Pepper Grinder

[Maryokutai]

This had a cool demo so I decided to treat myself to a little sidegame over the long weekend. I'd actually encourage giving the demo a shot, because the game looks like a run-of-the-mill pixel indie title but it has an amount of quality and polish to it that really makes it stand out.

 

In a Nintendo-ish way, it's entirely designed around a singular idea and that's the drill your character carries around. It allows you to drill through certain areas of the map, be it ground, snow or other, it works as a propellor underwater, it can revv up certain machines etc. I'm not going to spoil in detail what the developers have cooked up, but there are genuinely cool surprises here throughout and no two levels feel the same – again, very much Nintendo-like. This seems to have been in development for about seven years, which sounds absolutely bonkers, but it shows, because it's really an incredibly accomplished take on one of the oldest genres out there. 

 

There is one caveat though and those are the boss battle. I'm not going to mince words, they're all pretty bad. Well, at least the three I played so far. The first one was okay-ish I suppose, but the two that followed were just very tedious 'death by a million cuts' affairs that don't use its central mechanic in an interesting way. The third one, in fact, is easier if you just don't drill into the ground at all. It's weird to see how devoid those fights are of ideas considering how excellent the rest of the package is – almost as if they had been made by a completely different team.

 

So while that might sour the experience a tiny bit at the end of every world, I don't think it drags the game down overall. From what I read it's not super long, but quality over quantity seems the focus here, and there's time trials for crazy people to get a bit more out of it. As a final commentary, the soundtrack is extremely good as well and I wish I could link a few samples but nobody seems to have uploaded anything yet. It's on Spotify though, if you want to give it a listen.

 

 

Completely misrepresenting screenshotTM

[Maryokutai]

And "done". Unfortunately the bosses don't get any better and when I saw how little damage I do per hit and how tedious it'd be I just decided not to do the final one. I said they wouldn't sour the experience but I kind of have to take a step back on that.

 

The levels are really great. I think there are one or two I didn't quite as much enjoy but all the others were good fun, with a lot of different ideas revolving around the drill. The are well-designed, not too easy, but not particularly challenging either. But the fact that one aspect of the game – boss fights – is so bad that it pushed me away from completing it is hard to ignore. Especially as the game barely scratches the 4-hour mark.

 

Of course opinions will differ, so make of all this what you will – I don't regret getting it but I had I known all of this beforehand I probably would have waited for a price cut (though arguably it is already rather inexpensive). 

[spatular]

This sounds cool, i want to give it a go at some point, hopefully ill be able to cope with the bosses, maybe theyll patch it up a bit to make them less annoying

[Maryokutai]

That would be cool, but they'd need to completely rework them to be fun IMO. As mentioned the first one is okay, they could finetune some hitboxes and attack patterns there and it'd be a decent boss, but for the rest they don't really leverage the system mechanics in an interesting way and it's just an exercise of getting one hit in after the other. It actually reminded me of the General Raam fight in the first Gears of War, it's the same kind of spongy, uninteresting design.

[mfnick]

Had a quick go on this myself finally. Reached the boss of area 3.

 

Im a tad disappointed. I think I just need to get used to it but it just doesn’t ‘feel’ as good as I was expecting it too. But I do feel I’m struggling to make the controls feel natural yet for some reason so that’s probably contributing. And the swinging bits are proper messing me up. I can see it being a game which has a brilliant flow to it if you really put the time in but I’m not sure I’ll get there with it. Hopefully it just clicks after a bit more time and it’ll all fall into place. I remember Ori having a similar concept in some areas and that immediately feeling fantastic. 
 

The bosses do indeed suck too. The first one caused me some real issues. 2nd one wasn’t as bad. Died a couple of the 3rd and put it down for now. 
 

I am impressed with the level design and variety on display already though. And the bonus levels have been a particular highlight so far. That skipping across water thing in the above screenshot is really fun too. Definitely still want to put more time in but was expecting this to be one of those games that just felt amazing and grabbed me from the get go which it just didn’t. Got to put a bit more effort in. 

[Maryokutai]

I had the same feeling. It does have a certain learning curve we're not used to seeing in 2D platformers anymore. It actually took me until world 3 for it to really click, but at that point it really clicked, and I think that segment is the best part of the game (except for the boss – pro tip: don't dig at all).

 

The game is so frustrating to think about. It has all the ingredients to be a perfect instant classic but they just missed the mark.

[mfnick]

On 10/04/2024 at 22:27, Maryokutai said:

don't dig at all)

That was clutch. Thanks.

 

I completed this earlier. My thoughts didn’t really change. It’s just missing something. I can tell its a well made game and if you put the time in I’ve no doubt its precise enough to pull of incredible feats in these levels. But it just didn’t really click with me. I even went back after completion to try some of the time trials or go for some more skill coins but to be honest when I started to I realised I’ve just got no interest in doing so, so stopped almost immediately. It’s weird, I just feel nothing regarding this game when I think about it. 
 

It’s by no means bad and I’d still recommend people play it. Especially <£10. But yea, just didn’t hit for me.

 

6/10

[spatular]

Been playing this a bit, agree with what’s already been said really, it’s good fun but the boss fights not so much. I’m stuck on the 3rd one now and will try the tip above, cheers!

[spatular]

Did the 3rd boss, still went underground to dodge the roll attack but otherwise agree staying above ground helped, thanks!

 

finished the game then but using some accessibility option to reduce game speed to 50% for the last boss.

 

levels were mostly pretty fun but found it quite tricky especially the grappling hook controls similar to what I think mfnick was saying. Might go back to try some time trials to see if I can get better at it but not sure. Seems like it would be cool if you’re good at it but that seems beyond me.