The Pedestrian Review: Jaywalking Our Way Home
To navigate the world, players not only control the stick figure, but they also interact with the different panels that make up the game. The developers call it a node-based system where you have to connect and rearrange different signs in the world in order to solve a puzzle.
An embed of the game trailer from YouTube.
If you took the time to watch it, I think you'll understand why I was hooked. The game's mechanics are so fascinating and that soundtrack is chefs kiss. The idea of The Pedestrian is that you're a stick figure solving puzzles to make it to an undetermined destination. Along the way, the player starts to also interact with the real world to solve the different puzzles so that you can move on. I was so interested in how the game handled it's platforming that I knew we would have to play it.
The Pedestrian takes an interesting concept and a great soundtrack and almost nails it. Overall, I really enjoyed the game. It definitely missed some stops for me, but I'm really glad I had the chance to play it. It's without a doubt one of the most creative games that I've played recently.
Image of the game’s logo “The Pedestrian” with a stick figure running across the top of the logo.
The Mechanics
As explained above, the main character of the game is a small stick figure attempted to make it through a city that reminded me of New York. You begin with simple tasks, find a way to get through a door or find a plug that will open up a new path, and the game gets progressively more difficult.
To navigate the world, players not only control the stick figure, but they also interact with the different panels that make up the game. The devs call it a node-based system where you have to connect and rearrange different signs in the world in order to solve a puzzle.
A GIF of the game from the Press Kit. A gif of the node-based gameplay mechanic. It shows the player moving around panels and then the stick figure climbing a ladder to solve a puzzle.
To figure out the puzzles, players have to move around the panels so that the stick figure can find the path that will lead them to the next area. Sometimes, this looks like layering different panels so that the figure can essentially use the panel like a door. My favorite parts were when the panels had direct influences on the environment that made up the background. Late in the game, the panels start to connect different sources of electricity so that different blocks in the level move and allow the player to connect panels in ways that weren't available before.
The developers add in a few different game mechanics, and this is where the game can struggle at times. About halfway through the game, the developers added in new mechanics without really offering any kind of tutorial for how it worked. It was pretty frustrating at times trying to figure out how the new mechanic actually worked and it caused me to have to reset puzzles that I was working on because I wasn't using it correctly. This happened at the end of the game as well. But we'll talk more about that in the end of the review.
As mentioned above, The Pedestrian adds in a few different game mechanics over the course of the experience. At the beginning of the game, the new mechanics are explained, or at least easier to figure out. You pick up an item and plug it in to what looks like a GameBoy screen and it turns out to be a battery that opens a door, for instance. However, as the game progresses, new mechanics continue to be introduce, but the tutorials do not continue with the same kind of depth. The game begins to rely on the player to just figure out what to do next. While I appreciate that the devs trusted me to do so, in a puzzle game that's been largely based on how mechanics work together, it was more frustrating than fun to figure out the new additions on my own. I'll go into this a little more in the spoilers section at the bottom.
The Music
Logan Hayes composed a soundtrack that I consistently wanted more of. The music sometimes felt like it would quickly fade away, which I was a little disappointed with. Hayes' soundtrack brought a sense of wonder, but also sometimes a sense of sorrow or disappointment at times. It helped add to the atmosphere and I was always sad when I noticed that it had stopped playing. The scenes where you ride the subway to transition to the next level always gave a rush of excitement and a sort of sadness that's hard to describe. The OST has a jazz like quality that has it added to my rotation of music to listen to throughout the week. You can check it out on Bandcamp here:
My Rating
An embed of the Pedestrian soundtrack that you can find on Bandcamp
At this point, we're going to get into some spoilers, so I'll be giving my overall rating here. I really enjoyed The Pedestrian. I'm glad that it ended up being a successful Kickstarter project, but I think that the ending of the game struggled to find it's way. This puzzle platformer is definitely one of the most creative games that I have played recently and I'm thankful for the chat members who suggested it to me.
My rating: 7/10
SPOILERS BELOW!
A screenshot of the game from the Press Kit. Shows panels on a lattice with lines connecting them.
The Struggle
ENDGAME SPOILERS BELOW!
While players could likely figure out some of the midgame mechanics fairly easily, it became frustrating towards the end of the game. The last act of The Pedestrian reveals the main character to players. All along, there has been someone controlling the stick figure making its way through the puzzles to, I assume, make its way home. At this point in the game, the player must now switch back and forth between the stick figure and the person. This is where any semblance of a tutorial is completely absent. When I played, I was stuck for a while on the last puzzle because I couldn't figure out how the stick figure was influencing the real world. There was a lack of indicators that players rely on when the game mechanics shift to let me know what I was really interacting with.
A screenshot of the game from the Press Kit. Shows a bench in the foreground. The panel is on a chain link fence and the stick figure is standing, looking towards the next puzzle.
Also, I do want to warn people that I did experience some slight motion sickness during the end of the game when walking around as the player. The rest of the game is fine, but definitely be ready for that when the game shifts away from traveling solely as the stick figure.
A screenshot of the game from the Press Kit. Shows a cork board with papers stuck to it and lines connecting the papers.
With help from my chat, we were able to figure out what was happening in the last level and eventually make it out. It would have lessened my frustration with the endgame to have some sort of short tutorial to explain what the in game player could do or include better indicators in the real world settings to show what the stick figure is moving. It would have given players a better idea of what the goal was of the last area so that they could make their way through it without staring at the different maps in confusion.
Overall, I think that the great things about this game outweigh the bad, but I wish that the game would have added in some extra small tutorials about what the new mechanics are. Also, the ending of the game was fairly confusing to me. It was a pretty ending, but I didn't feel like it made sense given the world that we had experienced so far. For a game that largely didn't have a story, to ride off in a boat into the sunset was definitely not the ending that I expected.
Again, I would give the game a 7/10.
A clip of Pizza Yeti’s stream of her figuring out a puzzle