Some gamers will enjoy a game solely based on one mechanic. In a lot of cases, that mechanic can be the only thing carrying the game from start to finish and no complaints will be had. Devolver Digital recently published a title like this called Gunbrella. It looks like they’re set to take that plunge again with the upcoming Pepper Grinder, a side-scroller described as having “the CRUNCHIEST gameplay“. How does this entry separate itself from the pack?

Pepper Grinder is going to hook players in with the way you control your character. The game is based on a character with a high-speed drill attachment. You’ll be burrowing into the ground, diving for treasure, using momentum to make jumps, and careening through enemies to get from point A to point B in style. It’s a game that’s particularly easy to pick up and has an intuitive learning curve that shouldn’t be intimidating for those without even a slight familiarity with this genre.

There isn’t too much of a plot so far for Pepper Grinder, but it more than makes up for that in the addictiveness of its traversal and variety between levels. Vibrant colors and a clear-cut path make it easy to almost speedrun each level. With how fast you can grind once you get used to it, you might be wrapping up levels quicker than you can grasp. It’s that ability to make you feel like a master in no time that makes titles like this so hard to put down. That’s compounded by how well it controls and looks even on modest hardware.

Pepper Grinder is a solo effort aside from porting and music. Once you realize that, it’s baffling how the game is feeling so polished and enjoyable with a tentative release date a whole year out. As this has been in development since 2017, it’s certainly a labor of love that’s been fine-tuned to perfection by Ahr Ech.

With that 1.0 date so far in the future after a delay last month, I can only hope that the content becomes expansive since the rest of the work feels just about done at this point in time. There’s ample potential for Pepper Grinder and it could be the talk of the gaming world so long as Devolver markets it right (which I know they will). Keep an eye out for Pepper Grinder in 2024 for Steam and Nintendo Switch!

A PC preview copy of Pepper Grinder was provided by Devolver Digital for this preview.

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