The Indie Informer

Folks. The Plucky Squire is exactly what I was hoping it would be. I got to go hands-on with it for the first time recently, roaming its world for over two hours and admiring four chapters (nearly half of the overall experience) of charm. The game is delight personified. The visuals are as impeccable in action as in trailers, and the gameplay shifts creatively. With everything I played, there’s a lot to get excited about on September 17 — the adventure’s newly announced release date.

Chimes, strings, piano keys. A fancifully drawn butterfly. And the words “It was time to begin a new adventure.” All proved to be my most perfect welcome to this game indie fans have long waited for. Though this is the start menu, I already felt my troubles falling farther away with every polished animation and flawless tone.

Its concern with accessibility showed quickly, as a screen pops up before jumping in asking me to pick between Adventure Mode and Story Mode. Adventure Mode, my difficulty of choice, is hardly a shield-shattering path to take, but should it help any player, the in-game menu offers further aid with things like invincibility and one-hit kills.

The page is the stage for my adventure, with words acting as its set dressing. Love of written medium is pressed into every aspect of the game. The hero, Jot, wields a pen in the shape of a sword. Wherever I walk, narration appears beneath my feet. And the turning of a page can harold not only a different landscape but an entirely new gameplay style.

Just in this 2D setting, I went from isometric action-adventure, side-scrolling, platforming, over-the-shoulder fighter, shooting gallery, and old-school turn-based action. That’s without the added element of popping out of this two-dimensional realm I’d called home my whole life into the three-dimensional real world. Besides also being aesthetically breathtaking, this transition mechanic allows for refreshing challenges and new solutions to the characters’ problems. The chief of these is Humgrump, the evil wizard.

Jot, the titular hero, wakes to an undeniably slapping beat. My neighbor, the good wizard/hottest DJ around is on a roll making melodies and needs my help to preserve his rhythmic masterpieces. The tutorial, as this turns out to be, is mechanically simple but so full of vivid enchantment it doesn’t feel like a well-trod path.

On my way to bee-laden mountain peaks in order to pick up some urgently needed wax for pressing records, I fight goblins and cut down bushes — both of which can grant me the game’s currency, lit lightbulbs of inspiration. At the summit, I literally fist-fight with a honey badger. Yep. And it’s as lighthearted and unorthodox as it sounds.

Of course, the story’s protagonist succeeds, but the victory is marred by an ominous flash of dark-dispensing magic shooting from far-away Tome Tower. Unbeknownst to Jot, his nemesis is literally rewriting the story of this world.

With two lifelong friends beside me, I charge after the caster, completely unprepared for what awaits. The wizard, perched on the top of the library-like spire, holds a book — the book in which I star — and explains everything I’ve ever known is fake. It’s a story for children, and he doesn’t like the way it ends. With this revelation, Humgrump thrusts me out of my own book’s pages and into a reality I can’t comprehend.

Well, as the player I clearly understand that the large wooden surface under my feet is a desk cluttered with knick-knacks, utensils, and toys. But poor Jot stumbles through this extra-dimensional realm. Until he finds help in the form of a bookworm, who points me to a pair of gauntlets with the power to turn the story back a few pages and edit this turn of events.

The transition between the worlds is smooth and whether in 2D or 3D simply getting from point A to point B involves some perception-challenging. Puzzles are solved by jumping between the two dimensions, often putting a new spin on relatively easy tasks.

In this preview’s never-seen content, I range across the surprisingly well-versed Sonnet Swamps. The grand finale will take place between me and a flying foe. This means I can’t rely on my trusty pen sword, but must look for a powerful ranged weapon found in the real world. In a smile-inducing twist, the weapon sits inside a fantasy card game character’s hands. So, to use it, I have to challenge the eleven archer on her territory.

Jumping out of a storybook, navigating the real world via a series of child’s sketches, and making it to the top of a block column just to hop back into a card is more than I knew I wanted from this game. The combat plays out more like a Game Boy Pokemon battle than the Zelda-esque battles I’ve been involved in so far. It’s a great showpiece of the title’s constant shifting landscape.

My road ends as the squad and I roll up to Artia, a painterly castle town, after taking down the swamp’s big bad. I can tell you, I wasn’t ready to stop my adventure. However, I’ll have to wait until next month to glimpse the sights in The Plucky Squire‘s artistic city.