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"Whose glasses are those, appearing everywhere in the city?" The ultimate point of each area - each stage in game-y game terms - is to collect a doohickey from the sign world to plug into a weird, modified gameboy that exists in the real world. Or at least a goal you're working your way towards, which starts off obscure, but gradually reveals itself if you're paying attention to details in the background. The outside world also hints at the larger purpose of The Pedestrian. The depth of the world behind the play area serves very well to emphasise the flatness of your metal pancake of a prison. You climb past a giant burrito at lunch time, and find yourself on a rainy rooftop by the evening. When you're on a sign hanging over a busy road, it's buffeted in the wind.
#THE PEDESTRIAN SWITCH PLUS#
Plus the music feels very much like the jaunty, swooping numbers that accompany Pixar adventure films, which is what The Pedestrian ultimately feels like.Īnd, acting as a contrast, the world outside the signs - an NYC-ish cityscape - is presented in lush, chunky 3D, that seems extraordinarily alive beside your flat little universe. I particularly enjoyed being a little chalk person. The way you transition seamlessly between different sign types is incredibly impressive. This premise is nearly perfectly executed. Signs will each feature one side of a little ladder or a door, and you link these transit points yourself, moving the signs around on the wall so everything fits together in such a way that you can traverse the whole. Levels are usually clusters of signs, all in different variations of that friendly oblongoid shape we all know - the chicken nuggets of street furniture that are traffic signs. The goal is to make your way from the entrance to the exit of a particular group of signs, and thence to a subway train that takes you to the next bit of the city. Street signs, warning signs, chalk boards in cafes, even - in some exceptional circumstances - paper blueprints or electronic screens: if it is flat and it communicates something, you can go onto it. In The Pedestrian you are a little stick person - either a stickperson with a skirt or a stickperson in trousers - who exists on a 2D plane, within the signs of a city. It's probably the most original platformer in years. After so much of this, The Pedestrian is very refreshing. They're like the kind of fitness benchmark tests that all PE teachers secretly dream they could do. Try doing the jump slightly differently this time, idiot. Stand on a thing, jump up to another thing, bounce off a trampoline - oh whoops, there was a circular saw in the way. The soundtrack is wonderful and adds a layer of depth to the puzzles that you wouldn’t normally expect from a game like this.For good or ill, it feels like puzzle platformers are a dime a dozen these days. Each sound is clear and represented well, which helps to further sell the notion of being a living character with the signs of the bustling city. Throughout are ceaseless sounds of typical city streets like cars driving around, as well as the footfalls of your character charging through each obstacle in your path. The sound design is outstanding on its own. There is no voice acting in The Pedestrian, but this game doesn’t need any. This lends itself to a much more immersive and yet whimsical experience. The minimalistic designs of the 2D street sign platforming sections wouldn’t be anything remarkable without the addition of the realistic 3D environments surrounding them. The 2D signs provide a pleasantly striking contrast to the 3D world around you. It’s considered a 2.5D platformer, so the character you control is in 2D, while the rest of the world in 3D. The look of The Pedestrian is what stands out the most. The 2D level focus against 3D backdrops is genius.