Games Happy

For the second 12 months in a row, I had the possibility to take a look at Petal Runner at Summer time Sport Fest Play Days. Final 12 months, I praised the sport’s Sport Boy-like visible fashion and buzzy soundtrack, because the nostalgic attraction and ‘solarpunk’ retro shade palette managed to assist the sport stand out among the many sea of demos stationed contained in the Play Days headquarters.

Earlier this month throughout Play Days, I additionally received an opportunity to play the brand new demo alongside Brandon James “BJGpixel” Greer, the studio founder and sport’s artist. He guided me by means of a brand new part later within the sport, beforehand not proven earlier than.

Petal Runner *appears* like basic Pokémon at first look. You’re positioned within the sneakers of Cali, who travels alongside their HanaPet Kira as you navigate round pixel-art suburban cities and dense cityscapes. Regardless of being a fox-like creature, Kira speaks and communicates with Cali, which is the place Petal Runner resembles different ’90s-era creature companion media, akin to Digimon. Kira can also be housed in a Tamagotchi-like system known as a Leash. 

Not like Pokémon and Digimon, nevertheless, there is no such thing as a coaching, and there are not any fights. HanaPets are largely simply that, pets (though they will converse), and your principal job is to ship new pets to new households. “We’re undoubtedly going for the comfy vibes,” BJGpixel tells me.

There’s clearly been enchancment over the past 12 months in most of the visible facets of the sport. The supply micro-games, which you play a number of in a row each time you ship a brand new HanaPet, are extra visually pleasing than they had been final 12 months. It additionally appears there at the moment are a bigger number of them in comparison with earlier than, together with some slight tweaks to the presentation that make understanding what to do extra intuitive at a look.

The brand new demo put me in an even bigger metropolis this time round, and despite the fact that I received misplaced just a few instances, it’s clear that a variety of effort went into designing the placement within the sport’s retro visible fashion. Different moments of the demo had been additionally visually spectacular – I received to take part in a foolish dance sequence on a stage that was stuffed with inventive pixel artwork and a dense crowd of NPCs.

After two rounds with the sport’s demo over the previous two years, nevertheless, I’m left with one vital concern — the sport’s dialogue. I am not speaking concerning the total narrative path or story plotting; the quick slice of the sport wasn’t sufficient to judge the bigger writing components. I am referring extra to the banter between characters, of which there’s apparently rather a lot. In my earlier preview, I mentioned that ‘the dialogue appeared extra corny than charming,’ however I needed to be beneficiant to the demo on the time, as I solely noticed a small a part of the sport. Nevertheless, a 12 months later, I discovered myself with the identical emotions right here. I discovered it off-putting, and even felt a tinge of second-hand embarrassment simply taking part in the sport.

For example, there’s one second the place a personality mentions that they should transfer ‘lickety-split’. Then one other character makes a quip alongside the strains of ‘I am not licking something!’ This was already groan-worthy, however what compounded the corniness is that the character went again to this very same quip moments later.

All through the assorted demos, there appear to be quips or random jokes in each different dialogue scene. Perhaps I would like extra time to get accustomed to the sport’s vitality and world. Maybe I am simply not in the suitable mindset. I used to be in a position to put up with it throughout the demo, nevertheless it was already sporting me skinny throughout my demo slot. I’m wondering how a lot it’d put on on me over the longer course of the sport.

Regardless of that major hang-up, Petal Runner exhibits promise as a slice-of-life journey. It is ready to launch in 2026 for PC (Steam).