Pikuniku is a silly and short platformer in which you play as the red circle Piku and generally just enjoy walking around, bouncing and kicking people.

Pikuniku presents a very strong and unique sense of aloofness, pairing together its floaty physics and visual style to great effects. The music also plays a large role in this game's mood, probably the one element that imprinted on me the most while playing. Its the only soundtrack ive ever heard that lives up to/matches the same energy as quirky early Nintendo music, reminding me of Animal Crossing or Super Paper Mario specifically

This game has a lot of honest world building and physical comedy set up so it is a huge letdown that the writers of this game were not confident enough with Pikuniku's originality and instead had to resort to using meme dialouge. This is the original sin of indie games for me, can turn a perfectly crafted experience into something completely unbearable. You know... the type of dialouge where they

type like this

no punctuation or anything just

typing like theyre texting

3 words per sentence

And they feel the need to fall back on (already outdated) meme formats that does nothing but put an expiration date on your otherwise fun game. "Its dangerous to go alone, take this", "el bunko", and just generally the style of comedy that one may find on ifunny. Its a real shame because like I said Pikuniku feels original enough on its own that I dont think they had to fall back on this to make the game charming. I think the devs may have just thought it was funny on their own which is quite sad. They are also French which confused me since Pikuniku seems to have japanese text underneath it on all promotional images of the game, so I assumed it was japanese. But I suppose it isnt...

Otherwise, if you want a short and silly game I would suggest Pikuniku on sale, but don't expect something on the same level as something like Katamari.

Eu adoro experiências de videogame que são diferentes, engraçadinhas e duram uma noite: Pikuniku é exatamente isso e eu não poderia pedir menos pra um dia que eu estava cansado e levemente acabado.

O gameplay em si é bem simples e mistura puzzles muito, muito fáceis com sessões de plataforma e exploração fáceis também. Provavelmente meu review está totalmente enviesado pelo meu cansaço (talvez em dias normais eu acharia tediante os puzzles), mas foi muito legal porque aparentemente era o que eu precisava? É tipo assistir um filme de criança bem besta, mas é colorido e bonito, então você se conforta ali.

O humor é muito idiota e inofensivo, mas volta e meia eu dava umas risadinhas. Movimentar o personagem principal é meio estranho as vezes também, mas a opção de correr ajuda e logo você vai conectando diferentes lugares. A ideia de coletar troféus e chapéus ajudou a me animar e querer procurar coisas novas.

Minha sugestão? Deixa pra jogar Pikuniku num dia meio merda, que você só precisa se desligar e rir de qualquer besteira. Vai ser uma ótima noite.

You play as the feared cave beast! Although, you're not really a beast as the townsfolk quickly come to realize. In fact, they need your help to get rid of the giant robots destroying their home! The Sunshine Inc. company has been showing the citizens with money in exchange for "junk" but what they've really been taking are their important resources. It's up to you to jump, roll, and kick your way to the headquarters and stop them for good!

Visuals

Pikuniku is so colorful and bright! The characters and backgrounds look like some just created random shapes in Paint and flood filled them, but crisp and clean. It actually looks really nice. It's a simple artstyle, but it suits this relatively simply game.

Sound Effects + Music

I adored the music in Pikuniku. It's so happy and upbeat and quirky. It just made me happy to hear while I was playing, and one of the tracks was stuck in my head for awhile.

The sound effects are fun as well. And there is some minimal voice acting, mostly just random noises rather than true language. It's fitting for these little blob creatures though.

Gameplay + Controls

Pikuniku is a puzzle platformer, and a really fun one at that. It's pretty simple and straight forward. You move around, jump across gaps, kick rocks (or people), and generally figure out your way around the handful of locations. None of the puzzles are too complicated, and I only got stumped once, because I was thinking too logically. A little out of the box thinking is required at times, but most puzzles don't require much thinking at all.

I did face one very annoying glitch where I had to close the game and restart that area twice. Ernie just disappeared behind the blocks you were suppose to use to move him toward the exit. There was no way to force him back out other than to restart. It was frustrating, but third time's the charm.

