Shipwrecked 64 - Little Timmy's Big Adventure

A game so good (and not good) that I had to write a whole article about it. I don’t own this game on Steam, so I can’t write a review there (I used Family Share, thanks Steam!). Instead, I will use my website!

Some disclaimers before I begin;

1. I AM NOT A GAME OR ARG DEVELOPER. I have dabbled in it a little bit, but as far as making an actual product, I have not done so (yet?). You are welcome to disregard any of my assessments here as “OPINION-ONLY”. 
2. I LIKE THIS GAME. I’m obviously about to explain why, but if you’re the game dev (Squeaks D'Corgeh) and you’re reading this, I LIKED YOUR GAME and thank you for making it. You should keep making games, you’re good at it!
3. I PLAYED THIS GAME ON A WIDESCREEN. Yes, that’s right, I play on widescreen. And I played a game intended for a 16:9 screen on a widescreen. More about that later. 
4. Images for this review are from the Broadside Wiki, and from this Steam guide, because I’m lazy and don’t want to restart the game.

And a very special note:

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS. FOR THE WHOLE GAME. THE ENTIRE THING. INCLUDING (some) ADJACENT LORE AND TIDBITS. 

Christmas Morning, 1997

Little Timmy opens a suspiciously Nintendo 64 cartridge shaped gift from his stepmother. It’s a game called Shipwrecked 64.

Unassumingly, Little Timmy plugs the game into his Nintendo 64, booting up the game to see..

Now, I’m not Little Timmy on Christmas Morning in 1997. It’s 2024, and this is a game on Steam; I know something’s up. I’m also playing this with my friends, two of whom have already played the game before, so I’m not completely in the dark (yet).

My first impression of the game was quite positive! I grew up on Unfiction and reading old creepypastas, so the concept of a playable 90s-style creepypasta had me hooked. The game’s atmosphere, for lack of a better term, reeked - it felt like there was an oppressive haze across the whole game. For this style of game, that worked great, and really sold the creepypasta elements of the game. It was easy to imagine playing it one evening in 1997 on an old CRT, completely oblivious to what’s to come.

I’d also like to comment on the music here; for the most part, the music is really well done! The first part of the game absolutely feels like a strange, surreal kind of game that has been lacking from the horror genre for a while, and the music really helps.

I started with That Fucking Otter That I Hate’s minigame.

Her minigame is quite simple; walk around and collect coconuts while she follows you.



It’s uncomfortable to say the least. I was not a fan of her to begin with, but it gets worse. So, so much worse.

I finished the 2023 version of the game very quickly. There were not many secrets to be found (as far as I know), but what I did find was that the game genuinely felt eerie, like something was very truly wrong. I completed That Stupid Bird That I Hate’s (by the way, I’m calling them these for reasons you’ll understand later - I don’t hate the character design by any means) minigame and I am The Walrus’ as well, leading to the boat minigame.

The boat minigame was very, very strange. There’s a creature that follows you that sounds like it’s trying to speak to you, and I’m not a fan. I eventually finished this minigame, and finished out the 2023 version of the game fairly shortly after (yes, I got the bad ending. I don’t care, I don’t want to hear it).

Now, I was feeling cocky. I was thinking to myself, “This is silly. Nothing bad has happened so far, surely this cannot be as bad as I was told.”



Boy was I fucking wrong.

Little Timmy leaves Kansas

For those “not in the know”, this game has two modes; one is the 2023 version of the game, “restored” to a playable condition. It contains very few secrets, and is intended to be a playable (and winnable) game. It has the atmosphere and gameplay of a N64 game (mostly), and can be completed very easily.

You are not supposed to complete the game properly. It’s the one thing you’re not supposed to do in this game. I did not know this, and had I not been told, I would have probably kept trying to win the minigames instead of immediately beating the snot out of Olive to decrease the time and finish the minigame.

From here on, things get crazy. I won’t talk about the actual gameplay of the game too much, beyond a few things:

First, Mozart cyphers suck. I like them conceptually; they’re quite fun for larger-scale ARGs, and have been used before to great effect. However, in this instance, they seem to only serve as a way to slow down the gameplay a bit. I was not a fan of them personally. Little Timmy could not solve these.

