4 people found this review helpful
Recommended
0.0 hrs last two weeks / 20.3 hrs on record
Posted: 6 Feb, 2017 @ 6:40am
Updated: 6 Feb, 2017 @ 7:04am

Early Access Review
There's a giant bear form space that crashes into the planet, where a farmer with a dead kid and a princess with daddy issues go after a band of gladiators on a shuttle, meet a hardcore Demi-clops, a cupcake (named Gluten), who heals you (with its' own frosting), and a strange Spanish lady with a fetish for netting people, help a guy poop in a town shaped like a giant toilet where pooping is banned, take part in the revolutionary war against the damned R3D C04T robots, save a burning town from the dreaded Fire Men so that it can keep on burning, find an orphaned baby leopard and return it to Dave, the Leopard Master, who doesn't like leopards, and generally enjoy a wondrous romp around a weird world full of nonsensical creatures and characters.

Made by The Behemoth. Yes, THE Behemoth, not just a Behemoth... THE!!! Behemoth, capital E!
From the same guys that brought you the co-op, cat-ertainment and spectacle-puzzle platformer BattleBlock Theatre and ridiculous side-scrolling adventures of CastleCrashers, comes Pit People, a "baby's first tactical game" with enough character and humour to finally fill that empty void inside!
But what do I mean by "baby's first tactical game"? Well, Pit People is a tactical arena fighter wherein you have several pawns with different abilities, strengths and weaknesses, which you move around on a hex grid in a turn-based fashion. Think XCOM.
But unlike XCOM you don't really have absolute control over your pawns. You can't really tell them what to do, only move them around (hopefully) "strategically".
This makes the game somewhat more straightforward and easier than your average, XCOM-like turn-based tactical game. It does however present some difficulties XCOM veterans won't be used to.
For one, since you can't tell your pawns what ability to use or which target to attack, you're pretty much left to the mercy of whatever Nuffle-worshiping algorithm decides that. More on that later however.

In general, the game is pretty easy to grasp, the RPG aspects are limited to mainly just customisation options. While there is a ton of crazy loot, there's no plethora of uniquely different items with different stats- a tall shield is a tall shield, whether a garden fence or a giant beetle. However, within each item category there's the odd "special item" that sacrifices some of the normal stats of that category for a particular bonus. Want a shield with some fire resistance? Well, that comes with less blocking power, though not enough to make too much of a difference.
Different character types (Cupcake, Cyclops, Demi-Clops, Human, Pixie etc.) have different proficiencies and characteristics, making them more or less potent with different items and loadouts and in different roles.
There's no skill tree or talents (currently, as of Update 1, though that may also be planned), so every level your pawns gain is just a straightforward increase to all their stats, though not a major one. So there's no need to worry whether a 3% crit chance is better than a 1.5% increase to rate of fire. A level 10 character will always be objectively better than a level 9 one from the same type.
In fact, the game (again, currently, Update 1 did make some stats clearer) makes very little effort to let you know what the exact stats of your pawns are. There's a bunch of nicely stylised bars - LBS (how much equipment a pawn can carry, since, as you can imagine, a tall shield is heavier than a buckler, which affects their movement and agility), DMG (how much total, maximum damage a pawn does, based on pawn type and equipment), RNG (range, for ranged pawns or ranged abilities like cage-throwing, each level on the bar represents a hex), DEF (defence against melee attacks, usually determined by helmets), BLK (ability to block arrows and other projectiles, usually determined by shields) and DODG (dodge chance, the lighter the equipment a pawn carries, the higher their dodge chance, based on pawn type), that give you some information on how powerful a pawn in a particular loadout is, though, save from the damage value, it's not particularly clear.
There's also a range of icons for the different abilities and resistances pawns can inherit based on their type and equipment, though those provide little identification for what they actually stand for (since Update 1, the percentage chance of a particular ability to take effect is displayed below the relative icon, though that doesn't help much). Unfortunately, there's really no indication of a pawn's weaknesses, except maybe a vague footnote in your Recruitment Book (written and kept by the aforementioned Spanish lady).
This may be a deal breaker for min-maxing nuts who care only for the most optimal approach to things, but in the spirit of this game, it's a well implemented system that takes little effort to get used to and navigate. Also, if you're one of those nuts, get out of here! This is a casual game, go back to your XCOMs!
It also works well with the games' combat mechanics, or really lack thereof. Combat is determined on a rock-paper-scissors basis. A helmet blocks a sword but a mallet trumps a helmet. The UI is quite clear in this regard - if your pawn has an advantage against an enemy, there's a Facebookish "thumbs up" over that target, if it's weak or less effective, it's a "thumbs down".
Attacks and order of operations is somewhat weird however. As I said above, the action and target a pawn picks is pretty much random. To a point. You can, and in fact have to, in order to make the most of every encounter, position your pawns in such ways so as to "guide" their algorithm.
For instance, if there's two or more targets your pawn can reach, it will most likely spread its' attacks between all of them (or several of them, depending on how many attacks the pawn can make). If it has an advantage against one of them, it may favour that target with more attacks, or it may not. Moving your pawn to a hex where it makes contact with only one target makes it attack only that target however, giving it all its' got.
Ranged combat is somewhat trickier however. Pawns with ranged weapons will always attack all enemies within their range for as many attacks they can make. They also attack in melee however and in fact prefer melee if they're "threatened" (have an adjacent enemy). They also usually have a "dead zone", a range of hexes below which they won't be able to fire at range.
All of this makes combat both straightforward and engaging. Yes, all you're doing is moving chess pieces around, but much like actual chess pieces, your pawns have certain rules they follow when attacking/performing actions and you need to think about their order of operations and placement. Movement time is something you also need to consider as pawns that don't move/finish their movement first will attack/do their action while those still moving are still... moving, making for some unexpected results of potential targets getting flung out of reach of that perfect surround you had planned, just because that Hair Troll attacked first. And you can't simply overwhelm your enemies with numbers and brute power. Sure, larger pawns are more powerful, but they also usually take up an extra space on your team, so there's also that to consider. It is in fact you who would most often be outnumbered, since you'll often be engaging groups with more enemies than your team (even in co-op, the game adjusts accordingly).
There's also no permanent death in this game, unlike other games of the kind, like XCOM, Darkest Dungeon etc. When a pawn dies in combat, it remains unavailable in your team until you return to town, after which it's as good as new! (scars and PTSD notwithstanding)