Replayability

Pikuniku is extremely short and probably a fun game to speedrun. I'm not a speedrunner though, so I doubt I'd play it again. I would happily continue to find more secrets and earn trophies.

Overall

Pikuniku was so much fun! I felt like I was just getting into it when I was suddenly at the final boss battle. I'd say it was too short, but I think it was the right length to do what it set out to do.

Cute little indie game that's more of a walking simulator than a platformer. Sorry, it's a "cinematic platformer".

Don't take me wrong though. I had a blast, more than with any other cinematic platformer I've played before. Also, it has a little more action than many of said genre. Still, for me it fits that genre's common description as the platforming feels clumsy and there is almost no difficulty to it.

The dialogues I thought were really funny as well as the story overall. Nothing outstanding, just a very good time.

I was ready to rate it 3 out of 5, then I played the co-op levels. They were the best designed part of the game, leaning more to the puzzle platforming bits of the game. They were also very few and completely separated of the main game.

Finally, I had an issue post-game. Went back to my save file to try and complete some objectives. However, after catching a bird for one of those side quests, my game got stuck. No matter if I closed, reinstalled or even played through the cloud. Nothing worked. When I load my save, I'm stuck over the house in the spot I caught the bird on and I can't move. A real shame.

Played through Xbox Game Pass for 8 hours exactly, main story + co-op. Don't know why it took me so darn long.

Short and sweet little platformer that's charming and pretty fun. It feels like a lot of other short indie games I've played like Donut County and A Short Hike where it focuses on simple yet fun gameplay mechanics while telling a pretty barebones story with charming dialogue and characters, but really just fails to stick with me too much. It's definitely a fun game worth the 3 hour run time and I respect the hell out of it for being just about the most pure form a video game with solid aspects all around but just isn't going to be something I'm going to think about or go back to in the future.

A cute and silly game that plays as noodley as it's animated.

It's fun to go around and kicking stuff and NPCs. The animations while you tumble around the world are entertaining. The humor is silly. But when you apply the wacky noodle legs to actual gameplay it feels more sloppy than fun. It's got some charm but overall I don't think it's worth playing.

+ Silly and charming
+ Good animations

- Annoying platforming with imprecise controls

the older i get the more i find myself deeply annoyed at Political Media Analysis that eschews the aesthetic experience of a work in favor of using it as a barely-relevant springboard for didactic (excuse me, Educational) words on the political ideas. i dont wanna say its a worthless approach but it doesnt interest me anymore, and i find it very reductive: in how surface level the ideas are often presented, in how the aesthetic experience is so often held as an entirely separate entity rather then the conducting force, how the material impact of a specific work is often over-emphasized to the point where the impression is that art Creates culture rather then reality where art merely Reflects culture (granted its culture in conversation with itself, but no piece or genre or movement is more important then the ingrown results of how power is structured in our world)

this is a game that promises that u can start a revolution on its store page, and is generally a v obvious product of a cultural shade (familiar to numerous indie games, particularly post-undertale) that mixes Progressiveism and Tweeness (associated greatly with millennials, who are now making most of our art, and also rapidly deteriorating in coolness). i can see the breadtube takes in my head immediately, that its either a Stellar Amazing Communist Psyop or Deceptive Capitalist Opiate That Doesn't Match Up To XYZ Marx Writing And Will Undermine The Revolution, u get it DHJKSDH. i will admit to being a bit shallow here, my high rating reflects the fact that i found the game sweet and playful and memorable in its aesthetic experience rather then me thinking its an airtight political text. but i found it a lil stirring all the same even if its too Comfy and Silly to be motivating in a Fiery Way

what rly makes it work is just how far it leans into abstraction, visually narratively and tonally. its not theory and its not a dense novel and its not a modernist boundary-breaker, its a comic strip. the light veneer of revolutionary politics then becomes more Fableistic then anything, which is the kind of nuance that i dont think ppl allow often enough in these types of works.

