Pinstripe review

Reviewed on: PC

Pinstripe is an adventure game incredibly developed by just one person, over 5 years. Its creator is Thomas Brushe.

STORY

Pinstripe is an adventure charged with strong emotions about hell, made by “Thomas Brushe”. Play as Teddy, a former priest who is forced to venture through the frozen afterlife in search of “Bo”, his three-year-old daughter, and her wicked kidnapper. Uncover the dark secrets of Teddy’s past and confront his despicable, demonic nemesis, Mr. Pinstripe.
The game’s focus is more on telling a story than on its gameplay. Something stated by Thomas himself.

But don’t expect to lose many hours. On the first playthrough, you can finish this game in 3 to 4 hours. On a second run, to look for all the items, you can easily finish in up to 2 hours.
The story is well told, but it has some pretty strange and childish dialogue.

GRAPHICS AND SOUND

The game’s art was all made by hand: everyone has long, thin limbs and comical facial features. The exquisite lighting increases the game’s beauty; the 3D identification items collected in your inventory can be rotated and catch the light wonderfully. The melancholic tone of the scenery gives the game a special charm.
The music throughout the game is special and occasionally you find old items that can be activated to play some even lovelier melodies.
The voice acting is unmatched, done by professional actors and celebrities. However, the dialogue is childish and sometimes nonsensical, leaving everything a bit confusing, and you have to reread several times to understand something.

GAMEPLAY

Movement is easy and intuitive. The commands are very simple and easy to get used to; the puzzles are also quite easy to solve: at most you spend about ten minutes getting past one. The game is much more focused on telling a story than on going around killing enemies and the like.

As you progress through the game, you pick up “Frozen drops”, which are added to your wallet and can eventually be used to buy special items. The items cost large amounts of drops, so you won’t get them all in the first playthrough – they essentially motivate you to play again. You must also collect the 9 clues that are needed to finish the game and solve some of the main area-opening puzzles.

After finishing the game, the “ADVENTURE PLUS” option is unlocked. In this mode you get the same world and repeat the same plot, with some modifications; but this time there are extra doors and areas to explore that were previously locked, and you can also accumulate plenty of frozen drops to buy additional special items, such as clothes and weapons.

CONCLUSION

Pinstripe is far from a bad game, but there are some flaws in its story, and especially in the dialogue of its NPCs within the game. It has great graphics for a platformer, with its gothic theme and a cool story that makes you come up with many theories. It is a good game for losing a few hours and scratching the itch for the genre. But don’t expect something grand like a “AAA”. And we also have to take into account that the game was made by just one person, which already makes it quite attractive.

Narrative: 6
Audiovisual: 8
Gameplay: 7