Pilot Unknown

Edited due to developer feedback. Decent game but keyboard control is a joke. Controller really required.

LOVE LOVE LOVE THIS GAME! I'm not much of a computer gamer, but one of the developers reached out to me to for play-testing prior to its release–and I'm addicted. Pilot Unknown has a nostalgia-arcade feel which connects beautifully with its roguelike style. As someone who was a big space-nerd growing up, the game's journey through distinct planets with unique ecosystems and enemies, reignited my sense-of-wonder while providing a very enjoyable storyline. Needless to say, I'm excited to keep playing and see what else this talented team of college students comes up with! Ps, while some have complained of the controls being challenging, I disagree. Once you get a hang of it, they are actually quite easy and fun to use. 11/10 Would Recommend Pilot Unknown!!

I have been helping the Pilot Unknown team play-test since they were in open beta and they are a fantastic group to work with. I am excited to see them launch the completed version! This game is addictive, clever, and brutally rogue-like. If you are a fan of the genre you will be pulled right in. If you are unfamiliar with the genre, this is a great gate-way game to start with.

Really fun game. Been following development for some time and it turned out great! The art style is fun and easy to look at and the music is also really well put.

The game is not worth $10 in its current state. I would pay up to $5. The unpleasant: Cutscenes are unskippable, forcing a 5-minute long exposition backstory that seems to bug the game if you hammer on your keyboard. text cannot be sped up or skipped, soft-lock bugs occurred twice in 20 minutes, limited audio and graphical options, "heartbeat" sound effect played constantly from the first point of damage onwards, moving up and to the left played an annoying spraying sound that was absent when moving down and to the right, no option to zoom out from craft leading to a limited and cramped viewpoint, The Pleasant: Aesthetic Interesting concept, didn't get far enough to pass the first dungeon in total (beat the first boss, but stopped playing). Ship variety Good concept for paying to access some trait rooms, while keeping others open by default, adding a meta of storing up "points" to afford either health or new trait rooms. I'm sure there are other positives, but I did not play long enough to see them, the audio bugs, soft-locking, and inconsistent controls frustrated me too much. I didn't really enjoy how moving and shooting force your ship to orient in the indicated direction. What I mean is that your ship will only shoot forwards, so it always rotates to shoot. However, your ship also always tries to face the direction of movement when you press the direction keys (no built-in strafing). The result is a fight between aiming and movement causing the ship to weeble-wobble-rotate every time you change direction unless you hold down the fire buttons in the desired direction. It's hard to describe, not to my taste. I appreciate what the devs are doing, I can see the work they've put into the concept, but I do not view this game as worth $10 in its current state. I would like to see the early bugs ironed out, movement smoothed out (make the turret itself rotatable separate from the ship, or increase the ship's rotational speed), and slow-scrolling cutscenes made completely skippable. I'm not playing a roguelite for the story :P Some more game options would be nice, especially difficulty, enemy spawn rates, dungeon size, and weapon modding. I cannot recommend this game today, but I would be happy to revisit after a couple updates.