![]() Mike remains steadfast in his ongoing role as a video game critic, however, and has recently written for GamesRadar. He took a one-credit course there called "Career Opportunities for English Majors," which painted a bleak picture for prospective writers. He was born and raised in Amish country and has yet to escape, despite a brief stint in Philadelphia, where he attended Temple University. Later in his life, he went back and discovered that Kirby's Dream Land is actually a laughably easy game that can be finished in about 20 minutes, but no matter. Completing it gave him the boost of confidence that launched a lifelong enthusiasm for the medium. Mike's first exposure to video games was when his parents bought him a Game Boy and a copy of Kirby's Dream Land. It’s a comedy routine that’s a game only out of obligation. I’d stop short of calling Pikuniku a bad game – it’s too inoffensive for that – but it’s a delivery system for one-liners at best, running players through several hours of unfocused, stakes-free puzzle/platforming for a sprinkling of modest laughs. I took no pleasure in running errands for them, and I certainly didn’t care about the broader corporate struggle that they face. Lacking any substantial gameplay hook, Pikuniku feels like a two- or three-hour hangout session with a selection of blobby, indistinct-looking caricatures with only a handful of lines apiece. That said, I don’t know anything about the characters of Pikuniku other than their capacity to make me grin. It’s amusing to see the cast of a perfectly legitimate videogame communicate in social media dialect. The dialogue frequently made me chuckle, mainly because it deliberately eschews basic grammatical rules, over-punctuating sentences and ignoring capitalization. The use of plain colors and simple shapes gives it the look of something made of construction paper, and there’s just enough PG-level profanity to avoid the stigma of being full-on “kiddie” (if that’s something that even bothers anyone anymore). Granted, Pikuniku gets points for being cute and funny. All we get is a neat basketball mini-game that, again, only seems to be there so players stay awake. Is it a puzzler? The physics and procedural animation are impressive, but Sectordub does almost nothing productive with them in a game that’s 99% item-hunting. ![]() There’s only one optional sequence in which anything approaching a serious degree of reflex is necessary, seemingly there just to satisfy players looking for more stimulation. ![]() Is it a platformer? I guess, but that would imply higher stakes than what this game offers. I’m not even sure how I’d categorize Pikuniku. Later, the Beast gets caught up in a corporate scheme to extort the locals, but the underlying themes of capitalism go similarly unexplored. The developers quickly drop that angle, though. The campaign is mostly comprised of fetch quests, and there’s a running joke where players are rectifying problems that they accidentally created, calling into question whether the adorable Beast really is as dangerous as they say. Players control a character simply known as “the Beast” - a clearly harmless cave-dweller who’s ostracized and feared by the local village. Pikuniku spends its short campaign flipping through ideas that never fully blossom and aren’t particularly original anyway. Its small development team has some strong ideas for visual style and tone, but seems unsure of what sort of game to put them in, and the result is relaxed and noncommittal. Pikuniku is one of the most casual games I’ve ever played. The subject of this installment: Pikuniku, developed by Sectordub and published by Devolver Digital. Instead, it’s an exercise in offering a quick recommendation (or dismissal) after spending enough time to grasp the ideas and gameplay of a thing without necessarily playing it from A to Z. In these articles we discuss general impressions, ideas and thoughts on any given game, but as the title implies, it’s not a review.
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