![]() But the childish veneer is charming, and while Pikuniku isn't the deepest game around, it's lovely, funny, and engrossing in its own weird way.Īt the game's opening, your character-Piku, an entity made up of an oblong red body with dots for eyes and two long spindly legs coming out of it-awakens in a cave, prompted by a ghost to go outside. The opening tutorial doesn't take long, because the controls are simple: You can jump, causing Piku to spin haphazardly as he moves through the air, you can kick in any direction, and you can curl your legs into yourself and roll around in ball form. You spend the rest of the game wandering through the small game world, encountering characters and helping solve their problems until, eventually, you find yourself fighting against Sunshine Inc, a giant corporation that is sending robots all over the land to harvest natural resources from the game's three regions. Progression rarely requires much thoughtful effort. You explore the world on a 2D plane, talking to as many people as you can, kicking at everything, and solving objectives as they're handed to you. There are platforming elements that require some finesse, especially when you explore some of the slightly more challenging optional side quests that pop up throughout the game. Pikuniku is entertaining rather than challenging, though, and even the hardest areas you'll find are unlikely to trip you up for longer than a few minutes. But this is to the game’s advantage-it’s accessible to inexperienced and young players, and I never felt like the game would have been more enjoyable if it pushed me harder. Piku’s weird, wobbly walk, his awkward jump, and the force of his kicks mean that just moving through the game world is inherently entertaining. Your ability to kick everything and everyone is crucial, and much of the puzzle solving in the game comes down to kicking an object from one place to another. The kick mechanic is great fun, with objects reacting differently depending on the angle and distance you hit them from, although there are occasional moments of frustration when, for instance, a box gets wedged into a corner and is tricky to get out. Getting stuck for a moment kicking something out of a corner, or dealing with an object that isn’t behaving how you’d like, can interrupt the flow of gameplay. You can kick every character you meet in the game with no real punishment, which rarely stops being funny. ![]() It's these sort of quirky objectives that make this game so charming and unique.In a few other instances Piku needs to don different hats or use items he has collected to push forward. I put on shades to look cool and get into a dance club, I played basketball with my feet, I drew a face on a scarecrow, I played a Dig Dug knockoff, I did all sorts of fun things. Most of these objectives have something to do with Mr Sunshine and the trouble he's causing, but there's also sidequests that are just there for fun, like one that has you playing hide and seek with a rock creature. There are a few items you just use right out of your inventory window, but the main mechanic for using inventory items is wearing them like hats. Sometimes these quests require you to get an item from somewhere, complete some kind of minigame or platforming obstacle course, beat a boss, or just go somewhere to move the story forward. There's towns, and you run around talking to people, and do quests for them. Piku is your friendly neighborhood red puppet thing. It's a very lighthearted game full of clever dialogue and funny situations.īut Pikuniku isn't about jumping around looking goofy for no reason, Piku is trying to help people. There's a lot of environmentalist messages here, but this isn't a serious or preachy game. That money won't do anyone any good when they're dead. He's giving everyone money, though, so it's okay, right? No! Because he also plans to blow up a volcano and destroy the whole island, kill everyone, and build his new city on top of it. Mr Sunshine has been chopping down forests, draining lakes, and taking all the corn harvest for himself. There's this guy called Mr Sunshine, who runs a big company called Sunshine Inc., and is wreaking havoc on the environment with his giant robots. This world isn't all happy little clouds and trees, though. ![]() Pikuniku takes place in a weird and colorful world full of silly looking creatures. It's kind of like a Metroidvania with off the wall situations and an environmentalist message. Pikuniku is all about exploration, wacky platforming puzzles, and doing goofy quests for even goofier NPCs. It's published by Devolver Digital, and it's available on Nintendo Switch and PC for $12.99. Pikuniku is a side scrolling puzzle platformer/adventure game from developer, Sectordub.
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