A Hat In Time was released back in 2017 after a successful Kickstarter campaign. Some of the best games came from Kickstarter, and A Hat In Time is a credit to Kickstarter as a whole. I first discovered it through another Kickstarter game, Tunche. Tunche is in a shared universe with Hat Kid and her story continues in that game.
In A Hat In Time, you play for an adorable little girl known only as Hat Kid. Hat Kid starts the game in her spaceship flying through space. Our story begins when the evil Mafia of Cooks demands she pays them a fee to fly past their planet. Hat Kid refuses, leading to an altercation in which she loses all of her timepieces, the magical devices that fuel her ship. You get to help Hat Kid travel around the world, beating up bad guys and recovering timepieces. There are four unique “worlds” to explore (technically it’s different areas in the same world: Mafia of Cooks, Deadbird Studios, Subcon Forest, and Alpine Skylines.
There are two Kickstarter backer characters that appear in the game. (While there are more spots than two taken in the character insertion tier on the Kickstarter page, it’s possible that the other backers didn’t return their survey answers or that they’re in the game and we just don’t know who they are.) One is a robot and the other is this cute Mexican girl I posted above. They can be found behind glass in the train station of the final DLC. It’s a shame that we don’t get to talk to them as Hat Kid. There are so many cat NPC’s in the DLC, all similar to each other, I think almost all players agree that it would have been nice to hear these two unique characters talk to Hat Kid. If readers wonder why I’m devoting so much time talking about these two NPC’s, it’s because no other gaming site has ever mentioned them, and I believe we owe it to the backers and their NPC’s to acknowledge them.
One of the things I love most about A Hat In Time is the diversity of characters, from the terrifying Vanessa to the misguided Mustache Girl to the kind Cooking Cat. With the robot and the Mexican girl, it is fascinating to know that there are still characters that most players haven’t discovered. While these two characters should definitely have gotten dialogue, there’s always hope that they might be important in a sequel. Looking at you, Gears For Breakfast!
Meanwhile, the A Hat In Time universe is about to become much bigger with the release of Tunche.
