In these days where Mario reigns over platforming and Portal is the king of puzzles, very few intellectual properties have been able to establish themselves as something unique. Enter Pid, a charming platformer full of intriguing ideas and a delightful visual style. With less than a month from release, we get our hands on this enchanting adventure to see what all the anticipation is about.
Moving on a two-dimension plane, you can jump, throw items and use a beam of light to travel. Just as Portal has the portal gun and Quantum Conundrum has the IDS glove, Pid has a beam of light that can lift or push the main character in the direction it’s pointing. Most of the puzzles require getting past certain obstacles or trying to avoid being spotted by cameras and enemies, but it’s when a boss enters the arena things become all the more interesting.
Bosses are structured in a traditional sense where you find a weakness and capitalize on it by repeating a task multiple times. For example, we faced a giant butler of sorts who only appeared when you smashed his pricy chinaware, and when that occurs, he is left vulnerable to attacks for a set period of time. There are essentially two different stages to a boss fight as they will change their routine after a certain point. In this case, we had to travel up the outsides of his arms, while trying to avoid a barrage of missiles, to hit the giant’s ears and scramble his brains a bit.
One thing to note is that Pid is a game with no extra lives and works on a checkpoint basis. You can buy an armored vest which will allow you to take an additional blow without dying, but without one, it’s one hit one kill and you’ll be thrown back a couple seconds or a couple minutes depending where you are. This becomes difficult when fighting bosses as it’s a trial and error situation where you can get so far into the fight and just die with one mistake, sending you back to square one.
The story itself isn’t really significant as it’s about a kid in the future who takes a space-bus to school but is somehow hurled onto an unknown planet filled with blocky robots that have it in for you. For whatever reason, you can straight up kill these individuals and collect their stars and items. Stars are scattered throughout each level and most of the time they’re completely optional and only serve as currency when you need a bomb or extra armor.
This is a relatively linear experience, going from point A to point B, but there are certain sections in the game where you’re granted the choice to do specific tasks in any order you deem fit. Pid is a seemingly charismatic adventure that is scheduled to be released on October 31st through digital PC vendors, Xbox Live Arcade and Playstation Network. Be sure to stay tuned in the upcoming days for our full review.
