Fan made horror games have been present on the internet for many years and usually these projects are lovely, but very small in scope and playtime. That is not the case with Around the Clock at Bikini Bottom. This is a massive project that was developed over multiple years by a small team. And the end result is absolutely fantastic. Around the Clock tells the story of Bikini Bottom being invaded by Jellyfish aliens or the Jelliens as they are called. They make evil clones of all the inhabitants and it is up to Spongebob and his friends to save the day. You do this by playing through many missions as the different characters and the cool thing about this is that each mission feels very unique and drastically different than the previous one.
For one particular mission you need to sneak past various guards and distract them by using objects in the environment. While other missions have you collect 100 pots of Mayo at a supermarket while avoiding the guards in a style that is reminiscent of Pac Man or Dark Deception. There are missions in the style of FNAF where you have to micromanage various areas in a fast food restaurant and even some homages to Slender where you need to collect 8 parts of a flamethrower while being chased by an angry robot. Each level offers something new and fresh and presents all the characters from the show you know and love.
The developers really put a lot of love in this title and it shows. There are a ton of Easter eggs and if you take your time to explore some of the areas you will see just how much attention to detail was put into many of these environments. That would be my only critique: it's that too many times the pacing is too frantic to where I could not fully enjoy all the attention and detail that the developers put into it. For some areas it would have been better to have the first few minutes be a bit calm and slow paced so you really can soak in the terrific environments. There are also many hidden collectables and secrets to discover and all in all this game puts some full priced games even to shame. So strap in and put on your favorite pants, because we are going on a crazy adventure!

You can download Around the Clock at Bikini Bottom for free here!
https://dave-microwaves-games.itch.io/around-the-clock-at-bikini-bottom

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