Thanks to Quantum Productions for the Steam key for review!

Quantum Pilot has to be one of the more interesting games I have played recently. The concept it goes for is something that hasn’t really been done before, and it does it surprisingly well for what looks like a side project. The game is flawed in several ways, but I can forgive it because of its solid execution on a weird idea.

The core mechanic in Quantum Pilot is that the enemies are all copies of your previous self. Each time you kill a wave of enemies, a new wave will spawn with one extra enemy that mirrors your movements from last time. Because of this, the game almost acts as a puzzle game. You have to make sure what you’re shooting now is possible to be dodged later. The game only gets as difficult as you make it, since you basically are making your own bullet patterns to dodge. It’s difficult to explain this mechanic well and you really have to see it in action to get it.

There are two game modes. The first is shuffle. In shuffle, every time you hold down the shoot button, it essentially pauses the game. This lets you shoot more careful patterns and helps you slow things down to dodge as well. For people that want to rely a little bit less on reflexes, this mode works well. The second mode is Onslaught. It’s the same thing as shuffle, except shooting doesn’t cause the game to pause. Everything in Onslaught is in real time and plays a bit quicker. Both modes have the same loop of “survive as long as possible”. There is an end to a game of Quantum Pilot, but the game is pretty difficult, so I have yet to make it that far.

You can play in local co-op with a second player. We were able to both use controllers. When one player dies, instead of ending the run the other player can try to beat the wave of enemies themselves. If the other player beats the wave, the dead player respawns. In Onslaught, co-op mode worked perfectly and felt great. Shuffle was kind of a mess. The pausing when you shoot mechanic completely breaks with two people. Sometimes the ships will both stop moving when one person shoots, other times neither player stops, and sometimes just the player shooting will stop. The game can’t figure out what to do with itself in this mode.

Quantum Pilot is a mess in a lot of ways. The menus and UI are just ugly junks of text. There’s only one soundtrack that loops, and sounds are…okay. Sometimes text from menus would remain on the screen for a little while when in a run. Weirdly enough, despite all this, the game isn’t that buggy. It’s just not visually appealing for the most parts with its singular color use and bad menus. The controls are perfect and feel tight though.

There’s nothing to say for morality. The only violence is shapes shooting other shapes with more shapes. There’s no blood, cursing, or anything to take note of. All in all, I would recommend Quantum Pilot. For a dollar you’re getting an incredibly unique and simplistic experience that has some UI issues. It’s fun and different, and I’d say worth a shot.