#The weaponized phrases of Nice God Grove present promise – Destructoid

Excellent news, friends, the discharge of Nice God Grove is true across the nook. It’s the sort-of follow-up of Smile For Me by LimboLane. It has a variety of the identical great things, like puppets and flat characters. It additionally has jokes in case your humorousness hasn’t fallen off.

It’s fairly totally different, although. It’s nonetheless a joy-maker journey recreation about serving to individuals out, however Nice God Grove bases its puzzles round sucking the phrases out of somebody’s mouth and firing them at another person. It’s a novel twist on an outdated formulation, and I’m not completely positive how I really feel about it, so I’m going to work by way of my feelings the best way I normally do: posting questionable content material on-line.

In Nice God Grove, you might be positioned within the boots of a Godpoke, which is a cross between a messenger of the gods and a cowboy. Now, I’m going to confess that I don’t absolutely perceive all the small print of the story right here, so issues are going to get a bit of dicey.

You’re on the path of King, the earlier messenger of the gods. King seemingly turned fed up with the gods, mailed every of them a nasty message, and left the pantheon – and the world with it – in full disarray. This can be a downside as a result of a large rift has opened up within the sky. Apparently, these rifts open each 33 years and threaten to swallow up the world. To shut it, the gods need to work collectively to tug it shut. Sadly, within the wake of King’s nastiness, the gods don’t really feel like doing a lot, not to mention cooperating.

The rift additionally has the facility to raise a single human to godhood, which is the place I begin to get confused. King is seemingly a god, so beneath his godhood, he was nonetheless delivering messages? Below regular circumstances, why does it take so lengthy for the gods to shut the rift? How does a human have time to enter it? Does one thing like this occur each time, the place a mortal has to persuade the gods to cooperate? Did the sport clarify this to me, and I simply couldn’t grok it by way of the cutesy dialogue? I don’t know.

The vital elements are clear nevertheless: King was good and now they’re not. The gods are all so absorbed in their very own heartbreak that they aren’t even enthusiastic about closing the rift, leaving the world on the precipice of catastrophe. As a godpoke, you might want to use your energy over phrases to revive order and shut the rift.

You’re outfitted with a, uh, factor… A suck factor. It has a reputation, it’s, er… Proper, Megapon. Each infrequently, somebody will say one thing perforated. There will likely be little dots round it, letting you suck it into your Megapon. You possibly can then discover somebody within the atmosphere who says one thing like, “Ooo, I want somebody would give me a fats praise,” and also you throw it at them, they usually’ll hopefully react.

As I mentioned, it’s a novel method to the journey recreation formulation, however it additionally has the identical downside that basic point-and-clicks had. Whenever you’re not sure what to do, your essential plan of action may turn out to be simply rubbing phrases on individuals till one in all them reacts. I bumped into one early within the second space that had me scratching my head. I wound up needing to make use of a phrase given by a canine on a cow, then utilizing a phrase from the cow on my goal. Wanting again, there have been definitely hints as to what the answer was, however I may also see why I used to be confused.

And whereas it’s definitely novel to make use of phrases to unravel puzzles, I’m unsure they’re significantly better than gadgets. And belief me, they really feel precisely like gadgets. You possibly can carry 5 at a time, so that you simply have a pocket filled with sentences. On the one hand, it’s simpler for an journey recreation to provide you a touch when the answer all the time entails speaking to somebody. Alternatively, it’s not as thrilling as carrying a hamster round in your pocket.

It’s price noting that you simply generally just do choose up common gadgets. It’s not quite common within the demo I performed, however possibly it’s later within the recreation? I’m type of feeling that it gained’t be, and possibly that’s okay. I used to be actually stepping into the stream of issues towards the tip.

Whereas I could also be a bit iffy on the method to puzzles, it’s exhausting to not love the artwork fashion. It nonetheless makes use of a simplistic, angular fashion just like Scott C.’s work on Psychonauts and even simply merely ‘60s cartoons. It feels extra naturally executed than Smile For Me, which I already discovered nice. Nevertheless, I’ve discovered the artwork to be extremely constant and cohesive for each video games. It blends nicely with the 3D backgrounds and results. Each time one thing appears to be like a bit off, it’s normally simple to imagine it was intentional.

Each infrequently, you may view explainer movies that characteristic actual flesh-and-felt puppets. They’re fairly nice, however they clearly haven’t helped me sufficient. They’re additionally full asides you can’t suck on, however watching two puppets chew on the identical hoagie is well worth the viewing.

The writing is charming and filled with wordplay, however it’s additionally possibly a smidge an excessive amount of. Few people will straight-talk with you, making you attempt to glean the communicated info from between cutesy intentional misspellings. The names given are sometimes distinctive non-names – er, nononyms – and I already can’t keep in mind individuals’s names at the very best of instances. Or their faces. Or previous encounters, more often than not. So, remembering who Sirena is simply makes issues more durable. So, it’s a me downside, possibly, however thanks for naming the baker “Bayker.” I feel I can do not forget that one.

I used to be given entry to a barely longer model than the demo that will likely be launched as a part of the upcoming Steam Subsequent Fest. Because it stands, I don’t actually solidly know what I take into consideration Nice God Grove. I’m informed I performed about 40% of the general recreation, so there’s a variety of time for me to begin clicking with the issues that haven’t but clucked. Even in direction of the tip of the demo, I used to be beginning to get a greater really feel for how one can overcome its phrase puzzles.

And I type of really feel like one thing continues to be lurking beneath the floor. An ideal reveal, twist, or sprint of darkness. I don’t suppose all its playing cards are on the desk, and no less than with the demo, I actually need to see what else it has up its sleeve. It’s out on November 15, so no less than I don’t have to attend terribly lengthy to search out out.