0.5/5 ★ – Xelstrin's review of PROJECT: PLAYTIME.

[𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗚𝗶𝘀𝘁] Poppy Playtime's attempt at multiplayer has a lot of good ideas, but there's a whole lot that needs to be done before they can come together and make a good game. [𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗜 𝗟𝗶𝗸𝗲𝗱] ✪ Its monetization follows standard practice. Everything you can buy with actual money is strictly cosmetic. Playcoins are the game's premium currency, going at a rate of 100 coins per $1 USD. Its Battle Pass, called "The Toybox", has 100 tiers and runs for 80 days. 1000 Playcoins grants you the premium pass and there are 16 free tiers. ✪ Tickets, earned by completing tasks, are used to buy Perks for Survivors and Sabotages for the Monsters. The Perks are pretty common across the board and offer a bit of comfort against the game's threats, while Sabotages do exactly as the name suggests; sabotage Survivor progression. Each has 3 levels and you're only allowed to use one at a time. ✪ If a Monster quits, another player is asked if they'd like to fill the role instead of ending the game—unless they're the host. ✪ After each match, the Monster and map are chosen randomly. I've yet to have the same player as monster or map twice in a row, despite there only being two maps right now. ✪ After being downed as a Survivor, you're dropped into a sewer and have to fend off Mini Huggies while waiting for someone to save you. They get a bit more aggressive the second time you end up down there, with the third resulting in an instant death. [𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗜 𝗗𝗶𝗱𝗻'𝘁 𝗟𝗶𝗸𝗲] ✘ Epic Games Online Services are a mandatory component. ✘ At the time of writing, there is no native gamepad support. ✘ Keystrokes have no effect in most of the menus, meaning you have to click everything in order to navigate. ✘ Huggy's got a one-hit knock down move that has a disgustingly fast recharge. ✘ Nothing is done to compensate for lower survivor counts. By default, the game is designed to work around the idea of 6 survivors versus 1 killer. In the event that there are 3 survivors instead of the expected 6, the objective remains the same. ✘ Leaving the match as a dead Survivor forfeits all of the rewards you've earned. Considering the fact that matches can last for 15 minutes and you can't be revived, you'd best hope you're lucky enough not to be tunneled, one shot or sold out by your team. ✘ Though the game looks pretty good, there wasn't nearly as much effort put into the sound design. Regardless of map or Monster, there are only three tracks; the lobby theme, the in-game background music and the escape music. There's nothing to indicate a chase, nor are there many distinct sounds in the environment besides footsteps and puzzle effects. Sound balancing is also a mess, making it hard to tell what's going on and where. ✘ Trying to get into lobbies is a nightmare. It takes about 20 minutes just to find a match, with nearly all of the servers I'd join sending me back to the menu with error messages ranging from "The host left the game." to "Error creating session". Hosting didn't do me much good either, as I'd sit around for 30 to 40 minutes with people trickling into the lobby, just to leave since they didn't fill fast enough. ✘ You are constantly at the mercy of your host, thanks to the game's peer-to-peer server based matchmaking system. I've yet to experience any lag, but the rage quitters are plentiful. There's even a match cooldown at the end of each game, giving scummy hosts about 10 seconds to quit and nullify the tickets everyone else gained before they can get back to the lobby. [𝗡𝗶𝘁𝗽𝗶𝗰𝗸𝘀] • No toggle crouch or sprint. • You cannot party up with friends prior to joining a match. Fortunately, with a lot of patience, you can still play with them thanks to server selection. Just tell your friend(s) which server you're joining and try hopping in at the same time. • This game's generators are Puzzle Pillars, which require you to finish three puzzles in order to get the toy part needed to escape. Only one of them is fun to me, with the other two being obnoxious memory games. You can make these a bit easier with Perks, but that doesn't make them any more enjoyable, to me. [𝗢𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗹𝗹] Project: Playtime's got a long way to go before it's good, but if you don't have anything better to do and consider yourself the patient type, your feedback can assist the process. Hopefully it becomes a game that I can come back to and actually enjoy at some point, but for now it's a hard pass with a slim chance of being able to redeem itself. [𝗘𝘅𝘁𝗿𝗮 𝗜𝗻𝗳𝗼] ■ Platform: PC (Steam) ■ Playtime: 6 hours ■ Learning Curve: Small. You'll have everything figured out in a couple matches. ■ Progression: Battle pass. Points to buy perks. ■ Cosmetics: Character skins and emotes for both sides. ■ Players: 7; 6 Survivors, 1 Monster ■ Private Lobbies: Yes ■ DLC: Strictly cosmetic. ■ Accessibility Options: Colorblind mode ■ Plan to 100%: Likely not.