I found my drill.
Pepper Grinder is one of those 2D platform games with a big idea.
And its big idea is brilliant.
you’re free to drill enemies until they’re just jaw bones and cute gristle.
you could use the drill to operate guns, sprinklers, skidoos - you name it.
More important than all that, though, Pepper Grinder is a game where the little details matter.
And I knew this as soon as I saw the vines.
Pepper Grinder review
The vines are introduced pretty early on.
They’re tangles of barbed foliage that do damage if you get too close.
They shiver with the energy that comes from your drill.
The game has noticed this might happen, and so it has been made to happen.
Bodes well, if you ask me.
You may have read that Pepper Grinder’s a short game, and it is.
But a short game can still outlive your enthusiasm for it, and Pepper Grinder never does.
Press a button and you erupt with a burst of speed too.
But Pepper Grinder’s also restless, so before long every level is dropping in a new idea.
Enemies, little grimace-faced beans with narwhal tusks, start to emerge before taking a hit and expiring.
Then some of them get guns, flamethrowers, hover packs, armour.
You’ll need to attack some from above, perhaps, or behind.
Inevitably, they’re employed as puzzle elements, even in rooms where they spawn in brisk little hordes.
It’s one bit of business amongst others.
Then you get the vines.
You start to get guns and other jazz that cobbles onto your drill.
The boss which was part chase sequence!
The frozen lakes where I needed to drill as fast as I could to move between areas of warmth.
The best of these sequences use the drill as both a weapon and a propulsive force.
Pepper Grinder accessibility options
Players have the ability to turn down screenshake and rumble.
Players can reduce the game speed, and switch repeated inputs between manual, automatic, and hold-to-input.
Even when it’s all over there are those coins to hunt for and the things they unlock.
Then there’s just the details to revel in.
There’s an unlock shop where you buy things from capsule machines which are powered by your drill.
A review code for Pepper Grinder was provided byDevolver Digital.
