“And yet it hurt” by Daniël Haazen.
“[A] game about a kid who lived a peaceful and happy life with two lovely parents. All was well, until that fateful day when the tower bell rang. Since that day, this kid had only one purpose in life: Revenge. Go on an adventure, solve puzzles, fight enemies, all in Notepad!”
“And yet it hurt” is a truly innovative adventure game, as you play it completely inside an altered version of the Notepad(2) program. By dragging text files, which resemble certain rooms and places, into it, you can move from one space to another. Of course, some of the ASCII art environments have to be unlocked first and some spaces can only be discovered when you come from a directly connected place.
But it is not only this technical feature what makes “And yet it hurt” special, it is also the puzzle design. In its best moments, the adventure is just as brilliant as the amazing “Baba Is You”, as the puzzles only make sense in this unique context. For example, figuring out how to open the door to the Skeleton palace or helping an old lady to move from one village to another would feel completely different in a classic point and click adventure, but with the help of the Notepad interface some fresh solutions are possible. I do not want to spoil too much, though – you will know what I mean when you play it yourself.
As “And yet it hurt” is an adventure about a child which is searching revenge for the killing of its parents, you will also encounter a time-based fighting system. By typing you can ‘fill’ certain marks in the game, allowing you to attack monsters and animals. However, pressing the backspace key in such marks will help you dodge their attacks. The time span can be pretty short, though, so it is important that you either learn how to masterfully fight, or you buy upgrades for your armor by gaining money through solving sidequests. A bit of both cannot hurt, as the boss fights can be quite tough. [PLAY]
