PREVIEW : Panic Mode (PC)
MobiusCode developed and published Panic Mode, a 2.5D casual simulation game. MobiusCode, as far as I can tell, are the new kids on the block, with only two titles to their name; the other is Exotic Matter, a Sci-Fi sandbox adventure game. With only ten user reviews on Steam since its release in 2021, it’s safe to assume Mobius is still growing its fan base. With that in mind, let’s take a look at Panic Mode.
Game Play
You are a health and safety supplement. It is your responsibility to install the safety equipment at your disposal to help your colleagues escape in the case of a fire. Once installed, you may put your strategy to the test by simulating it to see what would have happened.
To keep the gameplay interesting, each location includes different equipment, objectives, and layouts. Some devices will have restricted use, while others will be either automatic or manually controlled.
If you want to receive an exemplary certificate, you must fulfil all of your objectives in one turn, however, there are five different certifications based on what objectives you completed.
Objectives
Each region usually has three objectives. You must fulfil mandatory objectives before moving on to the next building, but there are also non-mandatory objectives and unique targets to strive for.
Typical aims include ensuring that “x” number of colleagues survive, all colleagues survive, or a specifically named colleague survives. Using only a subset of your armoury, or no more than “x” pieces; Then there are more specific goals, such as protecting all highly expensive equipment or burning or saving a certain section of the structure.
As you go, the challenge of the equipment levels increases, introducing new equipment and objectives. Currently, you can anticipate seeing the following:
Alarms for fires
Heat sensors trigger fire alarms, alerting personnel in that room that there is a fire. They will seek to flee out the nearest exit as soon as they are alerted.
Speakers who provide early warning
Speakers that inform anyone in that room to leave the area. The player is in charge of the speakers. By pressing the “Speaker” button, the evacuation drill will begin, and colleagues in that room will begin to leave.
Water Equipment
Water tools are classified into three types.
The Uber Soaker has a high capacity and will automatically begin to absorb any nearby fire when used by the user.
The Uber Soaker Jnr is a smaller variant with a lesser capacity.
Water sprinklers, which spray water on nearby objects for a brief period, can be installed on the ground.
Airflow Control Systems
Fans mounted on walls can move heat and smoke away from one area and into another. This can assist in activating fire alarms or dissipating smoke outside or to another room.
Recycling bins are used to direct the flow of fire. When hot materials combust, therefore the bins can be used to link objects together, setting off fire alarms or channelling the fire to a new area.
Heaters and Flammable Barrels
When hot, barrels explode, enabling fire to spread swiftly, and heaters start fires, which are useful for melting ice that may obstruct colleagues’ escape routes.
Bomberator
When a combustible bomb-like device gets hot, it will shoot across the room in a straight line, destroying anything in its path, including objects, walls, and even colleagues. Very handy for devising alternate escape routes.
Each teammate has a health bar that depletes when they come into touch with fire or smoke. They can also become trapped in ice, which must be melted, and some doors can be manipulated by the player to prevent them from entering one chamber while directing them to another. They die if their health bar runs out.
The gameplay becomes too easy once you understand the basics of what each piece of equipment does. It was not difficult at all to save all of my coworkers at all levels and receive an exceptional certificate. Future levels must become far more challenging.
Panic Mode was supposed to be a puzzle game, but it doesn’t feel that way right now. The equipment provided is extremely substantial, and the only thing I found somewhat tough were the levels that limited the quantity of equipment available. I’d like to see more inventive missions in the future, like the ones that requested you to burn certain rooms, because I believe that simply rescuing coworkers would get tedious. So far, there is a lot of variability in the equipment. I don’t believe they need to add much more, but I believe they should make the levels more puzzle-like, with ingenious solutions that force the player to think. A successful evacuation did not require much planning on my part. The only difficult component is determining where the fire will start; once that is determined, you can plan accordingly. You have a limitless number of retries, so trial and error will always lead to success.
Some of the level ideas were brilliant, such as the levels where you may influence the fire direction by burning stuff and forcing the flames away from your coworkers, or channelling smoke with fans. I’d like to see a lot more of it. I loved the manual interventions I had to make from time to time, such as starting the water cannons, although I don’t get why the early warning system had to be manually activated, as I just pressed it and watched the workers flee the building before the fire had started. This is why I believe the level design needs to be improved, and I am hopeful that now that all of the equipment has been included, they will be able to create some innovative levels that will make you think.
The workers are adorable and will make you think of The Minions. They, like their yellow counterparts, fumble around babbling incoherently. It’d be wonderful to see them doing comedy things or to have a comic opening to each level with a funny cut sequence.
The levels appear to be adequate. Perhaps they are too simple. There is no décor on the outside, and the interior of the buildings appears to be pretty simple as well. Each level is limited to the ground level. It may be fascinating to have more than one level or govern more than one building at the same time, similar to a time management game in which you keep an eye on many events and react to multiple situations.
Conclusion
Panic Mode has a lot of potentials and shows a lot of promise. I’m fairly impressed with what’s on offer right now, but the levels are simply too easy, and they need to be made more challenging and thought-provoking.
The game’s premise is intriguing, so I’m looking forward to seeing how they develop it further. In its current stage, I can recommend the game because it is fully playable, but its next development loop will be critical in delivering a great game, and it is currently priced as too costly for its content.
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