As for the world and story... Oh boy, are you in for one wicked whirl!

(Continue reading in the comments, this is a long one)
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7 Comments
BananaDealer 7 Feb, 2017 @ 7:05am 
@danpaladin, Hey, no problem! I love The Behemoth games.
danpaladin  [developer] 7 Feb, 2017 @ 3:57am 
Thanks for such in-depth feedback!!! Glad you're enjoying what we have so far. See you in Update 2!
BananaDealer 6 Feb, 2017 @ 6:44am 
(Continued 5)
Final verdict? Crazy, trippy (as in the acid kind) and entertaining story, colourful, well-written characters, solid gameplay mechanics, hours of fun... A wholehearted recommendation, with the usual Early Access caveat. If you have the £10 (as of the writing of this) to spend around and don't mind feature creep and the usual development cycle, go for it. You will not be disappointed! Like I said, there's enough side missions to let you disregard the story completely for now, until it's finished, and keep you playing for hours after.
BananaDealer 6 Feb, 2017 @ 6:44am 
(Continued 4, seriously, Steam...)
And there's the crutch, though not really... Pit People is "yet another" Early Access game. But a good one, which is both a rare and refreshing sight these days on Steam (takes a shivering look at the million and one Unity flips).
It doesn't feel like a game still in development. For the most part, the core mechanics are finished and quite polished. Things do what they're supposed to, and while some aspects can be improved (namely the stats thing from above), it's not fundamental that they do.
The story is really the only thing that "suffers" from the Early Access status, though that's only because it's incomplete and (as of Update 1) there's only 2 missions to it...
But everything else is there, side missions are plentiful to keep you entertained and involved if you disregard the story completely, so it's not a major flaw that I'd pull against the game.
BananaDealer 6 Feb, 2017 @ 6:43am 
(Continued 3)
The world itself is the same as the one from BattleBlock (and maybe also Castle Crashers, though I don't really remember), and has the same weird art style and theme, and the story is narrated by that big giant bear in space, who's the bad guy yet also cheers the heroes on in a malicious, sadistic and sarcastic way that's fast making my list for one of the best villains in video games.
Speaking of the Narrator, whoever voices that guy is amazing. Holy voicebox, Batman! I want him to make a Dota announcer pack, seriously...
UNfortunately, save from the story stuff, his barks during battles are... kinda limited and far between... Still great whenever they happen (kills and levels, and the occasional crit/ability), but I would love some more variety... Maybe some idle chatter while you're moving about (both in combat and on the map), but hey the game is still in Early Access so I hope they include more...
BananaDealer 6 Feb, 2017 @ 6:43am 
(Continued 2)
Speaking of the map, the world is randomised every so often (usually after completing a quest), shuffling the topography and tossing the different locations about, so you'll never run out of places to explore.
Locations stay the same, changing only their... uh... location... Ahem...
The world is populated by a ton of varied, colourful, entertaining, ridiculous and just plain weird characters. From the aforementioned Gluten the cupcake, Dave the Leopard Man and many others, conversations with whom will always leave you chuckling, if not gasping for air (or at times cringing at the bad jokes, which are still somehow funny)...
BananaDealer 6 Feb, 2017 @ 6:42am 
(Continued)
Quests are many and varied, and always enjoyable. Also hard. Very hard. Holy crap, I should've let them eat that damn cupcake... However you don't really lose anything for failing them, so you can just retry when you're better prepared.
Each quest has its' own 3-part story arc, and each is uniquely entertaining and ridiculous, written in that particular weird humour that only The Behemoth games have.
There's also a bounty of side missions you can pick up around the map. From lost baby leopards in need of a home, to Merry Poppins references, to wraiths scaring gnomes for fun and profit. The map is always full of things to do and places to visit.