Thank you Skookum Arts for sending us this game to review!

The Pedestrian is a 2.5D puzzle game rendered in stunning graphics and surrounded in beautiful music composed by Logan Hayes. The player leaps between signs and connects doorways to solve the many puzzles that are present as obstacles to their progress. The signs’ positions can be moved around to suit the needs of the puzzle, and it is sometimes required in order to solve them. There are many places that the character ends up traveling to, including a subway and a bustling city. There are ten Steam achievements as well, with mysterious names and descriptions, denoting the player's progress through the game.

The game begins with the character being introduced as a splotch. Arrows around it guide the player to move forward, to a place where they can choose the gender of their character (which is male or female in this case). The characters are simple in design; they are merely the symbols that are seen on bathroom signs to show which bathroom is which. Puzzles take place on various types of traffic and warning signs, with various obstacles inside the environment. The character is moved to their first sign, where the game teaches the user how to play along the way, with subtle hints in the environment. Other than this, there is no visible plot or development, or if it is, it’s not noticeably developed due to the lack of text or other linguistic communication. While that does nothing to change the quality of the game, it’s definitely worth mentioning.

The puzzles start out fairly easy, so that the player can get used to the feel of the controls, and slowly but surely begin to get more difficult. During this time, and throughout the course of gameplay, the puzzles not only increase in challenge level but also introduce new elements to work with and try to overcome. While the puzzles are challenging and sometimes get the player to think, they are often simple in concept and execution. Once a puzzle is complete, the character simply moves on to the next one. There is no loading screen or level system, so the gameplay is quite smooth and feels shorter. This changes as time goes on, and it tests the user’s visualization skills a little as well. However, not all of the puzzles are so easy to see the solution to, as I had to use a walkthrough twice.

Many of the puzzles are nested puzzles, meaning there are parts that need to be obtained in order to move on, and those parts are hidden in other puzzles, waiting to be claimed as a trophy. To access the puzzles lurking on the other side of a door, sometimes the player has to pass through other ones. Some of the things the character ends up doing also affect the world around it, like fixing electronic devices with the use of gathered parts. All puzzles share the commonality of having the ability to harbor fatal obstacles such as lasers or spinning saw blades. The obstacles that present themselves as fatal to the character in-game are only there to deter the player’s life, as they do not cause any harm to other objects or walls. When the character is killed, their body turns into a splotch of what looks like some sort of blood, but is the same color as the rest of its surroundings.

The Pedestrian has the feature of Steam Cloud saving, and there is no main menu. Upon launching the game, the user is taken directly to where they left off in the puzzle. There is a pause menu, where the interface is very visual, and the player can adjust many things there. One of the tabs is even bug reporting, so that if there is a problem with anything, the player can notify the developer immediately. On the side, there is a bar that shows what a certain picture represents in the menu, and that bar contains some of the only text in the entire game.

The graphics in The Pedestrian are immensely well done, and look extremely realistic. While the character and the puzzles themselves are in the whimsical style of guide signs, the area around the signs is rendered beautifully, and looks quite realistic. The environment around the signs is very well rendered, and I was incredibly impressed. The music is also impeccable, with a whimsical and jazzy but relaxed feel that permeates the atmosphere of the puzzles. It is composed by Logan Hayes and is available as DLC for $4.99 on Steam. The sound effects that are present are also realistic, and quiet enough that they’re not annoying whatsoever. Everything has a very refined feel, and it didn’t crash once.

The controls are fairly easy to grasp, and there is full controller support ingrained in the game. Everything was very easy to grasp, and if ever I were to forget something, there is a menu in the settings with a panel showing the button configurations on the controller and the keyboard.

The Pedestrian is a charming puzzle game full of simple and challenging puzzles, as well as everything in between. If you’re looking for a nice head-crunching game with great graphics, then this is the game for you!

- Kittycathead