Pinstripe Review

Play as Ted, a father in search of his kidnapped daughter Bo in the depths of hell in a truly atmospheric game with a flawless and poignant story. Search for clues and solve the mystery behind your deaths. Pinstripe offers a simple yet diverse gameplay in a beautiful environment.

Pinstripe Review

Introduction

Pinstripe is an independent game released by atmos games. It was in development for the past 5 years and was entirely made by Thomas Brush. It's mostly an atmospheric game, delivering a great deal of emotions with a poignant story together with some adventure and puzzle game mechanics offering a diverse yet simple gameplay.

This game is purchasable on Steam for $14.99

Story

In Pinstripe you play as Ted an ex-minister and father who's searching the depths of hell to find his kidnapped daughter Bo. As the story develops the player will find clues to help him solve the mystery behind Bo's and Ted's death. The story is really well written and compelling. From sad to funny to really creepy the game really offers a complete range of sensations that really made me want more. Pinstripe is the type of game that give you just enough information to understand what's happening but gives you room to imagine and discover the rest of the story. It really is beneficial for the player to just have a break and take a look at the environment, to see if there's no clue laying around. You will be able to learn a lot about the game story just by looking at every single detail you notice along your journey.

Pinstripe Review. Bo is tied up

Gameplay

General

As Thomas Brush said :"It's more of a story and distinct and atmospheric adventure game". Pinstripe is really focused on telling a story rather than gameplay, but it still offers some interesting and fun features.
The main objective of the player is to find different clues that will help him understand the story as well as progressing the story. Those clues are scattered around the world.Some are just laying around, others are given by other characters or reward from small mini games. The player then have the ability to inspect those objects which allow you to rotate them and look all over for clues.

By traveling around the game world, the player will face different challenges. Such as small enemies that can be defeated with your slingshot as well as platforming sequences and some physic puzzles. Making the game quite interactive and never too repetitive.

Pinstripe Review. Inspecting a ticket for clues

Mini Games

During his journey, the player will have to face many different mini games to either open safes,doors or turn on different things. There's many different types of mini games ranging from finding differences between two images, target shooting,reflex games and some others. Those mini games are never too difficult nor too long so they don't break the immersion and  really help to keep the game fresh as the general gameplay is quite simple. I also never thought that those mini games where acting as a wall between me and the story which is really nice for people who are only there for said story. It's really entertaining to have all these small challenges to complete. They're not all necessary for the completion of the game but I do suggest trying all of them since they're quite entertaining.

Dialogue Options

As far as dialogues goes they're pretty straightforward. There's not many options to influence dialogues. Which is to be expected since the game resolve around one specific story. You do have at multiple occasions the possibility to either answer with a kind or mean (Good or Evil) answer. Those don't affect dialogues much but it's still fun to see how the different characters react when you tell them how they smell like pigeon fart. Also depending on the choices you make the game offer two different endings which really helps with replay value.

Collectible

Pinstripe has a currency called frozen drops those are found all around the game world and allow the player to buy different items. Such as an improved version of the slingshot and different clothes. Those aren't necessary, but if you're like me and you're a treasure hunter at heart those things are always nice to get. There's also photographic films, allowing you to play the game in vintage mode if you find them all.

New Game Plus

Once you finish the game for the first time, you'll be able to start a new game as an adventure plus.
During your second playthrough you'll notice that somethings did change but the game is essentially the same. You do get an item that allows you to have access to some areas you couldn't have access before which is always nice. You will also have the possibility to collect additional currencies to buy the items you might not have bought in your first playthrough. It is also a nice moment to go ahead and try to get the ending you didn't see the first time you finished the game. Both endings are a bit different from each other and I personally really liked both.

Graphics

Pinstripe as a quite unique and beautiful art style that makes it look like a children tale book. It's quite colorful but still has a weird and creepy feeling to it which makes quite a contrast and I believe it represents the game really well. The characters are quite stylized giving them a really cute charm and they're all really well animated. The scenery of the game is really beautiful ,all the different places where the game is taking place are represented really well and it makes the game trully immersive once you get into the story. The developer made a really good job atmosphere wise, adding a lot of details from snow to flying birds making the game look alive and interesting.

Pinstripe Review. Killing an enemy with the slingshot

Pinstripe Review. Amazing atmosphere

Audio

The music in general was great. Thomas, as well as programming,writing the story and making the art, wrote the game soundtrack. Which makes it really special because games are usually made by teams and you often see something that doesn't quite feel right because so many people worked on it and not all of them had exactly the same idea. This is not the case with Pinstripe everything in this game was made by a single person with one unique idea in mind which make everything really tied together. The characters voices are also really good. Like I said above, the dialogues are well written and the voice actors really managed to give even more life to the characters. You may even recognize some of them since Jacksepticeye(Seán William McLoughlin) and Pewdiepie(Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg) just to name a few voice characters in Pinstripe

Conclusion

I personally really enjoyed Pinstripe. I played the entire thing in one sitting and had a really immersive experience. The story was amazing, giving me the chills, making me laugh and even shedding a tear.

The gameplay was never too complicated and since there was so many small and different mini games the game itself never felt boring. The graphics really impressed me, at  some point it looked like a modern version of The Nightmare Before Christmas. The soundtrack was subtle and yet added a lot to the game and I was quite surprised to hear the voices of some famous youtubers in this independent game, they also added a lot to the characters personality. The game may be a bit expensive for the few hours of gameplay it offers, but is definitely worth it for the experience. I really fell in love with the story and can't wait to see what will be the next project of Atmos Games.

PROS CONS
 + Flawless story  – Too short
 + Strong atmosphere and visuals
 + Interesting gameplay
9
Amazing

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