Orten Was The Case
Get ready to step into the (non-existent) shoes of Ziggy – an unexpected hero from a fictional Swedish neighborhood. Together, you’ll take on the daunting task of foiling a sinister scheme that could potentially devastate the entire world.
Ziggy wakes up one day with a strange mark on his hand, clueless of what happened the night before. After a couple of minutes lost amongst the familiar streets of his suburb, Orten, an explosion brings him back exactly where he woke up moments before… He’s stuck in a time loop.
With no shoes or recollection of the past, he goes on a mission to discover what the hell is going on and how to avoid the destruction of his city. This won’t be easy though, cause the more he snoops in the wrong places, the more he learns that his hometown has a lot of secrets hidden. His weird neighbors become weirder, and he can only rely on his friends, and on his highly reliable brain.
If the day repeats over and over, then how can one progress? That’s the catch: Knowledge is your key to progress in Orten. Each loop you go through, you will learn something new that will let you progress the story further. You’ll retain clues, notes, timeline events and eventually know how you can change the future in just 12 minutes on a casual Sunday.
Who are they? The Midnight Council, I mean. They seem to be the only ones that are one step in front of you. What really happened in this town 40 years ago and how do you escape the time loop and death?
Follow the clues, solve puzzles and explore the enigmatic suburb of Orten in this hand painted, intriguing, mystery adventure game!
Game Discussion
Steam User 3
This time-loop mystery is an artwork of a Swedish suburb come alive. 10/10 would loop again—gladly lost (in) time within Orten! Best free-movement Point-And-Click game ever.
Steam User 1
Very fun execution of a time loop game. There's a couple poorly clued bits but for the most part it's very well designed. My biggest critique is the jankiness of movement on flat backgrounds, but the art style is kind of required for the types of secrets the game hides.
Very clever game on the whole!
Steam User 1
Initially, it will have the vibe of being a beginner Unity programmer’s first game, which it is, and starts off seeming very very cheap, but…
It’s incredibly complex and well-layered as a curiosity-driven mystery with several characters’ schedules all interplaying with one another that is interesting enough to keep me hooked despite the cons. Very reminiscent of Majora’s Mask, complete with a timeline for each character that you fill out as you witness what each character is doing when, including branch-offs based on your influences.
In terms of cons, it’s hard to tell where ledges are sometimes because of the art style but there’s checkpoints for the sections where that matters and fall damage is pretty dang forgiving.
On Steam Deck it can occasionally crash but only after it saves your data at the end of a run so it’s not ruining the experience.
*TLDR*: In short, this game outweighs its occasionally clunky cons with its interesting complexity and it gets much less cheap-feeling over time, but it does occasionally have another quirky cheaply-made moment every now and then.
I think I’d recommend it when on sale if you’re ever in the mood for an intricate interesting time loop puzzle. I’m hooked trying to figure it all out.
Steam User 8
abow bre, guzzen har cok stor göt, vill bazza henne, men hon vill bara ha min para, vilken chagga yani.
Steam User 0
This game is the definition of an unpolished hidden gem. It has a ton of personality and style, and it is built around a Groundhog Day style time loop narrative that is not only rarely seen, but also extremely well executed.
The game has serious swag. The art style is not going to be everyone’s cup of tea, but it is incredibly unique. The character design is great, the soundtrack is limited but consistently good, and the overall vibe is excellent. Everything works together to create a strong atmosphere, and the time loop mechanic just feels great. I had to go through around 80 loops to 100% the game, and most of those loops taught me something new. Sometimes you get a new piece of lore, other times you learn how to optimize a route between two places. It’s hard to get into details without spoiling the game, so I’ll just leave it at that.
That said, the rough edges are very real. Movement is easily the weakest part of the game. It feels awkward and unpleasant, and I am sure it will push some people away early on. You can get used to it, but it never really feels good. There are also other mechanics that are simply not well executed, like combat. It is abundantly clear that programming is not the creator’s strongest suit, and I honestly think the game might have been better if those elements had been replaced entirely with simpler, narrative alternatives.
The process of getting the good ending was also frustrating without outside help. You are locked out of it early on in your playthrough, and unless I missed something, there does not seem to be any hint in the game that informs the player of this. I will hide the condition with spoiler tags, but I recommend you read it.
You need to be in a fresh save file, you can’t load checkpoints, and you can’t restart the loop. This might just be my subjective opinion, but I really think this was bad game design and could have been handled differently.
Even with these issues, I am glad I played it. I stuck with it because of its ideas, mood, and ambition. If you enjoy time loop narratives and can tolerate some jank, it is absolutely worth your time.
Steam User 0
I love this game soo much, altough i might be a little bit biased because its based on my home country lol. Its very unique and creative, andi love the similarites to real life places in sweden and this game. This is def my comfort game. I did think the game was a bit hard tho, and i dont really think i would be able to finish it without the help of youtube tutorials.
Steam User 0
Really fun and engaging but buggy. Platforming parts are really bad since controllers suck. Got stuck in floors several times. Also, reloading checkpoints on steam deck crashes the game 50% of the time. So it is a bit rough but still good enough to keep playing.