Pit People
OOPS BUTTERFINGERS!!!1 (acid-tripping tactical fighting game).
Oh my god.. Pit People really is a unique one.How would you describe it? Imagine people creating a tactical fighting game, with some exploration. Good. Now they took some LSD. A lot of it. Topped it up with mushrooms. And then drank a bucket of energy drink. But don’t get me wrong - this game is amazing!
You can’t start describing this game without mentioning the story and world created. It really is something else. The whole world is extraordinarily weird, playing with super abstract ideas, getting to the highest peaks of comedy, irony and sarcasm. And all in a really sweet, colorful and cartoony art style. But the main story… takes it even further. I don’t want to spoil anything, because it’s just so good (and twisted). I can truly imagine, that this is not for everyone - many people will say (and quite fast at that) “WTF is going on?!”. But I do encourage you to try, it’s so worth the laugh.
You can describe the game as having 3 distinct “modes”: town, exploration and combat. Town is the place to gear up, assemble your team and go to a quest. Which leads to exploration - where you can explore freely, taking fights in random encounters scattered across the map, take additional sidequests or go to your main quests. About sidequests - there is A LOT of them. And I mean a lot. They all have some nice stories and are enjoyable to do.
And getting to the meat - the combat. So, it’s a team hex-based tactical combat, with a lot of different weapons, classes of characters and quite often involving environment. What is unique about it? Well, it perfectly fits the weird-ass world here. Basically - you only control where each character goes at given turn. The actions that they perform - not so much. There are basic rules to what given character will do in given position, but for example - when it has more than 1 target, it attacks at random. This little twist is something that is sometimes mind-bending, to make the most of your fight and makes it really really enjoyable for a long time. Of course, there is more to it - a lot of different classes (which are basically other kinds of creatures than human) with specific abilities, weapons, shields and elementals that are countering each other, and more. It makes it a great tactical game, even if slightly unpredictable - but the thing is to master the control of it.
Another great thing is how do you assemble your team. Well, there is some kind of mercenary recruitment in town - but honestly, I never used it. Didn’t see a reason too and it was pricey as hell. Instead, you need to do your own recruitment. At the end of a fight, when there is only 1 opponent left, you may recruit him - by putting him into a cage (yes, a cage). To do that, you have to take a cage with you on your cart and have a character using a net. Many times, you go exploring just to recruit a specific creature to your team - and this is where the combat is getting even better. Maneuvering just to not kill this particular enemy, or not get killed by it, and clear or the others - just to recruit it - makes some fights so much harder. But satisfying also.
When it comes to team assembling, and what each class do - you just get a laconic description of it and that’s it. The same with all gear that you use - there are “some” indicators of statistics, but they are all very vague. It’s another point that makes the game unique - instead of really focusing on perfecting your stats and what not, you kind of wing it and learn in the process. It fits perfectly to the entire theme of the game.
The game offers also playing the story campaign in co-op - with 2 teams at once, with scaled difficulty. I didn’t try it, but I saw some gameplays and it looked like a lot of fun. For very competitive people, the town also offers arena fights - both with AI or with other players. This opens a vast topic to explore, regarding team compositions and strategies on the battlefield.
Last, but not least, the music. Holy moly, it’s so fitting to the game. It’s weird, energetic and just ideal for the game. Check it out on Bandcamp, it’s really worth it.
For people loving tactical strategy games, while also enjoying good twisted humour and satire - I don’t think you’ll find a better game than this.
My rating: 9/10
Playtime: 10h+
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Pit People on Steam