Gems are something I can collect for free in game stages, and which Balan themselves will double if I complete their minigame. You feed them one kind of money in order to make a different kind of money. I also mentioned that tims want to eat, but I didn’t tell you that what you feed them is gems. The number doesn’t seem to go up much faster when tims take the other two paths either, so why should they bother? But the tims never take the second or third route – the first is easiest to slide into, so almost every tim takes that path.
Of course, after a while there is more than one elevator. There are regularly a dozen tims, piled on top of each other, stacked two or three high, bouncing up and down on an elevator to try to get to work, but unable to do so. Two of them will try to enter a slide at the same time and be stuck for a while, causing a massive traffic jam behind them. Tims get regularly jammed up at elevators. But the apparatus itself is inefficiently designed. The floor is transparent so that you can watch them work.Īll of this is work simply for the sake of work, because the only thing that is created out of this constant grind is a number that goes up, and then an occasional structural addition that theoretically enables more work to be done. Some tims are never released into the world, they simply exist underground, turning a giant wheel. There are little elevators that take them up into simple rube goldberg machines, which drop them through a series of gates and slides, before depositing them back on the ground to start the process over again. The sole function of most of these structures is to enable more tims to do more work. So that’s what I meant by throwing them onto the gears of capitalism.Īs your number goes up – and by the way it’s not clear what this number represents, but let’s say it’s money – more structures unlock. To make that number go up faster, you can pick up your tims and toss them into this turnstyle, which eventually makes them push it. next to that is a long black signboard that flips and makes a big clacking sound as numbers go up. The other thing they can be compelled to do is work, which is what they spend most of their time doing.Īt the start of the game, the only real structure in the island is a Conan the Barbarian-like turnstyle that has the appearance of a gear. They have distinguishing markings like stripes or different cute ears and stuff like that, but functionally they all want to do the same two things: eat, and procreate. Tims are little creatures that hatch from eggs, and live on the isle o’ tims, which is your hub world. I figured I’d expand on what I meant by that.
Two weeks ago, during our best games of 2021 podcast, I made an offhand remark about Balan Wonderworld, a game in which you have an economy based on small creatures called tims, which you literally throw onto the gears of capitalism. "isle o tims" by Brandon Sheffield (36:04) The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles (24:23) Umurangi Generation: Special Edition (20:01)įinal Fantasy VII: Remake – Intergrade (22:29) Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury (11:19)Įl Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron (12:24) Plus the essay “isle o tims” by Brandon Sheffield, exploring Balan Wonderworld as a capitalism allegory. It’s not over yet! Listen to Tim and Brandon mention honorables from last year that didn’t make it on the Insert Credit Top 21 of 2021 list. Your browser does not support the audio element.
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