I will cut to the chase. I played the demo for Pneumata and it needs work. Pneuamta is a horror game and instead of feeling scary it just feels very tedious. This is mostly due to the combat and a strange mechanic where the screen goes super dark and you just can’t see anything. It’s not fun.
The reason why the combat feels tedious is that there are so many zombies and the weapons have a very low durability. Combine the tedious combat with a small inventory space and you a recipe for boredom. The gun is practically useless since you never have enough bullets and the damage is worse than the melee weapons. The melee weapons feel pretty OK but they break so quickly. This leaves you with the knife and the knife is quite possibly one of the worst weapons I have ever used in a game.
The knife probably does the same amount of damage as a plastic dinner knife. It’s so weak and the combat is such a slog with it. The enemies attack very slowly and in the same pattern so any feeling of tension is long gone. It’s just dodge, step in and attack, step away, and repeat the entire cycle over for what seems like forever.
It’s quite sad the combat feels so terrible because the overall atmosphere of the game and the light narrative and puzzle elements are enjoyable enough. It’s just that the tedious combat actually undermines these positive elements. The combat desperately needs some tuning.
There’s also the matter of the screen turning dark. I’m not quite sure what this mechanic is supposed to accomplish but it’s no fun running around in complete darkness. There’s no explanation as to why this is happening and how I’m supposed to counteract it. I might have missed something here but it definitely felt obtuse and very frustrating.
There’s a difference between an obstacle the player needs to overcome and bad design. Having to figure out how to reach a new area in the map is an obstacle. Throwing ten zombies at the player and not giving them enough weapons is a chore and terrible design, especially since the main goal is exploration.
I actually want to explore, I want to solve the puzzles, and I want to see what happens in the story but I can’t because I have to kill all these dang zombies chasing me while the screen turns pitch black. Things that contradict the purpose of the game needs to be removed.
Hopefully the game gets tuned before release because there was some promise here for a decent horror game. Also, I sure hope the story doesn’t use the tired trope of the main protagonist having amnesia and actually being the villain and that he was talking to himself the entire time or it all being a metaphor or his imagination.
Additional Info
Steam Store Page : https://store.steampowered.com/app/1183850/Pneumata/
Review Score: N/A (game isn’t out yet) as of this writing (12/04/23)
Developer: Deadbolt Interactive
Publisher: Perp Games
Release Date: Q4 2023
MSRP: TBA
Time spent: 1 hours
Achievement Score: N/A
Ducky Obrien 