Pit Panic from Flying Rat Studio is a fast-paced 2D roguelike arcade platformer in which you must act as quickly as possible as you try to escape from a sinking Aztec temple. Learn more in our Pit Panic review!

 

Pit Panic from Flying Rat Studio is a fast-paced 2D roguelike arcade platformer in which you must act as quickly as possible as you try to escape from a sinking Aztec temple. You’ll be placed in the role of a curious archeologist who sorta bit more than they could chew, and must now race against the clock to try and jump up, up, and away to try and reach the exit. You’ll be doing this by making the most of the powerful hook that you carry, which you can use to dig through blocks and swing around as you find the hidden treasures of the temple. This does mean you’ll be taking on a physics-driven experience as you use your momentum to try to avoid the deadly traps placed along the way.

Given its roguelike nature, no two runs will be the same, so you’ll need to learn from your mistakes as you adapt to what the game will throw at you during each subsequent run. There are four different biomes for you to explore, with a variety of enemies and art styles to enjoy. There are over 1,000 handcrafted levels to mix things up, and you can even build your own levels and share them with the rest of the world to test their skills.

 

Once the intro cutscene is over, you’ll be taking control of your character by using the left analog stick or the D-Pad, as you jump by pressing the B button as needed. You can also hug a wall and then press the B button for a wall jump. Aim all around you with the right analog stick, and shoot your hook by pressing the R button. Hold down the ZR button to shoot an item you have, or drop it if you want to by pressing the A button.

The game also supports the use of the touchscreen when you’re playing in Portable or Tabletop Mode. That way, you can aim by using the touchscreen and jump by pressing the L button and launch the hook by using the ZL button. You can also make good use of mouse controls as well for aiming.

As you explore the temple, you can decide to trade some of your HP to unlock the different power-ups you can find along the way. These include, for example, Ice Proofing, which protects you from freezing, Extra Health, which will increase max health by one, or Air Bending, which will allow you to suck in items, to name some examples. You can collect coins to buy back lives from treasure chests, so that you can keep going.

There are other explorers dotted around the temple here and there, and they will have some side objectives for you to work on completing for extra bonuses. Say one of them asks that you destroy all boom boxes. You won’t know this is what you need to do until you find them the first time, but you’ll then be able to use this knowledge to complete this side objective during your next run and be properly rewarded.

Say you do this and are rewarded with two extra max hit points. You can then make good use of this by collecting coins and treasure so that you can unlock the health treasure chests you find and boost your overall health to be ready for the upcoming boss fight. Yes. You will run into bosses that you’ll need to defeat, and that means you’ll have to learn their movement and attack patterns as you try to chip away at their health.

Pit Panic is a fast-paced 2D roguelike arcade platformer in which you must act as quickly as possible as you try to escape from a sinking Aztec temple. You’ll be placed in the role of a curious archeologist who sorta bit more than they could chew, and must now race against the clock to try and jump up, up, and away to try and reach the exit. You’ll be doing this by making the most of the powerful hook that you carry, which you can use to dig through blocks and swing around as you find the hidden treasures of the temple. This does mean you’ll be taking on a physics-driven experience as you use your momentum to try to avoid the deadly traps placed along the way.

Collect any golden keys that you can find during your run, since they will be needed for opening the large treasure chests you will be presented with. They will protect very valuable treasure that is worth lots of coins. Don’t have a golden key on you? Then you might want to try and line up the treasure chest with the explosion range of a boom box.

The game also offers a Daily Dare in which you’ll be competing for the highest score against gamers from around the world as you play through a unique run generated each day. There’s also the Weekly Sprint, which has you aiming for the best time possible for the week. Pit Panic is out on Nintendo Switch 2 with a $14.99 price tag. If you buy the Nintendo Switch 2 version of the game, then you’ll be able to download the Nintendo Switch version for free, as well as the other way around.

Disclaimer
This Pit Panic review is based on a Nintendo Switch 2 copy provided by Flying Rat Studio.