I will overall give the game a thumbs up, but a very guarded recommendation.
"DEATH PIT EXPLORER" is a 6-DOF precision flight game about exploring a death pit. I was pretty sure of this going in, but it bares mentioning given the lack of description in any marketing materials. However, I would consider the closest analog to be "Iron Lung" in terms of apparent intention.
Control:
The primary meaning of "difficult controls" seems to be the keyboard only control scheme, and the inability to rebind any keys. Secondarily, once you start playing, is the lack of any sort of centering or direct momentum stopping key as many 6-DOF games will have. To stop your movement, you must counteract your momentum with thrust in the opposite direction. This I would consider relatively neutral to somewhat interesting, as this is the primary difficulty source for the game. The biggest issue I have is the decision to put thrust on the arrow keys plus shift and space. Having movement on WASD but still keeping rotation on Q and E is fairly typical, and I think putting camera on UP DOWN LEFT RIGHT keys would be a little less irritating.
Interesting control schemes are fun! However the exact choice of keys feels less interestingly different and more like a mistake, or choice in the name of difficulty. The other major complaint I have here is orientation turning speed being unaffected by thrust speed. Being unable to control the perspective here with much precision makes it feel bad in a way that feels incorrect. Other than these issues, I will say it does feel like controlling an experimental robot/drone type of device. I work professionally as an electrical engineer and this does capture the feeling of awkward and unpolished controls I've made, but in a good way. It feels like an experimental drone should.
Atmosphere, Graphics, Perspective:
The atmosphere is interesting as far as I've seen. I enjoy the low-poly visual style, but find it difficult to appreciate the environment too much, as there is too little variation, both in color and textures, for any given surface to make it interesting to look at. This is to the point of gameplay detriment, as it becomes quite difficult to distinguish where you're coming from or where you're going. There are multiple different sections to the pit, and visuals do change some when going from section to section. However, when you get turned around the only way to tell if the direction you chose is deeper or backwards is hoping to see something new. I don't think a depth meter on the HUD would detract much from the game, and would help contribute to the feeling of exploring a deep pit.
The next big issue is the near total silence. Real life caves are much less quite than people expect, and with effectively no noise except the occasional metal clang if you hit a wall, this is the aspect of the game that feels most outright unfinished. Minimally there should be noise from engaging some form of thrust, as when I first started the game I thought I misunderstood the controls. However, the issue was actually that I couldn't tell I was moving, as you default to the slowest speed
However, I would consider the biggest issue with the game to be the choice of perspective. This could be a consequence of playing on an ultrawide, but I'm fairly certain the game is rendered with an orthographic projection. This sort of projection is commonly used in CAD software, such as SolidWorks, for making equal length lines the same length on a screen. The issue here is making it extremely irritating to determine how far from an object you are, in a game where the primary challenge is to refrain from hitting walls. This also contributes a great deal to motion sickness I think.
The gripe that broke the camel's back for me however, was the collision code feeling inconsistent. While testing things out just before starting this review I hit a wall at quite high speed and took no damage until I started turning. Then, upon turning I hear 3 quick clangs and die in less than a quarter second. I do hope this at least can be patched, as this makes the game difficult to recommend even to my friends who like experimental indie games.
If you have gotten to the end of this review, then I would still recommend buying the game. Despite the issues, I think it is worth the money for being interesting as a work of game design, even if some of the choices could be changed for the better.
Once my nausea subsides, I'll edit this review if I find anything of note in the end of the game.
