After an opening cinematic where a
pink cloud offers you free money,
you, a little red blob with legs, wake
up in a cave on a hill overlooking a
town. A useful exposition ghost
prompts you to head into the fresh
air so you can start
exploring the 2D
world. Jumping,
rolling, strolling and
kicking are your
primary forms of
interaction. At first
you’re just playing with
them, perhaps enjoying
the fact you can go a bit
faster if you pull your legs in and roll,
or bounce around, trying to kick
anything in the environment.
The local villagers believed you to
be a scary beast and are not entirely
sure how to handle the fact that
you’re actually smaller than them, not
threatening beyond delivering
grumpy toddler-style kicks and
pushes, and don’t look anything like
their local beast lore descriptions.
They settle on imprisoning you until
you agree to repair the rope bridge
connecting the village to the villagecrops (which you broke by bouncing
on it) so that the villagers can tend
their corn and be rewarded with
rains of cash from the pink cloud.
What evolves from there is a
cheery tale of an endearingly
bumbling and adorably
illustrated violent
resistance against a
deep state social
cleansing conspiracy.
Despite that premise,
the tone never tips over
into insufferable
didacticism. Instead it
remains at ‘more
affable and PG version of a Dr Evil
plot from Austin Powers’ for the
duration. Supporting that tone, the
rest of the cast of characters have that
specifically 2010s slight archness to
them which keeps them from
becoming twee.
For example, after kicking a
couple of eggs I found in a nest and
watching the chicks they contained
flap off, a mother bird descended. She
demanded to know whether I kicked
the eggs and I chose to deny all
knowledge. I was still standing in thenest and she replied, “What do you
mean it wasn’t you? Your feet are still
on the shells!” Rounding up the
chicks to make amends, one of them
turned out to be a huffy teen (“why
can’t I have my own life already”)
and the other was fully conversant in
self-help speak (“it’s true we haven’t
bonded very much lately”).
Basic platforming is the canvas
against which these little interactions
play out. At first that’s jumping from
ledge to ledge and pushing or kicking
objects. Later you can start swapping
your hats or using different objects to
trigger new interactions. For
example, one hat turns you into a
mobile sprinkler system. If you
targetparticular plants they’ll flower
and provide a temporary platform
which will let you access a new part
of the level.HATS OFF
It’s these hats and objects which
generally help you access all the little
Easter eggs hidden around the world.
It’s why I’m still playing even though
I’ve long since completed the main
story. There are secret areas to visit,
dungeons to explore, a wizard to
please and glasses to purchase.
It’s not a perfect experience. I got
frustrated with the bridge repair
section before accidentally finding
the solution, and I completely forgot
where to find a particular character I
needed for a quest. For the latter I
ended up using my screenshots to
piece together the location info as
nothing in-game reminded me. The
balance between exploration and
design prompts or interface info thus
feels slightly off in places. Otherwise,
the game is small enough that
messing about will reveal the way
forward, and offer up adorable
interactions along the way.NEED TO KNOW
WHAT IS IT?
An adorably presented
dystopian tale.
EXPECT TO PAY
TBA
DEVELOPERS
Arnaud De Bock, Rémi
Forcadell, Alan Zucconi,
Calum Bowen
PUBLISHER
Devolver Digital
REVIEWED ON
Core i7-5820k,
GTX 970, 16GB RAM,
Windows 10
MULTIPLAYER
Local co-op
LINK
http://www.pikuniku.net79
A wonderfully absurd tale
of insurrection and
kicking stuff in a
cheery-looking
storybook-like world.VERDICTThe local
villagers
believed you
to be a
scary beastI
first saw Pikuniku at EGX. On a show floor you can’t appreciate
nuance, so I’ll be honest: it was the bright, round characters which
drew me over. I stayed because I could kick things with my
character’s little red legs. I didn’t have enough time to do much
more than that so, when it came to the review, it was such a lovely
moment to realise it wasn’t a Wattam-style interactive toy, but a little
dystopian tale wearing a Mr Men and Little Miss storybook aesthetic.KICKING OFF
Bouncing intoPIKUNIKU’s colourful dystopian
deep state scheme. By Philippa Warr
DEGREE OF SEPARATION
Other games by the people behind Pikuniku
LOVELY PLANET
Prior to Pikuniku, sound
designer Calum Bowen
worked on this
charmingly cute, speedy
first-person shooter.0RBITALIS
Dev and lecturer Alan
Zucconi made this physics
puzzler about using
gravity and launching
satellites into orbit.REIGNS: HER
MAJESTY
Arnaud De Bock did the art
for this strategy title and
the Reigns: Game of
Thrones crossover.GIRAFFES
VOLLEYBALL
CHAMPIONSHIP
2016
Remi Forcadell’s game lets
giraffes dunk each other.Pikuniku
REVIEW