Physics-heavy games like Octodad and I Am Bread are typically fixated on the slapstick humor that results from an out of control physics engine in a 3D space the punchline is how it’s inherently counterproductive or outright broken and the gameplay doesn’t work as it’s supposed to. It never gets too exasperating and I only encountered one game-breaking bug-where a squishy character I was escorting got stuck on the level geometry-but I’m not sure the goofiness was worth the randomness. Nearly all of these puzzles require that you kick a rock, ball, or other object a certain distance to weigh down a switch, and the randomness of the physics engine can make this frustrating at times. The problem with this platforming is that it’s entirely physics based. The dungeons always have a crucial hat or item at the end however, so it’s in your best interest to persevere and finish them. Along the way you must avoid spikes, arrows and deadly pits, but “dying” is never much of a setback it will just kick you back to a helpful checkpoint frog, who can warp you out of the dungeon if you get frustrated and want to quit.
Pikuniku switch physical series#
The dungeons are usually an obstacle course of hazards and switch puzzles your ultimate goal is to activate a series of gates, water jets and explosive barrels to clear the way, typically by weighing down switches with various inert objects. Your little red dude can jump, tuck in his legs and tumble kinetically like a self-propelled pebble, and hook grappling loops with his feet and swing on his springy, lanky legs. The second kind of gameplay happens in the aforementioned dungeons, and consists mainly of somewhat tricky and at times clever platforming. Basically, you’ll often get a random doodad that will correspond to something halfway across the worldmap, although the game’s literal metro station means that it’s never a chore to backtrack. Later on in the game the fetch-questing gets reminiscent of the old Fantastic Dizzy titles, although the generous inventory and lax difficulty in Pikuniku avoid the intense challenge of those old games. None of these diversions are particularly challenging but they keep things fresh, and always reward you with an important item (3 apples are required to open a dungeon) or fashionable and functional hat (the water hat makes flower platforms bloom). This includes such absurd and sundry tasks as playing a game of watermelon basketball drawing a new face for the town scarecrow winning a dance-off with a robot hogging the dance floor at the club and playing hide and seek with a rock. The first is exploring a town and engaging in various minigames and fetch-quests to make the locals happy. Pikuniku mostly consists of two kinds of gameplay. Before too long you join a local resistance and start to fight back against Sunshine Inc. is stealing natural resources and showering the towns with money, so very few people are complaining at the moment. As you continue to explore the world you discover that the suspiciously friendly Sunshine Inc.
The lumpy residents of the nearby town apparently think you’re some kind of terrible beast of legend, but you’re generally chill and help them with a number of their problems, so they decide that you are pretty cool. A lonely ghost gives you some tutorial exposition, after which you make your way out of the cave and into the greater world. You are a small red blob with expressive eyes and two extremely stretchy and articulate legs other than that, you are featureless. To reiterate, Pikuniku is at its core an adventure-platformer, with many similarities to the so-called “Metroidvania” genre, although I would hesitate to call Pikuniku a pure Metroidvania-style game. I’ve been tinkering with the game for the last week and I’m still coming to grips with what Sectordub is trying to accomplish here, and whether or not they were successful. With Pikuniku, Devolver finally has the closest thing to a mascot platformer, and therefore a mascot, that the company has possessed in its nearly 10-year history. “Weird” would be an inadequate word for the game, which strangely enough lampoons and affectionately calls back to the 8 and 16-bit platformers that defined the 90s. Such is the case with Pikuniku, a bizarre platformer-adventure developed by 4-man studio Sectordub. Devolver simply supports and publishes good games, indie, obscure or otherwise, and they have enough self-awareness that they maintain a good sense of humor about it (see their hilarious E3 press conferences). They’re substantial enough to publish arty indie titles like The Red Strings Club and Heavy Bullets, but they’ve also backed established studios like Croteam, and they’re responsible for the marketing and success of the Hotline Miami series. Over the years I’ve developed a deep appreciation for publisher Devolver Digital.
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