Second, the color codes are really cool. Assigning a number to a color and then using that code going forward in the game is a neat concept, and I was a fan of the fact that you aren’t given all the colors until later. It helped to give a sense of progression, and was really rewarding when you figured it out yourself.

Third, if you’re going to really try, make sure you have a notebook. Here’s mine:

You won’t be able to solve some of the puzzles without it, I promise. It helps to keep track of the characters - that will be important as well, as it provides useful context for some of what happens later.

Layer 2 is just as unnerving as the first layers, albeit clearly less safe. Bits and pieces of information are scattered about, and people are adamant that you should not keep going. It’s pretty simple at this point, and you’ll find yourself moving through the puzzles fairly easily. During Layer 2, if it isn’t immediately clear that something is very wrong, you should probably get your eyes checked. Tiny pieces of the story have begun appearing, and it’s a masterfully small amount. This was what convinced me to keep playing; Squeaks clearly understood that it’s better to give a little than a lot.

Layer 3 is where it starts to get really crazy. 

It’s going down, I’m yelling timber

I like Layer 3. Overall, it definitely brings a creepy vibe to the game that delivers on the suspense of the first two parts. I was hoping the game would pick up, and it certainly did. I was excited at the prospect of knowing more about what had happened.

And boy, did they tell me what happened. The first area is the Land of Darkness, a truly spooky unlit area full of secrets and suffering. These are the first rooms where you can really see what’s happening, where the truth about the characters is first brought to light. A twisted, malformed, terrifying explanation for something horrible that happened long ago. The delivery is perfect. It feels like you’re seeing something that you shouldn’t. It feels like the things that happened have weight and impact.

This is a game about suffering, pure and simple. The victims suffered, the developers suffered, even Mark (fuck Mark) suffered. It’s nothing to scoff at; the story is SAD. Everything that happens to the people in this story is sad.

From my understanding, this game borrows a lot from the Treasure Island series, namely, having its events take place on a remote island (to allow better worldbuilding). I like this a lot, it’s a good setting for the events of the past. This will be important later.

Once you leave the Land of Darkness, you’ll be in the Plaza. FUCK the Plaza.

Stumbler around in the dark

The plaza is great lore-wise. It talks a lot about what happened, and why the game is like this. To my surprise, the game is not haunted, per se - instead, it’s more of a confessional. The notes scattered about reinforce this, and the developer Connor states that it’s intended to be a debug area in one of the hidden tapes.

Connor tells the story via a series of notes hidden around the Plaza. A hard drive full of incriminating evidence. Murders. Experiments. The whole 9 yards. This game paints a grim picture of a corporate cover up, an unlucky developer, and a violent end (and beginning) for quite a few people.

Unfortunately, this is where my gripes with the game begin, as this is where we first meet the Dwellers.

“What is a Dweller?” You may ask. Don’t! Don’t ask. (I'll talk about this in a bit.)

The plaza is the last part of Layer 3. It only gets weirder from here, but let’s go over the story so far. 

Can You Really Call This A Remote Island Resort, I Didn’t Receive A Mint On My Pillow Or Anything

Welcome back to Treasure Island! Just kidding, it’s not the same, it’s better because it’s not related to D*sney.

The Story So Far starts, effectively, in 1917. A man named Rex Broadside is born, setting into motion the chain of events that leads to the eventual game. Long story short, he ends up making and accidentally selling a very popular character named Blot. This causes MANY problems.

Eventually, after much ado about many things, Rex Broadside dies. This sets in motion the Starling program, which is, effectively, magic rocks. These magic rocks are made out of GOOP, for some reason, and it spreads to other things, infecting them and making them also goop. At some point, Broadside Animation used the Magic Goop Rocks to bring Rex back to life, turning him into the first starling. Starlings are made without skin, so instead they used a mascot costume to “protect the Starling from infection”; thus, in a twisted fate of irony, he is reborn as the very creation he lost control of.

