Good news, buddies, issue With Great Grove of God it’s just around the corner. It’s a continuation of sorts Smile at me via LimboLane. It has a lot of the same good things like the puppets and flat characters. It also contains jokes if your sense of humor hasn’t dropped.
However, it is quite different. It’s still a fun adventure game where you support people, but… Great Grove of God he bases his puzzles on sucking words out of someone’s mouth and shooting them at someone else. It’s a unique twist on an venerable formula, and I’m not quite sure what to make of it, so I’m going to work through my emotions the way I usually do: by posting questionable content online.
IN Great Grove of Godyou are placed in the shoes of a Godpoke, who is a cross between a messenger of the gods and a cowboy. I admit I don’t fully understand all the details of this story, so things are about to get a little dicey.
You are on the trail of the King, the previous messenger of the gods. King apparently had enough of the gods, sent a nasty message to each of them, and left the pantheon – and with it the world – in complete chaos. This is a problem because a huge crack has opened in the sky. Apparently these rifts open every 33 years and threaten to swallow the world. In order to close them, the gods must cooperate to close them. Unfortunately, in the face of King’s malice, the gods are not willing to do much, let alone cooperate.
The rift also has the power to elevate a single human to godhood, which is starting to confuse me. The king is apparently a god, so being divine, he still delivered messages? Why does it take so long for the gods to close the rift under normal circumstances? How does a man have time to enter it? Does something like this happen every time a mortal has to convince the gods to cooperate? Did the game explain it to me and I just couldn’t swallow it because of the cute dialogue? I don’t know.
But the bottom line is clear: King was nice, and now he isn’t. All the gods are so caught up in their heartbreak that they don’t even think about closing the rift and leaving the world on the brink of disaster. As an idol, you must utilize your power over words to restore order and close the rift.
You are equipped with… something that sucks. It has a name, it’s… Sure, Megapon. Every once in a while someone will say something damning. Small dots will appear around him which will allow you to suck him into the Megapon. You can then find someone around you who will say something like, “Oooh, I wish someone would give me a fat compliment,” and you throw it at them and hopefully they will respond.
As I said, it’s a unique take on the adventure game formula, but it also has the same problem as classic point-and-click. If you’re not sure what to do, your main course of action may be to simply throw platitudes at people until one of them responds. I bumped into one at the beginning of the second area and it left me scratching my head. I ended up having to utilize the dog’s word on the cow and then utilize the cow’s word on my target. Looking back, there were definitely clues to the solution, but I can also see why I was confused.
And while using phrases to solve puzzles is certainly novel, I’m not sure they’re much better than items. And trust me, they feel exactly like objects. You can carry five at a time, so you have a pocket full of sentences. On the one hand, an adventure game gives hints more easily when the solution is always to talk to someone. On the other hand, it’s not as stimulating as carrying a hamster in your pocket.
It’s worth noting that sometimes you just pick up regular items. In the demo I played, this isn’t very common, but maybe it happens later in the game? I have a feeling this won’t be the case and maybe that’s okay. By the end I was really caught up in the flow of events.
While I may be a little unsure about the approach to puzzles, it’s tough not to love the art style. He still uses a simplistic, angular style similar to Scott C.’s work Psychonauts or even just cartoons from the 1960s. The whole thing seems more natural than e.g Smile at mewhich I already think is great. However, I find the graphics to be incredibly consistent and consistent across both games. Blends well with backgrounds and 3D effects. Whenever something looks wrong, it’s usually uncomplicated to believe it was intentional.
From time to time you can watch explanatory videos of real flesh and touch dolls. They’re pretty good, but apparently they didn’t support me enough. There are also complete things you can’t suck on, but it’s worth watching two puppets munch on the same hoagie.
The writing is cute and full of wordplay, but maybe a little too much. Few people will talk to you directly, leaving you scrambling to piece together the information you’re conveying amidst cute, intentional spelling mistakes. The names given are often unique non-names – er, nononyms – and even at the best of times I can’t remember people’s names. Or their faces. Or past encounters, most of the time. So remembering who Sirena is only complicates the situation. So maybe it’s my problem, but thank you for calling the baker “Bayker.” I think I remember that one.
I received access to a slightly longer version than the demo, which will be released as part of the upcoming Steam Next Fest. In this situation, I don’t really know what I’m thinking Great Grove of God. I’m told I’ve played about 40% of the entire game, so there’s plenty of time to start clicking on things that haven’t clicked yet. Even by the end of the demo, I started to understand better how to beat the word puzzles.
And I have the feeling that something is still lurking beneath the surface. A great reveal, a plot twist or a pinch of darkness. I don’t think all the cards are on the table, and at least in the demo, I really want to see what else he has up his sleeve. It premieres on November 15, so at least I don’t have to wait terribly long to find out.
