The Plucky Squire Preview
Every once in a while, a game instantly garners mainstream attention from the moment its debut trailer is released. The Plucky Squire is one such instance with its vibrant aesthetic and unique mechanic/hook of a dual setting: that of a book and its ‘real life’ surroundings. Simply based on trailers, The Plucky Squire seemed to have me hooked. However, with the number of promising indie titles that don’t end up panning out, I held back from overhyping myself from the title.
I recently had the opportunity to play through just under the first half of the title, experiencing the early part of the game. For those unaware, The Plucky Squire places you in the role of Jot, the Plucky Squire himself, with a gameplay emphasis on interacting with your book origin as well as traversing across to other planes and dimensions such as the real world, trading cards, and more. Aside from gameplay, the title’s vibes are really what attracts players. The combination of beautiful aesthetics, memorable characters, and its general Saturday-morning cartoon feel really bring the game to life.
From what I experienced, it seemed that the game focuses the early portions on getting players comfortable with the main mechanics. Namely, this mostly includes light platforming, combat, and puzzle solving amidst travelling from one dimension to another. The most prominent area I experienced during the preview was the puzzle-solving aspect. This was primarily focused on the ability to manipulate the book within the game, allowing players to switch out words in phrases.
A Thousand Words
For example, a phrase may say something akin to “the block is made of stone”, then allowing you to switch out “block” with “staircase” in order to change the object to a staircase, allowing some vertical movement. The early parts of the game are filled with these at a simple level. I would anticipate that this mechanic will feature some more complex situations down the line, but I do worry a bit about having to flip through too many pages of the book in order to do so.
The other portion of the preview I’d like to highlight is the game’s ability to change its pace. Aside from the main gameplay loop of top-down combat and puzzle solving, the game features a decent variety of gameplay elements. For example, descending into an underground tunnel switches the game from a top-down view to a side-scrolling platformer. Likewise as seen in some trailers, battles taking on the form of a ‘Punch Out’ style game or turn-based combat also make an appearance, switching up what players might expect as they continue working through the game.
Overall, The Plucky Squire shows a lot of promise with regard to its ability to be the big indie title of the year. While some of the best indie titles almost come out of nowhere, capturing attention after launch, this title has a lot of attention behind it for better or worse. The Plucky Squire has since been announced to release on September 17, 2024, on the PC, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, and Xbox Series X|S. While we are just about a month away from the game’s full release, I am eagerly anticipating finishing Jot’s story and seeing how the game continues to grow from start to finish.
** A preview code was provided by the publisher **
