Review: The Misadventures of PB Winterbottom

I know I normally review games which I've played on stream, but I've played this game over the last couple of days and I'm finding it to be a lot of fun, I think you should try it out. Big thank you to Dravenos who gifted me this game the other day! Also the highlight in this review are from his cast of this game (his first cast, check him out and support a new caster).

The game is set way back, possibly in the early 1900's (forgive me, I don't know my history well) and you are a guy who really likes pies. He likes pies so much in fact, that it's all he thinks about, which causes him to constantly pilfer them. His sticky fingers are not without consequence however, as the pie heists cause general chaos in his town, such as the burning down of the bakery, and stopping of the town clock. This is a puzzle action game where the whole point is to collect the pies in every level by using clones of PB Winterbottom. Every level has a limit to the number of clones allowed, thus creating the challenge to the game. As you progress, you are actually going backwards in time, fixing the havoc that PB Winterbottom wrought with his pie thieving fingers.

PB will do anything for dem pies!

The graphic style of the game is the first thing that sticks out. The whole game is in black and white, with the exception of the pies that PB is chasing and the clones. You would think that this would make the game visually boring (especially for someone like me who generally likes vibrant colours in a game), but the effect is done so well that it definitely enhances the game experience. When you are recording actions for the clone to perform, old timey film roll effects appear, giving the appearance that you really are being recorded. Tips appear at the bottom of the screen, and once these run out, quirky notes replace them, such as “this space for rent” etc. I truly do enjoy the visual style of this game, and highly recommend checking it out simply for its visual style.

The graphical style is the first thing that sticks out

The audio in this game is also really well done. There isn't much in the way of variety of music, but the music that is there fits in perfectly with the game, though I wouldn't listen to it outside of the game.

The challenge in The Misadventures of PB Winterbottom is at quite a nice level. You will probably fly through the first world as it functions as more of a tutorial than a real stage. When you reach the second world the difficulty jumps quite significantly, but not to insurmountable levels. So far I've played about halfway through the third stage, and I'm finding the difficulty curve has leveled off somewhat. There are also bonus stages associated with each world you complete which have both time and “recording” challenges. These are linked to the steam network and have leaderboards (which do not seem to suffer the same failings as the SMB leaderboards), giving hours of extra play once the main story is done.

All in all, The Misadventures of PB Winterbottom is a quirky, lighthearted game, which is worth every penny on steam. You will get your money's worth on this one for sure. I give it 3 deliciously pilfered pies out of 5.