I think if I found out that my whole life was just a story from a children’s picture book, I’d probably have a pretty serious breakdown. Jot, the titular hero of The Plucky Squire, seems unfazed by this, however – even as he leaps out of the pages of his book and discovers a whole new three-dimensional reality beyond his own.
It’s a great twist for a game that initially seems like a nice little adventure in the style of the old top-down Legend of Zelda games. Initially tasked with just finding beeswax for a wizard, Jot happily travels with his friends through the pages of his book, all brought to life by beautiful 2D animations. But when the evil wizard Humgrump frees him from the constraints of the story, things get a lot more interesting.
My hands-on only covers the first four chapters of the game, but I’m impressed with how much creativity developer All Possible Futures packed into this roughly two-hour introduction. As my party and I continue to travel across the land – and now search for a way to stop Humgrump – my fourth-wall-breaking abilities allow me to overcome traditional obstacles in fun new ways.
Jot can now play around with the sentences in his story, for example swapping a word from one line to another. Changing a word changes everything it describes, so a “big” enemy becomes “small,” “night” becomes “day,” or a “locked” door suddenly becomes “open.” There’s not as much room for experimentation as I’d like—only certain words are allowed in each sentence—and the puzzles are more charming than tricky, but I’m confident that more depth will develop as the game progresses.
You can also, as mentioned, just jump out of the book entirely and either run to another portal to jump back in at a different location, or explore the cluttered and oddly spread-out desk the book sits on to find new abilities. Your powers allow you to freely jump in and out of any artwork you find there, darting between 2D and 3D to bridge gaps and avoid patrolling bugs (apparently they like to eat fictional characters?).
My favorite moment in the preview is when I discover an abandoned game card—think Magic: The Gathering—that features a classic fantasy elf archer. I jump in, get to fight with her, and then befriend her. She likes me so much that she lends me her bow, which I can take into my own story and use for a shooting minigame against swarms of flying insects. I’m really excited to see what other surprises await me as this adventure continues. Will Jot ever get the chance to explore a comic book, or perhaps the art on the front of a video game case?
But even within the confines of the original book, there’s so much imagination in The Plucky Squire. Minigames like that bow encounter abound – within four chapters, I’ve defeated a honey badger Punch-Out style, played Mario-style 2D platforming, had to time my grip perfectly to snatch a fish out of the air, and more. None of these diversions have great depth or strategy, but that’s not the point – the fun is simply in seeing what fun little scene has been prepared for you next, and how it’s executed in the game’s charming art style.
The combination of gentle charm and genuine creativity really makes The Plucky Squire something more interesting than just another leisurely little adventure. If it can maintain that sense of novelty and fun in subsequent chapters – and perhaps get a little more sophisticated with its puzzles – it could be the next big success story when it releases on September 17, 2024.
