Pants Quest is a point-and-click adventure game from Ghost Cat Games. The game follows the struggle of a man trying to find his pants, and maybe get his life in order too while he’s at it. It’s a classically styled adventure title and something that can be finished in a few sittings. In our Pants Quest Review, we’ll take a look at how well this quest shapes up to be.
Story and Writing
Pants Quest has a pretty simple setup. You wake up, and have to get ready to start your day, but can’t find your pants. Your goal as the player is to find your pants so you can finally do what you have to. The game takes the part of finding your pants and creates an entire narrative around it. It’s pretty funny, awkward, and sort of uncomfortable at times. It’s an introspective look at procrastination and the feeling of being “stuck”, and allows our character to convey some fairly realistic emotions through some comedic writing.
While the game isn’t that long, it manages to capture the anxiety of someone dealing with very human issues, in a very respectful, and accurate manner. The main character will comment on their surroundings fairly often. At certain times you can almost feel a sense of frustration from the writing when they don’t want to interact with something. The simple routine of getting ready, and starting your day can often be pretty heavy, and that’s what Pants Quest is all about.
Gameplay and Controls
If you’ve been playing point-and-click adventures for a while, you’ll fit right in. You move around with your mouse and interact with practically everything in the environment. Simple puzzle solving involves combining items, to achieve some result that progresses the story. It sounds simple enough, and it is, but there are a few design issues that make it a bit tedious.
For starters, you have four ways to interact with an item. You can look at it, pick it up, “use” it, or open/close it. By default, the click doesn’t do anything, and you have to first click a button or the hotkey, to ensure you have the action selected. This may not sound too bad, but deciding when to “use” or pick something can be pretty annoying. Most modern point-and-click styled games have the interact option mapped to the mouse anyway, or at least give you a drop-down option. Having to constantly select these interaction modes from the bottom left menu can really kill the pacing, especially when the task at hand seems pretty simple.
There are some light puzzles that involve interaction with different objects as well. These are pretty simple, like interacting with a toaster to make sure it doesn’t burn your toast or interacting with the electric unit.
At times, you’ll be a bit lost with what objects to combine, but some trial and error will get you further. Some of these interactions are a bit clever, but most of it is the usual stuff you’ll see in other point-and-click titles. If you’re a fan of the genre, you’ll probably have a good time figuring out what goes with what. Though, you’ll have to be patient, as there’s always only one solution to a problem.
The short length really helps though and despite the tedium, it does wrap up pretty nicely. There are some interesting sections near the end that diversify the gameplay.
Visuals and Audio
The visuals are a highlight of our Pants Quest review, and it’s clear that a lot of effort went into this aspect. Every room feels very detailed, with carefully placed items scattered throughout. Almost every single object has a description, and there is some dialogue associated with those. I enjoyed the natural feel of everything, and it made sense in how you would realistically interact with them.
Checking your emails meant you had to first turn the PC on, which would light up your monitors, and then an entire interface for that was present. Objects in your kitchen are distinct, and the pixel art is gorgeous. There are tons of animations as well, and give everything a mechanical feel, which really helps with immersion.
Did I mention there’s a cat? Because there is one, and it’s animated beautifully.
The audio design is a bit disappointing though as you’d expect the same care put into various sound effects that they did with the visuals. Most interactive objects don’t have any unique sound effects, which is a bit of a shame.
Verdict
Pants Quest tells a fairly honest story about anxiety, procrastination, and the feeling of being stuck in your life. It suffers when it comes to gameplay due to some tedium, but manages to provide a worthwhile experience without overstaying its welcome. The pixel-art is gorgeous, and there’s a lot to like when it comes to environmental interaction.
While you’re here, make sure to check out our other recent reviews, like Nobody Saves the World, and Solar Ash.
You can add Pants Quest to your wishlist now on Steam.
What did you think of our Pants Quest Review? Have you started playing the title? Share what you think about it in the comments below.
This review is based on the PC version of Pants Quest. The key was provided by Future Friends Games.
