O
oblets doesn’t want to take on Animal
Crossing, Harvest Moon, Stardew Valley,
or any of the other games it’s so often
compared to. It doesn’t want to be just another
‘time-killer’ game, another easy-going RPG
that you can pump hundreds of hours into
without breaking a sweat. No, Glumberland’s
life sim doesn’t care for competition.
Developed largely by a two-person studio in
the United States, it values what those more
established games have been increasingly
moving away from: communication, glibness,
silliness. On the surface, it’s part farming game
and part creature-collecting RPG. But dig a
little deeper and you start to realise Ooblets
actually defies such easy categorisation.
The eponymous beings themselves add a
dynamic to the game that most other life sims
miss. Collecting creatures in the form of seeds,
planting them and growing then, then setting
them to work on your farm, laces the gameplay
loop with varied activities. From the off, when
you leave your miserable former life behind in
order to get a mulligan on the isle of Oob,
you’re presented with a variety of possibilities
for this fresh-faced, fully customisable new you.
Are you going to get the ramshackle farm
you’ve been given back into working order? Are
you going to help the locals restore their
dilapidated, pastel-hued town to its former
glory? Or are you simply going to sit in the
local coffee (or ‘beanjuice’, as Ooblets dubs it)
store and have a natter and catch-up with the
kooky townspeople? Thanks to the Pokémon-
like creatures milling around town, you may
even decide that you want to specialise in
recruiting help that might be better additions to
your farmstead, or go for the more aggressive
types that are more suited to dance-offs.
It’s worth mentioning at this point that all
confrontation in this world is solved by dancing;
think turn-based battles via deckbuilding and
you’ll be in the right ballpark. At the moment,
these dance-offs are fairly rudimentary (several
hours in, we haven’t lost a single one) but
there’s something compelling about learning
the harmless intricacies of how to undermine
and embarrass an opposing troupe, or how to
buff your ooblets so much that just one slick
two-step propels you to victory.
Your twee day-to-day activities are overseen
by the mayor of Badgetown, Tintsle – PrincessBubblegum via Shoreditch. Her enthusiastic
but aloof nature is the game’s vibe distilled: on
the surface, she’s bubbly and affable, but pay
special attention to what she’s really saying,
and there’s a dark, disaffected undertone that’s
curious in its own right.And therein lies Ooblets’ most unique trait.
More than the creature-growing mechanic,
more than the dance-battle gameplay loop, its
sometimes bizarre and dark tone cuts like a
knife through the sickly-sweet aesthetic of the
game. Once you’ve got over the picturebook
setup, you begin to realise that a lot of the
human villagers seem to be weighed down by
a very millennial sense of ennui.
We feel something similar in the early
stages of the game, when our crops take
slightly too long to grow (and all need watering
at different times), and the gummies we’re
able to sell them for are much too scarce. It’sin these moments, where even the things that
are supposed to bring us joy end up turning
into a chore, we feel the most disillusioned.
Still, things aren’t all bad: we have an infamous
troupe of tree-babies and grumpy cats that can
dance anyone under the table. But it’s the
locals that make for the best company.
One of them suggests you shouldn’t dig
deeper than six feet on your farm. Another
admits they started a game blog just to get free
codes from studios. And another confides that
all he needs in life are “energy drinks, crypto
and things to get angry about”. Ooblets, it turns
out, has teeth. It’s a disaffected, sarcastic and
frequently funny send-up of its stablemates,
offering more spice than the overt sweetness
of the (more recent, at least) Animal Crossing
titles or the combative kick of Pokémon.
Granted, some of the mechanics feel a bit
shallow, and after blasting through the opening
crawl there doesn’t feel like a lot to do. But as a
starting point in early access, it’s sharp stuff –
Glumberland’s ooblets are marching to the beat
of their own teeny-tiny drums. QWhere’s the
beef?
Not only does Ooblets
reject the casual
violence found in
other, similar games, it
also offers something
many players might
gloss over if they’re
not paying attention:
carnivorism. Unlike
other genre rivals,
Ooblets’ entire crafting
menu and farming
setup is vegan. The
things you’re farming
are fictional spins on
real-life produce, but
the game consistently
underlines that what
you’re farming and
what you’re collecting
are two different
things. Even though
you have an army of
miniature mushrooms
at your command,
they’re intentionally
differentiated from the
various Buttonboys
and Sporebets you pick
around town. It’s a
small thing, but makes
this game more
palatable and
appealing to a more
environmentally-
conscious audience.Ooblets is a disaffected,
sarcastic and frequently funny
send-up of its stablematesOOBLETS
HY
PE