Few games are bold enough to require co-op. Fewer still go as far as to obscure an entire half of the game from the other player, meaning the two people playing need to constantly communicate in order to grasp what’s going on. The Past Within is one of these games. It separates two players across two timelines, one in the future, one in the past, then presents them with a series of puzzles they cannot solve without clues from the other person’s present. Only when solved, will the shared story move on.
The Past Within’s fundamental use of two players means it’s a game someone cannot review alone, so we didn’t try to. Instead, Matt Wales and Victoria Kennedy paired up and here, collectively, in dialogue format, is what they think.
The Past Within reviewDeveloper: Rusty LakePublisher: Rusty LakePlatform: Played on PCAvailability: Releases 2nd November (today!) on Steam, Itch.io, iOS and Android.
Matt: Hi Victoria! What can you see?
Victoria: Hi there! I am sitting at my desk, with my computer in front of me. And you?
Matt: Funnily enough, I’m also at my computer – and if there’s one thing I’ve learned from our recent tangle with developer Rusty Lake’s new co-op puzzler, The Past Within, it’s that by combining our brains on the respective sides of our screens, we might just be able to puzzle our way to some final thoughts on the game.