Project P.I.T.T. feels like a disorienting mess of ideas all crammed together. It's trying to be a physics-sandbox game where you have this freedom to create and automate to your heart's content, but it's bogged down by the lack of actual engaging mechanics and the need to fit into the Feed The Pit style of gameplay.
I'll start by talking about the core gameplay loop. The game is split into phases, each phase introduces a new product that you need to create a contraption for. The first two phases act as a tutorial where you get into the headspace of the game. The game hands you some tools and a variety of panels to build some funnels for the products, allowing you to get a grasp on the rest of the game. It's a decent enough loop and the first two phases are to the point and get the job done. However, it's when you get to phase 3, that the game starts to fall apart. Phase 3 is almost double the length of phase 1 and 2 combined, it takes so long to get through without any real point in it being so long. The actual content of phase 3 is pretty much identical to phase 1 and 2. You're given new tools, although most are pretty useless, and you do the same thing, build contraptions. There is really nothing here substance wise that justifies the increased length for phase 3. Also, when I played, phase 3 had a destruction event which caused you to redo everything you’ve built, but this has since been patched out, and I’m indifferent to the change. Now, if you manage to make it to phase 4, you’ll be met with what I think is the most baffling decision in the entire game. Phase 4’s product requires one of each of the previous phases' products. In theory, it's not a bad idea. This could have been used as an opportunity to have the player get creative and use the full games toolset to create some elaborate contraptions. Instead, it's tedious and annoying. You aren’t given a good enough toolset to actually build anything interesting. In my case, I made some janky setup that was just barely able to automate production, then I slapped the proxy intern on the mixer and called it a day. The only saving grace is that Phase 4 is the shortest of all the phases once you get that automation up and running. In no way did I have fun thinking of how to solve this challenge. It was simply an obstacle to me completing the game. There are tons of issues that all stem from this, but I’ll focus on the two most severe.
[b] Building [/b]
The worst aspect of Project P.I.T.T. is actually having to build the funnels and contraptions. Now, if you have a sandbox game like this, building should be fun and should actually make the player want to go out of their way to experiment and create these crazy contraptions to interact with the physics systems. Instead, in this game, building feels like a chore and is needlessly time-consuming. Instead of spending the time actually building something cool, you're spending most of your time hauling 50 panels, 10 fans, and whatever else in order to actually build something for the different machines. I think Project P.I.T.T. could benefit from an actual build menu, something similar to Satisfactory, where you have a catalog that you can select what you want to build, and then you can build that object. No picking up and hauling different objects, just simply select what you want to build, and build it. However, even if there was a build menu implemented, there is another issue with building. A little later in the early game, you unlock the ability to stick, snap, and orientate objects. Now that's great and all, but there is very little customization to the snap and orientation settings, which leads to inconsistent results and, again, spending needless time trying to get everything to snap into the correct positions. Also, during my time playing the game, while moving around different objects, sometimes they would just stick randomly, and I would have to then click on the object again and move it around. It's just another inconvenience.
[b] Tools [/b]
What is a sandbox game if not for a playground of imagination, and you know what facilitates that imagination, the tools you are given. The tools you are given and the quality of them shape what you can create. Project P.I.T.T. gives you a decent amount of tools, but in reality you're only going to be using about a third of them. I could go on and on and list each individual tool here and how useless they are, but I’ll just say this instead. From the 24 sub menus under the tools tab, I used tools from about 8 of those submenus. Now, a variety of tools is great for a sandbox game right? So why did I use so few? Well, I tested out each new tool I unlocked to see if there was something I could use them for, and I tried to use them, but each and every time I was just like, this is so pointless, I can just use this other tool I already unlocked, and when I did have an idea for something that could utilize a new tool, I said “Do I really feel like spending an hour stripping everything down, then spending another 3 hours trying to make something with this shoddy building system?”. Ultimately, I just stuck to a bare-bones setup of regular, cushion, and slick panels, as well as some fans. Maybe doing so wasn’t the most efficient, but the time I would have spent building probably evens it out.
There are also a subset of tools which are equippable, and I did not use a single one of those except for early on when I used the broom. Want to know why? There is no equipment/hot bar. This means that if you want to use an equippable tool or multiple equippable tools, you have to pick the tool up, use it, and then if you want to interact with an object or use another tool, you then have to put the tool down, and repeat. It's so tedious, like if you are giving me a bunch of equippable tools but making them so tedious to actually use, then what is the point of using them? Whenever I saw an interesting equippable tool, albeit there wasn’t too many, I just felt discouraged from using it, knowing how tedious it would be to manage it.
So, those are all the issues with the core gameplay loop, and it's quite a lot. Underneath it all, I feel like there is a great deal of potential here as a physics-sandbox game, I can see the vision. A fully fleshed-out, physics-sandbox game like this with a lot more focus on its mechanics and automation could be pretty great. However, Project P.I.T.T. is not that and is instead bogged down by the Feed The Pit style gameplay and the lack of actual freedom when it comes to building creative or fun contraptions. You end up only doing the bare minimum to finish the game, because there really isn’t anything that interesting at its core.
Okay, now it's time to rant about the game's “secret” ending, and how much I despise it.
The parkour segment, while it had an interesting idea, is a confusing mess with no clear indication as to what needs to be done or what can be done in order to progress. It's then followed up by a frankly baffling mining minigame that is just extra tedium added to this already tedious game. The secret ending is honestly just so bafflingly designed and not worth the time.
Had to cut it short for the Steam review, but I talk more about it on Backloggd: https://bckl.gg/v5PN
