New Devolver indie game Pepper Grinder is getting a Steam Next Fest demo this week. It’s a short and sweet little thing, no more than 20 minutes or so. I got to blast through it a little early, so consider this preview a Next Fest rec.
Pepper Grinder is a game about a girl who washes up on a beach in a strange land, picks up a handheld doohickey with a drill on it, and becomes a rocket-powered murder baby.
That’s the short version, anyway. To expand: The Pepper Grinder demo feels like a very strong proof-of-concept that could become an extremely interesting game if it expands wisely on the ideas catalogued here. The levels contained within the demo are short, fast, punchy affairs that focus on momentum and precision.
The rocket-powered drill interacts with certain soft-tissue elements of the terrain around you. The player can propel Pepper around the world like a dolphin racing through the surf. Indeed, when I first got to grips with the drill mechanic, I thought, “Someone played a lot of Ecco the Dolphin as a kid.” The feeling of bursting out of the water or the terrain to perform a flip mirrors the feel of Ecco almost exactly. Where Pepper Grinder expands on that concept is through verticality. You’re often making these acrobatic leaps upward, something Ecco never really experimented with. These acrobatic leaps are often connected to avoiding hazards, like thorns, which Ecoo the Dolphin DID experiment with.
The drill isn’t just used for movement, either. It can be used offensively, knocking enemies out of the way. It can also be used to trigger doors and switches that open up new drillable pathways ahead. Crumbling sections of rock walls can be drilled to reveal secret stashes of gold. Cementing its 16-bit era bonafides, Pepper Grinder also hides five collectible coins throughout each level, similar to Donkey Kong Country‘s K-O-N-G collectibles or Sonic 3‘s special stage portals.
The demo’s levels become trickier as they go and, I found, required a surprising degree of precision to complete. As such, I would strongly recommend playing with a controller. I personally found trying to get by with the two-handed keyboard controls on offer to be overly fiddly, and an exercise in frustration.
So, there you go. A short and sweet preview for a short and sweet little demo. Pepper Grinder shows a lot of promise! I think it has a lot of interesting ideas and, based on what’s presented in the demo, has a unique take on the platforming genre that’s worth exploring. You can try out the demo for yourself right now during Steam Next fest.
Preview conducted on PC using an early access demo build provided by the publisher.
Image: Devolver Digital
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