Why did they bring him back to life? Simple! Capitalism. Broadside believed they could no longer compete with Disney without Rex and his creations (mostly, his name value), so they tried to bring him back to life. He lives in perpetual agony, etc.

Anyway, in their genius, they said “Wow, this worked great! Let’s do it again FOUR TIMES.” The first was a guy named Brandon - he died from a fentanyl overdose. _{bro was fent leaning in the bucky costume}

Brandon then killed 3 more people. If this is sounding familiar (see the image at the start of this review), it should. They all melted into a fun and happy meat pile, then turned into Starlings, which is kind of why we’re in this situation now, because those Starlings ended up causing a stampede and closing the park. This whole incident, the murders, and the Starling project were all covered up.

Huge bummer. I skipped a lot of facts, but that's the summary.

Dwellers in the Dark

I absolutely hate the Dwellers. Dwellers are genuinely one of the hardest enemies I’ve dealt with in a game. My friend legitimately thought I was just getting unlucky with how many spawned right on my head. The first part of the game was a breeze, but once I hit layer 4 it was non-stop. I was still nervous around them during the aquarium zone, but man once you hit the final part of the game they just become a nuisance. It hinders an otherwise really solid experience, and slows down what is otherwise a really well-paced game.

These guys SUCK. While they have a predictable AI making it easy to avoid them, they will become the bane of your existence for the rest of this game. They have not one but TWO jumpscares, one when they see you and one when they catch you. They are horrifying. What these things are is still unclear to me - I know they are based on the Starlings, but I’m not sure if they’re…ghosts?...data remnants?...something more sinister? It’s not clear what they are, honestly.

It’s frustrating, because I really like this game, but I would struggle to suggest it to anyone who is not familiar with this genre. I was able to work through it, but it definitely struggled to keep my attention during the last segments of the game. When you’re trying to solve a puzzle while under constant duress, it can, of course, get very stressful. Couple that with the complexity of the puzzles, and you’ve got a very difficult segment to push through. 

Let’s Wrap It Up: The GOOD

1. The atmosphere is incredible. It genuinely feels like a Nintendo 64 game, and really stands out on its own as a good ARG. 
2. The sound design is TREMENDOUS. It would be a crime to not mention it. The sounds of the Dwellers are properly scary, both the Idle and Chase sounds. If I’m not mistaken, The Conet Project was also used, which I’m sure Wilco would have something to say about. Nevertheless, the sound design properly matches the game, and is really impressive.
3. Some of the puzzles are really good, and I’m a big fan of having not-so-obvious clues and puzzles in games like this. Some clues, on the other hand, are very obvious - a balance has yet to be struck.
4. The map design is really solid. It has the same look as an in-development N64 game, which is obviously the intention. Some walls are actually hidden doors, and are marked by a texture glitch, which looks really cool.
5. Some of the platforming is a little jank, but sprint jumping fixes most of these issues. :)
6. Some of the HTML websites are really cool! I like finding clues on a website, especially in-universe ones. 

Let’s Wrap It Up: The meh?

1. Youtube and Dropbox links. I understand that the intention is that the game has been “restored” by the developers, but something about this doesn’t sit right with me. It would have been better to self-host some of the puzzle links and videos (one of them is!) instead of hosting them publicly. This has some bandwidth limitations though, so I understand it would be difficult. My main complaint with this is archiving purposes - if the Dropbox link or Youtube link is removed or lost, or taken down, you lose a key to solving the puzzle. It’s just not good from a longevity standpoint. 
2. The dwellers. Please remove at least one of them from the Husk segment of the game, or make it so they can’t immediately jump you when walking through a door. They are evil creatures. 
3. Sometimes stumbling around in the dark is not fun - I struggled with the Plaza computer puzzle, as I couldn’t really remember where all the computers were. I was able to get it done, but it took a while.
4. I would love to know what the Dwellers are? I know they’re based on the Starlings, but they seem to be more than that. 
5. Some of the effects are broken on widescreen, including some of the atmospheric parts of the Dwellers.

TL;DR I do not think that Little Timmy could have played this game in 1997, but I am glad I got to play it in 2024.

8.5/10.