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https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/no_time_to_explain_cover.jpg
As expected, actual game looks more like this.

"I am you from the future! There's no time to explain! Follow me to— OH CHRIST! AHHHH!"
Future You

No Time To Explain is a platformer created by tinyBuild, in which You must rescue your future self who barges in while you're dancing, tells you to come with him, and then gets captured by a giant crab using a beam cannon. Things only get weirder from there as You go throughout several strange worlds and meet alternate versions of You, whom you must team up with to save the world.

Currently has two seasons in its full release on Steam, which received an Updated Re-release in 2015.


This work provides examples of:

  • The Ace: The Most Popular Guy in the World. He uses a shotgun, wears a football helmet, shouts in an extremely deep voice, and his introduction involves hitting Present You off a cliff with an SUV. The billboard says that he's an astronaut, racecar driver, president, bad dude, stuntman, player... pretty much everything anyone wants to be.
  • Advancing Boss of Doom: Evil You's third fight has him chasing Future You in a Robotnik-esque death machine.
  • And Now for Someone Completely Different: A lot of the levels have you controlling a different You than Present You.
  • Art Course: One world takes place in a white void, where the player has to shoot ink everywhere in order to find their platforms. Each level in this world also contains a small snippet explaining why video games are art, parodying the sentiment with increasingly strict, random, or outright pretentious arguments.
  • Beard of Evil: Evil You has a thin beard and a goatee.
  • Beam-O-War: Done against the mole boss and Evil You's fourth fight.
  • BFG: With such hilarious recoil it doubles as a jetpack.
  • Big Bad: Evil You is the one who sent the giant crab to attack the future self of the protagonist, and once he is freed in the second act, causes all sorts of chaos and tries to kill all the versions of You and everyone else becuase he's evil, requiring the selves of You to team up and stop him.
  • Black Comedy: One would probably pity Future You if one wasn't so busy laughing at his misfortune.
  • Bloody Hilarious: Pretty much everything that comes out of your future self's mouth.
  • Book Ends: The story begins with Future You being kidnapped by a Giant Enemy Crab and ends with Evil You being kidnapped by that same crab.
  • Butt-Monkey: Almost every version of You has it real rough: you keep crashing into eachothers houses, continously get kidnapped and are heavily wounded throughout the chase and even if that somehow doesn't kill them, its usually an explosion or the Evil You doing them in instead.
  • Card-Carrying Villain: Evil You, who outright gives his motive for causing chaos and trying to kill the heroes as "because I’m eeeevil". Among other things, he thinks Hitler is "an alright guy."
  • Character Catchphrase:
  • Checkpoint Starvation: Why the Caves are so hard.
  • Clone Degeneration: Evil You is an evil clone of Present You who was released at the end of the Caves, and Evil You creates a malformed "Reject Clone" in the Castle Intermission stage.
  • Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Present You wears a shirt and pants, but five Future Yous wear red, orange, green, blue, and purple spandex. The red one interacts with Present You the most.
  • Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: Taken up to eleven by the first boss, where there is no penalty whatsoever for getting hit. Averted in the Remastered version by adding a lives system on all bosses and the dinosaur shooter segment.
  • Double Jump: When you fuse with The Most Famous Guy In The World, his shotgun can provide an extra boost of recoil.
  • Distressed Dude: You'd think your future self would know a bit more about escaping, given what you're doing to rescue him.
  • Evil Laugh: Evil You does this when he's not plotting to do evil things.
  • Evil Twin: Evil You is...well, pretty much just an evil version of you.
  • Exactly What It Says on the Tin: The Most Famous Guy In The World, one of the Future Yous.
  • Fusion Dance: Of Present You and The Most Famous Guy In The World so that the beam cannon/shotgun combo can break into Evil You's castle.
    Present You: I hate this ide-
    TMFGITW: I HATE YOU!
  • Giant Enemy Crab: The game starts off with your future self attempting to warn you about... something, only to get grabbed by a giant crab that bursts through the wall. Said crab is also what finishes off Evil You, the very one who sent it in the first place.
  • Generic Doomsday Villain: Evil You is somewhat of a parody. He causes chaos and wants to kill all the versions of You, and eventually everyone... because he's evil. He has no motive or personality outside of being evil.
    "I'll kill you all 'till I'm the only one left! I'll kill everyone on earth! Because I'm eeeeevil! AHAHAHA!
