Pivot Pilot

I dislike how the level design combines long mundane parts with quick bursts of skill. If you look at the GOAT difficult platformers, either the entire level has a consistent difficulty or there's not much leadup to the hard parts, making the game more interesting throughout. You also usually checkpoint more often. In Pivot Pilot, I felt like I was often going through a pretty long level and ended up failing a hard part, then doing it all again.

Another major issue I have is the occasional "no way to know that except by dying" elements. For example, a fourth saw that has to be mid-air jumped right after three saws that you have to drop past. There's really no way to read this except through sheer luck, and when you fail you have to do allll of the level again (which exacerbates the first issue). Just one of several examples in the game. In general, there's not enough of a telegraph and many levels are virtually impossible to sightread. I've always preferred level design where it feels like it really is feasible to sightread if you're mechanically good enough.

Third main thing I didn't like: the controls don't feel that good. Idk. You have to quickly double tap to double jump to max height, otherwise it's too short. Mid-air movement feels imprecise. Some parts require a lot of precision, far too much for my taste.

It's not all bad ofc. The pivoting mechanic is a great gimmick, there's still some decent platforming, a banging soundtrack, and interesting level ideas even if the execution didn't live up to it. It's not a garbage game, but I did dislike a LOT of parts, enough for me to not recommend it. Also keybindings reset when you exit :(

It's a precision platformer somewhat similar to Super Meat Boy. You control a little guy and have to avoid traps to complete the level. The unique feature of this game is the robot arm, that helps you to solve some puzzles. Unfortunetaly, I felt it was mostly a gimmick; it was not very well incorporated into the levels. In the later levels you mostly just control the guy, and the robot is used for only a little bit. Had the level design been better, this game could have been great. The way it is now, though, I can still give it a weak recommendation. Get if you like challenging platformers and would like to try this innovative gimmick, and if it is on sale.

I was sold on the concept alone: big robot arm buddy. I didn't know I'd be in for some tough-as-nails platforming. Still, I'm 3/4 of the way through and can highly recommend this to anyone looking for a challenge with equal parts puzzle and reflexes, precision and action.

Surprisingly a good game. Challenging. I only have an hour in as of writing this review but i barely made it like 11 levels in. It's super hard and makes you want to use the bathroom even longer than you anticipated because "I NEED MUH WINS"

5/7 would recommend

but i also don't recommend because i only have 11 levels in after an hour.

*dies 12,654 times on Test Chamber 1-10*
*sees that there are 3 more sets of test chambers after that*
*cries*

Sweet merciful Lord...this game is the platformer equivalent of Octodad. A very interesting mechanic, with an intentionally frustrating control scheme...and it is punishingly difficult.

With your left thumbstick, and your A and X buttons (360 controller), you control a platformer character, jumping around through various tricky obstacles. Nothing too new here.
What makes Pivot Pilot different is that you also control a mechanical arm with the right thumbstick, the bumpers, and the triggers. You use this to help move your character around, and to touch the goalpost at the end of each level. The bulb on the end is extremely fragile, though...so if you touch anything else it shatters, and you lose.

Sometimes you can't see both of your people on the screen at the same time.
Sometimes you don't have time to "tread carefully" with the complicated arm movements.
But you always have to be very, very precise, or you will die.
And you will die. A lot.

It's just about the perfect blend between being a puzzle platformer and being a rage platformer. Pick it up if you like that sort of thing. But avoid it if you have high blood pressure.

Imagine playing QWOP with your left hand (except QWASZX) and Super Meat Boy with your right hand.

That's pretty much it in a nutshell. Right hand is traditional platformer (with lots of traps). Very much like a less-frenetic Super Meat Boy, although some levels

Left hand controls a robot arm. There are three joints on the robot arm. You control each joint with one combination of keys. (QW, AS, and ZX). One key rotates clockwise, the other counter-clockwise. (The robot stays completely stationary if you aren't hitting a key, so there's none of QWOP's floppiness to compensate for. It's *usually* fairly forgiving other than "er, that's not the piece moving I meant to.")

The robot arm has a sphere at the end. Sphere cannot touch a wall or traps or it breaks. Sphere is the only part of the robot that interacts with anything - this means the platformer dude can jump on top of the sphere.

So: you control two characters, one per hand. You're going to be operating them and needing to coordinate, although with the exception of a small number of levels, you don't have to do them simultaneously.

This is really innovative and your brain gets kinda tingly playing it, because sometimes, your brain is fighting itself.

A lot of the challenge (outside Super Meat Boy style traps) is translating rotating pieces into horizontal movement. The last time I played something that made my brain (enjoyably) struggle to coordinate like this was when I used to play Audiosurf's dual-joystick mode (each joystick controlled a separate ninja mono vehicle, and you had to dodge totally separate targets with both joysticks).

