PrettySafe Airlines is a VR game on the Oculus store that sees you pilot an aircraft. Your job is to deliver packages to their destinations. Developed by Yummy Human, this title was released on the 8th August 2019.
PrettySafe Airlines
Upon my first few playthrough, this title did remind me of Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes. The premise is very similar too, namely a bomb is replaced by an airplane in this game. Within the cockpit, you’re surrounded by many dials and buttons that all need working in some way when you take off. The catch is that you need another player/partner to help you out. Playing this game solo is not recommended, but how you choose to play this game is up to you though. Play with a random person online or have another VR player in the cockpit with you. Or you can get another person to go to the following website here to log into your gameplay session and help you with the puzzles needed to keep you in the air.
Gameplay
As stated one person plays as the pilot, and the other helps with the manual for fixing the many problems you’ll encounter. For example, you’ll encounter a problem where you need to fix the fuel lines to your engines. In front of the pilot will be a red line indicating which lines will need to be fueled and a series of buttons/switches that will need flipping, but the pilot won’t know what order in which they should be flipped. Only the person with the manual will know the information required to fix the problem. Now, having played as both the pilot and the manual reader, I can say that the relaying of the information is critical.
For me, I had the assistance of my better half to be the manual reader. She was excellent in reading the information, but the instructions in some cases were very vague at best. We did muddle through just by sheer luck on some of the puzzles.
Difficulty Spikes
Which brings me onto my next point. After the first few attempts, you will be getting used to the game, showing you a few puzzles and getting to grips with the mechanics of information sharing. But, after the first few goes, it then throws you straight into a scenario that has more or less everything going on at once. Multiple puzzles need your attention whilst having real time puzzles that need solving. For example, there is a puzzle in the centre console where you need to avoid a collision, but as the pilot, you can’t see what needs to be avoided. It’s up to the co-pilot/other player logged in to guide you through. If they don’t keep you updated, you can easily mess this up, and it will critically damage your plane.
So, the race to keep your plane in the air is more challenging and soon becomes a mutli-tasking nightmare, and for me, I can only handle a few scenarios at once before my attention span fizzles out.
Overall
All in all, the game is a good idea. It promotes team work amongst players. By communicating and relaying what can and can’t be seen, the sense of achievement you get can be a triumph when a stage is cleared. But, this is also the crux of the game. It all depends on whom you play with. If you play with someone who isn’t helpful or struggles with the instructions, the experience can be frustrating, and seeing as the core concept of the game is built around this central pillar, it’s pretty hard to ignore.
Developer: Yummy Human
Publisher: Yummy Human
Platforms: PC (Oculus Store)
Release Date: 8th August 2019
Do you agree with our review of PrettySafe Airlines? What are your thoughts? Tell us in the comments below.