Two Fedoras

Just like Billy Pilgrim of Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five, P.B. Winterbottom has come unstuck in time.  Only instead of an easy-going everyman optometrist, Mr. Winterbottom (the titular character of The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom by The Odd Gentlemen) is a top-hat wearing, spatted man known mostly for his voracious love of pie.  To wit, he uses this newfound ability to collect and devour said confection at every opportunity by recording his actions and utilizing temporal clones of himself to further his gastronomic ends.

Visual

The art style of Winterbottom is very much a joy.  In general, I don’t enjoy pre-rendered 3d models used in a 2d context because they look sterile and the animations are very mechanical.  But the fact the 3d is very often abstract and mixed with hand drawn assets, with some good filters like the general desaturation and the film effect turn it around.  The backgrounds are fairly detailed and animated bringing a nice feeling of life.  The game is helped also, by the interstitial drawings coupled with rhyming couplets to read, which are the main method of pushing forward the story.  These drawings are done in a fabulous style which I can’t help but compare to Gabe of Penny-Arcade (in the best possible way!).

One bit that did annoy me, however, was the Winterbottom animations themselves, which use a side view for general motion, but a front view for floating with the umbrella.  I love the look of the slow-falling Winterbottom, but if you’re going to use a 3d model like that, I would have preferred to see a bit of interstitial animation between the two states.

Audio

The bulk of the notable audio in Winterbottom is no doubt the music.  From its atmospheric menu theme of grumbling horns, to it’s themes of wonderment all done in a fantastic style reminiscent of what you would hear accompanying a silent film.  I particularly enjoy the usage of the Westminster Chimes as a motif to push further on the notion of time.

The rest of the gameplay sounds are fairly incidental, though fitting.  There are of course sounds for pie collecting, smacking another Winterbottom with a broom and the “poof” noise of a disappearing clone.  The projector sound when recording a clone, accompanied by a visual of film frames rewinding, is also a nice cue to help you know what you are doing.

Gameplay

Behind the rest of Winterbottom’s treats, however, the game mechanics taste the sweetest.  As with a lot of the modern crop of the indie scene, Winterbottom takes a singular game mechanic and explores it from many angles over the course of the game.  The basic premise is of a collect-a-thon with the twist of being able to record actions and replay them on a loop.  This idea is then further modified by requiring pies to be collected in a specific order, allowing pies to only be collected by time clones, or making pie collection only possible when followed by a spotlight.  The time recording part is also played with by limiting the number of active time clones, and eventually swapped out in favor of requiring recording to begin at portals positioned in the level.  These portal clones can then only interact with other portal clones or sometimes considered to be evil, bringing death to Winterbottom on contact.

There were a few points of contention for me, however.  The mechanical changes are all fairly interesting and play well, but I couldn’t help but find it a bit jarring to suddenly go from being able to record whenever I wanted, to having to record starting at a portal, using a different button on the gamepad no less.  Some puzzles also involved two different solution methods that I wasn’t exactly thrilled with.  First, some puzzles require you to use a clone and Winterbottom to simultaneously whack each other to fly in opposite directions.  This feat is a bit hit-or-miss in that the window of opportunity for pulling it off is a bit on the small side.  You generally have to set up a clone performing the “whack” on repeat and inch yourself in hoping to hit it back at the exact time it swings.  Swing too late and you fly back by yourself and have to get back into position, sometimes even having to reset the other pieces of the puzzle.  Swing too soon and the clone flies alone, requiring you to record a new one, since being hit puts a clone into “confused” mode where it stops replaying.  Secondly, a few different puzzles utilize the fact that a clone will instantaneously jump back to its original position at the beginning of its playback loop, thus making this fact a requirement in reaching some time sensitive pies that are across the screen.  While I can see how this emerged from the workings of the playback mechanic, I’m not sure I totally agree with its usage, as these are the puzzles that managed to stump me the longest until I figured out exactly what it was asking me to do.

Trailer

Summary

Overall, P.B. Winterbottom was an enjoyable, if generally short, experience.  I played through the entire game in a matter of a few hours.  But for 800 Itchy-and-Scratchy-Moneys it’s a fun diversion, and the extra bonus levels will probably keep you pie-hunting for a good bit of time longer.  In short, if you’re a puzzle fan with a knack for thinking across a temporal dimension:  The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom is a definite buy.