Far as negatives, I'd call out a few levels that require pixel perfect precision. They flat out just aren't fun. The vast majority of the levels feel challenging but ultimately fair, and as you play them numerous times, you start building muscle memory, making it easier. Then there are levels where the timing has to be so ridiculously precise that spamming the jump button with one hand and using another hand to hit left/right is the ONLY way you can get past a trap, because you have like .2 seconds to spare. Thankfully, these levels are fairly rare. But they are REALLY annoying, and not the good kind of "ahhhh so close" kind of annoying, but the "this makes me want to quit" kind. I've got 5 levels left I haven't beaten, and I'd say so far, there've been 3 or 4 levels (out of ~35 I've played) that felt this way.

The other negative is that some levels require you to navigate a huge number of traps, and there are no checkpoints. When you've played a level 30 times and have the first set of traps down, dying on the 2nd set of traps and having to redo the first set (even though you can beat it 90% of the time once you have enough practice on that level) ultimately gets REALLY tedious. These are more common than the ones where timing is extremely stringent, but they aren't frequent enough to make me want to rage quit.

Seriously, though. The level I'm stuck on requires you to move the arm, jump on the ball, jump between 6 platforms with low ceiling, so if your timing is off, you fall into a trap. Then you jump back along those 6 platforms to where you started. This sequence is actually not that difficult. But doing it over and over again gets really annoying, because the next section is EXTREMELY hard and doing that easy part again and again and again is so damn annoying. And then, assuming you beat the easy section (and run back), and the hard section, then do the hard section in reverse, then drop down a hole, and do another (thankfully not as hard) section of traps, then maneuver the robot down to the goal.

Anyhow, the game is cheap, it's innovative, it's fun, and it's a bit brain-burny-yet-twitchy-platformer action. Easy buy recommendation.

I really like this game actually. Found it on redit! before it released and wanted to try it from there, so I bought it couple days after release. Just now got around to trying it lol and it is well worth it. I have to say that the controls aren't all that intuitive it will take a little bit to get used to but it is a pretty unique game premise for a puzzle game so I think that would be unavoidable. If you like puzzle games that you can spend some time here and there playing then this just might be for you. overall I'd give it 8 out of 10, definitely worth the money.

Great game, cannot reccomend it enough, worth every cent.

Portal meets super meat boy, tricky and awesome!

This game brought me back to 90's. I liked the game a lot.
I got good wibes when passing some challenging levels. Feels good.
Musics fits really great to this awesome pixel art, also character movement and robot hand handling feels so polished.
I really love the level design on this game and some of the mechanics are absolutely insane.

Definetely looking forward what the creator design next.

Just completed the first testing facility and want to share some early thoughts.

If you like Super Meat Boy, then you are likely to love this one too. These two have many similarities (in a good way), but Pivot Pilot adds refreshing unique gameplay elements, as the title suggests. In addition to the player character, you control a robotic arm by rotating each of its three segments. The robotic arm is used to transport the player character to otherwise unreachable places where he can hit switches and such. Levels are finished by navigating the tip of the arm to the goal. Don't be fooled, it is not as easy as it sounds. Concentration is required to pass the puzzles.

The level design is clever and provides a real challenge with equal satisfaction. Sometimes you really need to rush and get that jumping sequence perfectly executed. There is no blaming the controls: you died - your fault.

And speaking of dying, that is going to happen often. Luckily, the soundtrack is so amazing that it will distract you from getting too frustrated. You might as well just hand out the award for the best video game soundtrack of 2017 already. The graphical style is also spot on.

No reason why this game shouldn't be a great hit.

New platformer classic is born! This game is an addicting as it gets. Controls are solid and difficulty is right in the ball park, wanting to try once more. Graphics are well made pixel art and it works like a charm. And I love that the game has very cryptic and mysterious feeling. This game is a solid oldschool platformer with a own twist. I can recommended this to anyone that likes old school platformers!

Really good game similarities for example to Meatboy. Keeps you on the hook from beginning to end :D

Such a cool game! Challenging, good looking, awesome soundtrack and I love the robo-arm! <3

I absolutely recommend this game! I usually don't play games like this so I was a bit cautious about it, but it got me HOOKED and surprised how addicting it was! Some levels took me forever to complete but when I did, it was INSTANT SATISFACTION! If I have to come up with some negatives I would probably say don't get frustrated on the robots controls!
It takes a while to fully master it and when you do, NOTHING is going to stop you! Unique gameplay, great art and awesome music alone should be the reason to get this game! Buy this game if you're up for the challenge. ;)

I did a quick stream of this game if you want to check it out: https://www.twitch.tv/bearwithus/v/112899305

Great game, just be prepared to die! Alot!