Don't Panic! It is Just Turbulence

A fun premise for a short co-op evening

Don't Panic! It is Just Turbulence earns some genuine praise for its core premise: one player, the panicking pilot, describes a failing cockpit in real time, while the other, the ground dispatcher, flips through a manual trying to talk them through the fix. "Fun little game to play with a friend, frankly should come with a free copy with purchase to give to someone else, fairly short, about 3 hours but worth the money for a fun evening," reads one positive review. A separate reviewer frames it as a gentler entry point into the format: "It's Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes...but easier! I do like the idea of the 'manual' not having to be across a massive pdf." This review treats that praise as fair: for a cheap, short co-op session with a friend who's new to the genre, several reviewers found real value in its accessibility.

A fair, widely repeated complaint about leaning on a better-known predecessor

Set against that praise, this review found a fair and extensively repeated complaint that the game invites, and largely loses, a direct comparison to a far more established bomb-defusal predecessor. "Atrocious version of keep talking and nobody explodes," reads one detailed negative review. A separate reviewer, describing themselves as a longtime player of that earlier game, writes: "being a long-time player of a certain game that this one heavily takes after (seeing as the dev themselves likened the games in a Reddit post, as well as named the website in the same fashion), Don't Panic was quite a disappointing experience for me as it, bluntly, doesn't bring much new to the table." A third goes further with specifics: "Some puzzles are literally copied from Keep Talking. Some puzzles have very little variation in the solutions, leading to solutions where you can literally guess the answers." This review treats that complaint as fair: when the closest comparison in the genre is invoked this consistently, and by the developer's own account per one reviewer, falling short of it becomes a central and reasonable point of criticism.

A fair, widely repeated complaint about bugs and broken puzzles

Beyond the comparison, this review found a fair, repeated complaint about the game's technical execution. "Buggy mess, some puzzles straight up don't work," reads one detailed review. A separate reviewer describes a specific, frustrating failure: "The first thing you need to do is communicate your plane number to play coop. The number is small and pixelated so it is hard to read... I tried not only that number, but every possible combination that conceivable appear as an alter from mistaken pixelation. None of them worked. This game was literally nonfunctional for me." A third adds: "Some puzzles appears to have ways to reset if you click the wrong button, but in practice you either just receive a strike or the button to clear your entry to the puzzle is fake and doesn't work." This review treats those complaints as fair and significant: a co-op puzzle game whose core connection step and puzzle resets can reportedly fail outright is a serious functional problem, not a minor polish issue.

A fair, repeated complaint about imbalanced co-op roles

This review also found a fair, repeated complaint that the game's central two-player dynamic breaks down in practice. "Of the two players aren't needed. I, the pilot, could already do puzzles on my own after seeing them again," reads one detailed review. A separate reviewer confirms the same pattern from the other seat: "I (as the air traffic control) wasn't needed because after level 2, my pilot buddy already knew the solutions to half the puzzles he was presented." This review treats that complaint as fair and important: a game built entirely around one player needing the other's spoken guidance loses its core appeal if repeated puzzle patterns let either player solve things solo, and multiple independent reviewers reporting the same breakdown from opposite seats makes this a credible, structural criticism rather than an isolated experience.

A specific, serious complaint about performance

This review also found a specific and serious complaint about the game's technical performance. "Horribly unoptimized, blacks out my screens and needs a hard reset to get past. Will update this review if optimization is ever fixed," reads one detailed review. A separate reviewer, on notably higher-end hardware, reports a different but related symptom: "ONE OF THE WORST OPTIMIZED GAMES I HAVE EVER PLAYED i have 4080 i played so many games it never got +65 c with this game it was 75-80 c with 4000rpm fan spinning." This review treats those complaints as fair and serious: a screen blackout requiring a hard reset, and unusually high GPU temperatures on capable hardware for what is a modest-scope puzzle game, point to real, unresolved optimization problems rather than isolated one-off issues.

A fair complaint about a shallow manual and weak variation

This review also found a fair, more constructive complaint about the manual system reviewers otherwise praised for its accessibility. "The manual should be randomized each time so you don't memorize solutions (this is easy for most of the categories.) Same with the tools to find - they're the same each time... In general, there needs to be more chaos/weirdness. The 'mask' doesn't actually do anything? You can see everything clearly with the mask on," reads one detailed review. This review treats that complaint as fair: it comes from a reviewer who otherwise likes the game's design, and its specificity, naming an unused mechanic and requesting randomization, suggests a genuine, addressable gap rather than a rejection of the concept itself.

Achievement data corroborates a steep early drop-off

This review's own check of Steam's global achievement data shows 82.6% of players clearing the game's first milestone, falling to 36.6% by its fourth-ranked achievement and down to just 1.0% for its hardest, "Ace of the Skies." That steep, early cliff is consistent with the reviewer accounts gathered here: a game that hooks a large majority of players at the outset, but loses a substantial share of them well before its harder content, a pattern that lines up plausibly with the specific bug and imbalance complaints described above driving early abandonment rather than players simply losing interest in a well-functioning game over time.

Final verdict

Don't Panic! It is Just Turbulence has a genuinely fun premise and finds real fans among players looking for a short, cheap co-op evening, but its Mostly Positive aggregate score sits alongside a fair, widely repeated set of complaints: an unfavourable and frequently invoked comparison to a much more polished genre predecessor, reports of broken puzzles and a nonfunctional connection step, a co-op dynamic that reviewers on both sides describe breaking down once solutions are memorised, and serious, specific performance problems. For a casual, low-stakes co-op session at its current discounted price, there's a decent time here for the right group; players expecting the polish of the genre's best-known entry, or a flawless technical experience, should wait for further patches.