Pepper Grinder

Meet the core mechanic: a drill that lets you burrow through terrain and preserves your momentum when you breach out again. First, it is introduced in progressively unsafer environments. Once you “get it”, the mechanic is recontextualized in as many ways as the developers could come up with. What if terrain had a time limit? What if you weren’t digging down but up through falling chunks? What if jelly?

Some levels are more daring than that, fully substituting your drill for a minigun and other armaments. While these are certainly different, I felt the loss of the main mechanic quite strongly here. The game is at its best when it gives you long sections that you can burrow through, catching big air as you breach, flying from block to block, all while making quick decisions and looking out for collectibles.

There is great attention to detail in the levels. Both in the different biomes, the levels backgrounds and objects laying about. Everything feels like it has a function in this world, it makes the spaces you zip through feel lived in. You gradually get an idea of the society of bipedal unicorns you’re carving your way through. They are not one dimensional evil henchmen, most of them probably have a job and a mortgage.

The game does not overstay its welcome. Most level ideas are one-off which makes the game feel fresh for most of its runtime. After about three hours you get a great final boss fight and roll credits.