Justin Wack and the Big Time Hack Review – Indie Game

Let’s get started on this Justin Wack and the Big Time Hack review.

What is Justin Wack and the Big Time Hack?

Justin Wack and the Big Time Hack is a 2D point-and-click adventure game. You play as several different characters, but mainly Justin Wack, who travels through time. There is lots of silliness, throwbacks, chaos, relationship stuff, and robots.

Can you make it back to your proper time and reunite with your girlfriend?

Who Makes Justin Wack and the Big Time Hack?

Justin Wack and the Big Time Hack is made by WarmKitten. They are a small team of 3 indie developers located in Stockholm, Sweden. Pontus Wittenmark is the main developer who has worked in game development and code teaching for many years. Justin Wack is their first game.

Justin Wack and the Big Time Hack was a successful Kickstarter.

Which Platforms is Justin Wack and the Big Time Hack On?

Justin Wack and the Big Time Hack is available on Steam.

Justin Wack and the Big Time Hack Controls

The controllers in Justin Wack and the Big Time Hack are extremely easy. You point and you click. This is an adventure game that requires ZERO keyboard input. (although you can hit space to see which items you can interact with). You can also just hover around the screen and items you can interact with have a hand, gear, or eyeball when you float over the top of them. Nice and simple.

The inventory menu is in the top right. You can drag and drop the items from that menu to the screen to interact with something in the main window or with other items in the inventory. This is really intuitive, without issues, and makes for a great control experience.

Justin Wack and the Big Time Hack Review Gameplay

Justin Wack follows the classic adventure game format. You play as Justin an IT Admin who isn’t having the greatest time. He just had a big fight with his girlfriend, Julia, and then there was a crazy microwave incident that opened a time travel portal to the time of dinosaurs. Caveman Kloot jumped through the same portal and is currently exploring modern times while Justin is stuck in the past.The worst part is that QT-48, a psychotic robot that tracks down rogue time travelers, is chasing you all for breaking the rules of time travel.

You get to play as all 3 main characters as your progress through the story – Justin, Kloot, and Julia.  You will also progress through various past, present, and future times as well.

Justin Wack is an extremely funny point-and-click adventure game that has tons of easter eggs for fans of Adventure games and geek culture – the Maniac Mansion poster by hint giver Daela to an entire sequence quoting the 1960’s TV show The Prisoner, to playing a Zork copycat on an old computer,  mentions of Guybrush, a TARDIS, to a brief nod mention of Stugan (A Swedish Game accelerator). Just for a brief example. There are so so many more. All these Easter Eggs are just fabulous and I am sure there are many more that went over my head. Many people who play adventure games have been playing them since the 80s, so the various pop culture references are always a little smile nostalgia moment. They were pretty frequent here.

The entire game has English voice acting that has some pretty great British accents. QT-48 sounds like a deranged, evil Sean Conery and it really works. There is some subtle custom background music that reminds me of elevator music and isn’t overly noticeable one way or another. It doesn’t distract from the game. The graphics are a cute, bright, and fun 2D while maintaining a clear art style that looks quite good.

There are frequently LONG detailed animated sequences. At times it almost felt like I was watching a movie and occasionally participating, especially early on. This helps to establish a back story and character development. Later on in the game, puzzle solving became more important, but if you like skipping animated story scenes, this game may not be for you as it is a pretty prominent part throughout.

Justin Wack uses intuitive gameplay mechanics that make the game really fun to play. All too often games make things like running slow, inventory management, or returning to one specific room or location to make things happen between characters or time periods as part of the game or challenge.

Not here. You can fast travel through time by clicking on the appropriate animal in your Inventory. You can quickly transfer inventory items between characters by dragging them to the profile photo icons. You move at a reasonably quick pace. You can skip the dialog by clicking the mouse again. This well-designed UI removes those annoying “not fun game” hurdles and allows you to focus on the main goal here – solving puzzles.

There are lots and lots of puzzles in this game. Most of them require you to find the right items and combine them in the right way or at the right time. Several puzzles require you to complete something as one character before you can advance the storyline of a different character.

In old school adventure days, you would get stuck, feel you had exhausted all possible choices, save the game, think about it while cooking dinner or driving, have some crazy idea come to you and load the game back up. The same thing applies here. There are no on-screen logic puzzles like sliding blocks or word games. There are also a few quiz-type puzzles that will require you to search out the answer and choose the correct one from multiple choice to advance. Everything else here will require finding items and thinking outside the box about how to combine them to solve the problems you have. For example – Can you use coffee to wake the sleeping character? Nope too easy. An Alarm clock? How would I make that?

Thankfully there is a journal in your inventory that helps keep you on track and tells you what it is you need to be focusing on to advance. There is also a hint system that you can use that will help point you to the next step or provide you a link to their Discord channel if you are really stuck.

I ran into exactly zero bugs on this playthrough, which these days is saying a lot. Everything just worked. Kudos game devs.

Who Will Enjoy Playing Justin Wack and the Big Time Hack?

There is no official rating on Justin Wack and the Big Time Hack. There are some sci-fi themes, and a few more adult concepts ( like pixelated nakedness), dead aliens, and alcohol consumption. I would expect it would be T for Teen. If you like indie games, point-and-click adventure games, and puzzle-solving with a good story then you will like Justin Wack and the Big Time Hack.

What Games are similar to Justin Wack and the Big Time Hack?

This game could easily be from earlier 90’s adventure games like Maniac Mansion, Day of the Tentacle, Or Secret of Monkey Island. More recent similar indie adventure games would be Nine Noir Lives and Whateverland.

How long is Justin Wack and the Big Time Hack?

The entire game took me about 13 hours to play. I missed one achievement, but it looks like many have missed that one. It only required one play-through, so this is a pretty decent length for an adventure game. Many of the puzzles require truly out-of-the-box thinking or combining random items. Many times you will have missed picking the item up and it can add to the total playtime while you explore locations again.

Final Thoughts On Justin Wack and the Big Time Hack Review.