  • Hard Levels, Easy Bosses: While the bosses are classic platformer bosses who would normally be quite hard, your character will respawn instantly after being hit, so most of the boss fights are more of a spectacle than a straight challenge. Some of them, particularly in Season 2, are capable of causing a Puzzle Reset when you get killed, though. The remastered version changes how respawning works during boss fights, however: you get three extra lives and fire/acid hazards no longer cause the level to reset.
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: Evil You is ultimately defeated by his own Giant Enemy Crab.
  • I'm a Humanitarian: Present You eats Delicious Muffin You in Candy Land's intro.
  • Incendiary Exponent: Blue Spandex Future You suggests a helicopter full of lava to break into Evil You's castle.
  • Kick the Dog: Evil You explicitly says this during the chase level.
    Evil You: I can't wait to get home to kick some dogs around!
  • Karmic Death: Evil You's eventual fate — he gets snatched up and carried off by the Giant Enemy Crab that he sent after you in the very first level. If Future You's reaction is anything to go by, it's a very painful experience.
  • Level Ate: One level is set in a world made entirely out of desserts, chocolate and other treats, complete with a gingerbread house and cake slices that fatten You up and allow you to roll off cliffs.
  • Minimalist Cast: There's you... and you... and you.
  • No Time to Explain: About the only thing the game explains to you is your controls (via a tutorial overlay at the top of the screen). Everything else, it's up to you to figure out.
  • Obvious Rule Patch: You can fly over a lot of the earlier levels and just drop down onto the exit. Later levels hide hats up there, while also blocking off the exit with more walls.
  • One-Hit-Point Wonder: Thankfully, you respawn on the last hazard-free tile you touched.
    • Unless you die of fire, acid, or some sets of spikes, which causes a Puzzle Reset.
  • Only Sane Man: Present You, and possibly The Most Popular Guy in the World. All the other Yous are either varying degrees of self-endangeringly stupid or criminally insane.
  • Overdrawn at the Blood Bank: Future You tends to gush out gallons upon gallons of blood from whatever caught him. He lampshades it a few times.
  • Palette Swap: Evil You is Present You with a black shirt and a beard/goatee combo.
  • Power-Up Food: Cake makes Present You fat and capable of rolling off cliffs (and surviving a hit from spikes), but reduces his jump/beamjump height and makes him slower.
  • Recoil Boost: The primary mechanic of the game is using your weapon's recoil in combination with your jumps to maneuver past obstacles to reach the exit.
  • Recoiled Across the Room: This (and Recoil Boost) are a primary game mechanic, courtesy of the protagonist's BFG.
  • Recurring Boss: Evil You and his various machines serve as all of the boss fights in the second half of the game.
  • Set Right What Once Went Wrong: Built up, but ultimately averted. The real problem is stopping the Evil You that managed to break out of his timeline and massacare all the other yous.
  • Spot the Imposter: The ending has two of Future You having trouble to guessing which of you is Evil You.
  • Take That, Audience!: The climactic "artsy level" just before The Very Definitely Final Dungeon is a rather cutting jab at proponents of the "games as art" debate. Future You breaks into Artistic You's house and asks if games are art, and a series of 8-bit Yous reply with comments like "games are art if they're made today but use NES graphics" or "games are art if there's a hidden meaning you read about on the message boards two months later". It's also a specific parody of The Unfinished Swan... a year before that game was released.
  • Timey-Wimey Ball: The time travel seems to work mostly off of Rule of Funny.
  • Unexpected Gameplay Change: The dinosaur shoot-'em-up.
  • Unintentionally Unwinnable:
    • In the original flash game it's quite possible to leave your house without the rocket-thingy. It's not possible to get back in, nor to get past the next house. Luckily, at this point, you're only about five seconds into the game.
    • Falling into the pit in the mole boss's first phase as he's about to fire his lasers at you renders hitting him with his eye beams impossible.
  • Video-Game Lives: Averted at most points, but comes into play during the boss battles in the remastered version.
  • Wave-Motion Gun: The beam cannon launches a massive lazer to the point you can use it as a jetpack.
  • Weaponized Exhaust: inverted; you're armed with an infinite-ammo BFG that has such crazy recoil you can use it as a jetpack.
  • Wham Line: "I am you from the EVIL future."
  • Womb Level: One level has Future You send Present You into Past You's body to prevent Evil You from giving him diabetes.

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