government cover-up, a UFO, or all of the above? Wandering around town at the start, you'll also find a central statue that looks like modern art, a bank sealed off with police tape, and several shuttered local businesses. Just how did all that happen? Well, an extended flashback will set you straight on that, and for once it’s not all Betty’s fault. As a concept, this is great fun and got a laugh or two out of me when I started seeing the pieces falling into place, but it's only loosely connected to the rest of the plot, to the point that it felt like a whole other game had been crowbarred in. It does fill in some significant backstory points, but also manages to kill the momentum that the main arc was starting to build. The last couple of chapters (once the action switches back to the present) also feel pretty rushed, meaning that sadly they don't make the most of some lovely ideas.

Final Verdict

Sometimes a few cuts are for the best, and 3 Minutes to Midnight is a shining example of that. With great art and music, energetic voice acting, and an abundance of hilariously weird schemes, it's nearly brilliant. The puzzles also (mostly) strike a good balance, being entertaining, logical and not too mind-bending, with multiple solutions to find. But a well-meaning desire to pack in every quip and round out every character also makes it feel meandering and unfocused, without the drive needed to tell a compelling story. If you can stay on point, though, and you want to believe, you're in for an experience that's joyously, uniquely odd, packed with pop culture and snark. Just don't say I didn't warn you about the chipmunks!

Peter played 3 Minutes to Midnight on PC using a review code provided by the game's publisher.