Review of 'No Time to Give Thanks' by Benji Cook

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First of all, 'No Time to Give Thanks' is an absolutely fantastic title for a game, and Benji Cook's method of advertisement (A small moving turkey in his sig accompanied by the text "Click on the Turkey") is brilliant.  The game itself is...ok.  Apart from its moderately novel premise (a thanksgiving turkey trying to escape the wrath of...giving thanks, I guess :P) it doesn't really deliver anything you haven't seen before.  But it looks nice, and it's reasonably polished, so it's worth trying out at least.

No Time to Give Thanks follows a pretty tried-and-true formula.  You perpetually run forward at an alarming rate, and have to jump over obstacles and hazards.  Your score is based on how far you get before dying.  It's simple, but historically shown to be effective, and there's not much you can screw up.  Just don't be expecting much in the way of depth.  In general, No Time provides an appropriate, albeit sometimes uneven, challenge.  Dodging gravy pits and bear traps isn't to taxing, but avoiding the game's quick hunters and tall butcher knives can be a daunting task.  Getting more than 70 or 80 feet will take some practice.

The best feature of No Time to Give Thanks is undoubtedly its graphics.  The game looks GREAT.  No, it's not Crysis (at all), but all the sprites are crisp and professional-looking, and nothing inappropriately sticks out.  In fact, I might even say that the game looks a little TOO seamless, as obstacles in the foreground have the nasty habit of blending in with the background.  There's nothing more irritating than being cleaved in 2 by a knife that was pretending to be a tree.

There's not much sound to speak of.  Just a single musical track that plays in-game (no menu music).  Composed by Ritheguardian of Newgrounds.com, the track has a nice sunny tone, and it suits the game well.  I think that Cook should have had at least SOMETHING playing on the menu, but this is a minor complaint.  Likewise, I would have liked to hear some sound effects, but I doubt that they would have noticably enhanced the gameplay.

In overall design, No Time to Give Thanks is as simple as you would expect.  There are some easy-to-understand instructions and some short credits along with the necessary "start game" button.  The main menu itself is absolutely brilliant.  Instead of simply selecting options from a list, you move your turkey around in-game to select different menus.  It's a small feature, but it's little things like this that give a game a sense of professionalism and life.  On the downside, No Time doesn't have a highscore list, something that I would think would be all but required for a score-focused game of this type.

Overall, No Time to Give Thanks (I keep wanting to type "No Time to Lose" :P) is a simple, unassuming, lighthearted game that is modestly entertaining.  It won't be cutting into your commercial gaming time, but as a simple game to play on a school computer or laptop between classes, you could do a lot worse.