The Pedestrian Review: Crosswalk The Line

The new year marked the jump to Xbox Game Pass and a whole new audience for Skookum Arts’ creatively challenging debut title The Pedestrian, a beautifully unique yet heavily overlooked puzzler that launched early last year. Warehouses, subway lines, city streets, and neon soaked rooftops - I found myself stumped-yet-determined to solve the problems presented within the signage. Despite regularly stating to myself that things didn’t make sense and repeatedly questioning my intelligence, The Pedestrian has proven to be one of the most interesting and creative puzzle games I've played in recent memory.

A City That Never Sleeps

The whole of The Pedestrian presumably takes place within one city, placing its stages within the settings one can find within similar urban sprawls. Locations such as construction sites, bodegas, college campuses, busy streets, and train stations will be frequent sightings as you make your way through the game. However, the standout feature here is unquestionably how it presents its puzzles to the player. At the start of a playthrough, you’ll be asked to select between two characters - these two characters being the universal images of the male or female pedestrians we see on every day street signs. You’ll then be taking your pedestrian through all the aforementioned settings, all of which contain multiple signs that serve as the puzzles to overcome, puzzles we’ll come back around to discuss shortly. Though playing as the traffic pedestrian is a small detail, I love the decision to do so. The fact that the urban setting conceptually spills into the main character and the premise of the puzzles is honestly kind of genius. It made for an undeniably unique experience throughout. 

Another small but standout aspect of the game I found myself appreciating was the way the camera follows the pedestrian. For nearly the entirety of play time, you’ll be sidescrolling. In fact, the game is a side scroller. However, when you move from one puzzle to another, the puzzle you are progressing towards is often off screen. Instead of hitting me with a loading screen every time I moved from puzzle to puzzle, the game rather opted to follow my pedestrian to the next puzzle; wherever that may be. This sounds like it’s nothing to rave about, but such a simple decision - with the exception of a few train rides that act as loading screens - turns the whole game into a constant tracking shot. The design here is just as meticulously thought out as the puzzles themselves. The tracking camera successfully creates a sense that all actions are done within large, bustling, lived-in spaces. Traffic, small animals like birds and squirrels making their way around the city streets, the soothing silence of an empty sunlit study, shoes hanging from electrical lines, the rattling and clanking of an industrial warehouse, the way roaches scurry under pipes in the subways - the sights and sounds you would expect, and some you wouldn’t, are happening consistently all around the signs you’ll be playing on. 

The creative puzzles and visually pleasing settings are all accompanied by a distinct jazzy soundtrack courtesy of Logan Hayes. Filled with tracks that capture the vibes of Pixar-esque wondrous curiosity, noir sleuthing, eureka moments, and a laid back attitude, the soundtrack is mostly mellow, but does have its big climactic moments when need be. Though during my playthrough, while admittedly a nitpick, I noticed large sections with no music at all. While a momentary lapse in music is fairly common, it really stood out to me. These stand out moments were often the same where I'd find myself stuck with a problem, leaving me with just my confusion and the dead silence. It felt odd, and on occasion pulled me out of the moment. Regardless, The Pedestrian’s soundtrack is undoubtedly easy on the ears when it is playing and does an impressive job at capturing the subtly offbeat characterization the world inhabits.

Red Light, Green Light, One-Two-Three

Without a single spoken word or line of dialogue, The Pedestrian excels at conveying simple concepts and bundling them together in various ways to craft complex problems. Admittedly, most of the puzzles in the game aren’t brain breaking; this is no “Dark Souls of puzzlers” by any means. Difficulty may vary from player to player, but I did find myself helplessly stumped more than once with only time, patience, and keen eyes as my tools for success. The game tasks the player with running through and solving puzzles made up of a variety of street signs; those in which the player needs to connect together using a node system in order to reach. A puzzle might have anywhere from one to half a dozen signs you’ll need to travel between. They all have a specific purpose. Some may have doorways that connect to others, some might have levers that deactivate a laser grid you need to pass by, some might hold keys or tools you need in order to solve a puzzle entirely. 

As a player, you’ll need to figure out how these signs can connect together correctly and how you can solve the puzzle without breaking the connections. For example, a door on the left of a sign can only connect to a door on the right of another. If you pass through that connection and flip a switch but then break the connection you just made between the two doors, not only will you reset, but the switch will too. Being able to freely move the signs helps alleviate some of the problems, but only on occasion. The node system forces a planning process of sorts on the player. Analyzing the signs and running through potential scenarios before acting is the key to success. Will pushing a block in front of a laser be more advantageous to you then deactivating the grid entirely? Will the nodes you just connected carry you all the way to where you need to be, or just through one step of the puzzle? Instances and many failures like this created an entertaining level of frustration as I felt legitimately challenged while still having fun. 

There is a fair amount of diversity in the tools and obstacles faced, but the ways a single one can be utilized and the pacing in which they’re introduced prevents the game from ever feeling “samey” or getting boring. The mechanics are appropriately drip fed to the player. As more are introduced, the puzzles become more complex, leading to clever and creative puzzle design. Two of my favorite inclusions come in the form of ‘one way’ doorways and a stasis effect that keeps a sign the same regardless of node disconnects. The real kicker of it all, however, is how I needed to unlearn certain established rules to fully complete puzzles in the late game. There were also instances where I would hoard all the tools I’d need to use in a sign with the previously mentioned stasis effect and then disconnect nodes strategically. This would reset myself and the puzzle without sacrificing the work I did to get the tools where I needed them.

Breakdown

Game: The Pedestrian

Developer: Skookum Arts

Availability: Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Game Pass, PS4, PS5, PC, Mac

Reviewed on Xbox Series X

Pros: 

+ Creative puzzle design throughout 

+ Varied, thought out environments

+ Fun, engaging soundtrack

Cons:

- Occasional music dropouts pulled me from the experience 

- Potential for “walk away” frustration due to increasing complexity by the finale

Final Thoughts

The Pedestrian is a beautiful, well thought out puzzler that nails that mark between a relaxing and challenging experience. The precise pacing of introducing and tweaking puzzle mechanics throughout makes for a welcoming feeling of complexity without feeling unsolvable. The numerous puzzles and spaces feel both familiar yet varied to ensure a fresh experience; not to mention the whimsical jazz score to provide extra flare. With The Pedestrian, Skookum Arts has crafted an experience worth the time of those looking for a beautiful new brain teaser.

Written by Justin Hyde