Good news, chums, the release of Great God Grove is right around the corner. Itās the sort-of follow-up of Smile For Me by LimboLane. It has a lot of the same good stuff, like puppets and flat characters. It also has jokes if your sense of humor hasnāt fallen off.
Itās pretty different, though. Itās still a joy-maker adventure game about helping people out, but Great God Grove bases its puzzles around sucking the words out of someoneās mouth and firing them at someone else. Itās a unique twist on an old formula, and Iām not totally sure how I feel about it, so Iām going to work through my emotions the way I usually do: posting questionable content online.
In Great God Grove, you are placed in the boots of a Godpoke, which is a cross between a messenger of the gods and a cowboy. Now, Iām going to admit that I donāt fully understand all the details of the story here, so things are going to get a little dicey.
Youāre on the trail of King, the previous messenger of the gods. King seemingly became fed up with the gods, mailed each of them a nasty message, and left the pantheon ā and the world with it ā in complete disarray. This is a problem because a massive rift has opened up in the sky. Apparently, these rifts open every 33 years and threaten to swallow up the world. To close it, the gods have to work together to pull it shut. Unfortunately, in the wake of Kingās nastiness, the gods donāt feel like doing much, let alone cooperating.
The rift also has the power to elevate a single human to godhood, which is where I start to get confused. King is apparently a god, so under his godhood, he was still delivering messages? Under normal circumstances, why does it take so long for the gods to close the rift? How does a human have time to enter it? Does something like this happen every time, where a mortal has to convince the gods to cooperate? Did the game explain this to me, and I just couldnāt grok it through the cutesy dialogue? I donāt know.
The important parts are clear however: King was nice and now theyāre not. The gods are all so absorbed in their own heartbreak that they arenāt even thinking about closing the rift, leaving the world on the precipice of disaster. As a godpoke, you need to use your power over words to restore order and close the rift.
Youāre equipped with a, uh, thingā¦ A suck thing. It has a name, itās, erā¦ Right, Megapon. Every once in a while, someone will say something perforated. There will be little dots around it, letting you suck it into your Megapon. You can then find someone in the environment who says something like, āOoo, I wish someone would give me a fat compliment,ā and you throw it at them, and theyāll hopefully react.
As I said, itās a unique approach to the adventure game formula, but it also has the same problem that classic point-and-clicks had. When youāre not certain what to do, your main course of action might become just rubbing phrases on people until one of them reacts. I ran into one early in the second area that had me scratching my head. I wound up needing to use a word given by a dog on a cow, then using a word from the cow on my target. Looking back, there were certainly hints as to what the solution was, but I can also see why I was confused.
And while itās certainly novel to use phrases to solve puzzles, Iām not sure theyāre much better than items. And trust me, they feel exactly like items. You can carry five at a time, so you just have a pocket full of sentences. On the one hand, itās easier for an adventure game to give you a hint when the solution always involves talking to someone. On the other hand, itās not as exciting as carrying a hamster around in your pocket.
Itās worth noting that you sometimes do just pick up regular items. Itās not very common in the demo I played, but maybe it is later in the game? Iām kind of feeling that it wonāt be, and maybe thatās okay. I was really getting into the flow of things toward the end.
While I may be a bit iffy on the approach to puzzles, itās hard not to love the art style. It still uses a simplistic, angular style similar to Scott C.ās work on Psychonauts or even just simply ā60s cartoons. It feels more naturally executed than Smile For Me, which I already found great. However, Iāve found the art to be incredibly consistent and cohesive for both games. It blends well with the 3D backgrounds and effects. Whenever something looks a bit off, itās usually easy to believe it was intentional.
Every once in a while, you can view explainer videos that feature real flesh-and-felt puppets. Theyāre pretty great, but they clearly havenāt helped me enough. Theyāre also complete asides that you canāt suck on, but watching two puppets chew on the same hoagie is worth the viewing.
The writing is charming and packed with wordplay, but itās also maybe a smidge too much. Few folks will straight-talk with you, making you try to glean the communicated information from between cutesy intentional misspellings. The names given are often unique non-names ā er, nononyms ā and I already canāt remember peopleās names at the best of times. Or their faces. Or past encounters, most of the time. So, remembering who Sirena is just makes things tougher. So, itās a me problem, maybe, but thank you for naming the baker āBayker.ā I think I can remember that one.
I was given access to a slightly longer version than the demo that will be released as part of the upcoming Steam Next Fest. As it stands, I donāt really solidly know what I think about Great God Grove. Iām told I played about 40% of the overall game, so thereās a lot of time for me to start clicking with the things that havenāt yet clucked. Even towards the end of the demo, I was starting to get a better feel for how to overcome its word puzzles.
And I kind of feel like something is still lurking under the surface. A great reveal, twist, or dash of darkness. I donāt think all its cards are on the table, and at least with the demo, I really want to see what else it has up its sleeve. Itās out on November 15, so at least I donāt have to wait terribly long to find out.
Published: Oct 10, 2024 02:34 pm