I often feel compelled to beeline my way through games--I'll do plenty of optional quests, but rarely do I find myself slowing down to take in the sights or just goof around. It's pedal to the metal at all times. My Arms Are Longer Now, which was featured in today's Nintendo Indie World stream, is the rare game to break me out of that compulsion.
A demo was recently released for My Arms Are Longer Now, and despite consisting of just the game's opening level, I spent much longer with it than I would have expected. I often treat demos as a quick taste to get an impression of something before moving on, especially during Next Fests. In the case of My Arms Are Longer Now's demo, I did everything I could and relished in messing around, whether or not doing so connected to any actual objective.
My Arms Are Longer Now is a comedic adventure game of sorts. You control an arm that can extend to unimaginable and unsettling lengths and are tasked with a variety of objectives. In its first level, you ultimately need to steal a briefcase, though doing so requires you to gain access to the right train car, avoid a guard, pickpocket the right passengers, and so on. Along the way, you can steal most everything else that isn't nailed down, slap bystanders around, and generally engage in hijinks.
What makes this so enjoyable is the voice cast, which is made up of dozens of Australian comedians (including Millie Holten, who appeared in the Indie World stream--now's a great time to check out her comedy group's Descent series). The juxtaposition of this disgustingly long arm and these passengers' subdued reactions to the crimes that it commits were consistently hilarious, and I wanted to poke and prod at every element on the train to be sure I got to experience everything the game allowed me to do.
Sometimes that led to amusing discoveries--be sure you get up to the roof and explore the full length of the train to see what awaits--while other times my exploration led me nowhere. But I realized partway through the demo that I was having a great time investigating everything, in a way I often don't allow myself to because I'm always in a rush to move on to whatever is next. It's a testament to the silliness of the world Toot Games is putting together here that I was able to just chill out and appreciate the world I was in.
My Arms Are Longer Now releases on March 11, 2027 for both Switch and Switch 2, as well as PC. The Steam demo is still available and well worth checking out.