and it must be said there is specificity to the veneer beyond just the instinctively appealing age-old Beat The Authoritarian Corporate Bad Guy story. the Bad Guy, for one, does steal the work and individuality and livelihood of the world in exchange for Currency which is acknowledged as completely arbitrary and meaningless aside from the very silly value ascribed to it by those who want a lot of it (the FREE MONEY chant is a genuinely affecting takedown of those capitalist myths that are So Fucking Stupid that u would never believe them if u werent born into a world where yr survival depended on u internalizing them). what impresses me a lot more tho is the differentiation of levels of exploitation even tho they all lead to death. the village in the fields gladly gives up its food because its basking in the coins. they will eventually run into trouble, but not before the village in the forest who will lose the trees they live in, and CERTAINLY not before the worms who have lost their water and arent even GETTING the coins. most of these kinds of somewhat surface level twee works only get as far as working class solidarity among those we would consider peers, but tho we are all doomed we must acknowledge that we are the most luxurious cogs in the machine. that this is all presented with simplicity a child could understand, and never feels overly labored in its metaphors, and that its so in-tune with the welcoming texture, is something of an achievement in and of itself!

plenty of things could be nitpicked, esp if u wanted to run w/ the metaphors i just established. i myself would prob point to the Secret Mission Of Revolutionaries climax as not being as populist as i would like (tho perhaps theres metaphor here too about our ticking clock for our ravaged planet). but ultimately the art will not save the world, nor is there airtightness to many of the works that tap into our slowly dawning collective realization that things are Fucked and we need to make a better world pronto. but the fact that these works exist at all, even imperfect, or outright mutilated, or ultimately, going to fill the pockets of a capitalist, i think is hope that would be foolish to turn down. i'd like to think even the all-contorting force that is capital can only sell our fantasies of escape from it back to us so many times before we realize whats happening!

Fun little game, though I can't say that it stuck much in my memory. I kinda forgot putting this here, and it took me a while to remember I'd even played it. No puzzle was difficult in the slightest, for most I was able to figure out the solution immediately, and the story is just an excuse for fun setpieces. Music was generic, bubbly and upbeat songs that left my brain the second they were over, and the graphics have this simplistic, cartoon look to them that I enjoyed, but also didn't left much of an impact on me. This game is just 5-6 hours of fun content, but not very remarkable, the kind of stuff that lives as steam key bundle padding or constantly on sale for very cheap, which is how I got it. It's an alright purchase at those kinds of low prices, but not much more than that.

A silly and colorful platformer. The story is about a character named Piku who is trying to stop a corporate magnate from taking over the world and enslaving it's people to be his personal servants.

Lots of silly writing and at times some challenging platforming. There are collectables and a good array of achievements/trophies to unlock as well.

Co-Op is also a lot of fun and should be enjoyed with a friend or family member.

I’m back!!!

It’s only been 800 years since I last finished a game. But anyways, this was really cute and fun. So short though! Me and my girlfriend had a good time playing it, and it felt like such a wholesome, light experience.

Some really cool level design, pretty much impossible to get really stuck anywhere. So many little secret things to find and mess around with, and even some really cool little racing levels that were so random and fun.

I’d be okay with playing a lot more games as cute and harmless as this one.

Essa eh uma historia de um herói predestinado que foi convocado por um ser cósmico para lidar com um vilão que perdeu toda sua civilização e por conta disso
o Vilão tem essa obsessão na criação de um lugar perfeito, e para isso, ele precisa eliminar a escoria e o povo imperfeito desse mundo (na visão dele) ele extrai recursos do povo, ele engana o povo, ele vigia cada movimentação do povo com o falso pretexto de individualidade e de riqueza, para no fim destruir o povo com seus próprios recursos

This was delightfully weird. I played through the whole story mode with my daughter twice, mostly just helping her with the bosses and understanding where she needed to go as needed.

We also beat all the co-op levels together which had a few glitches but were generally a blast.

She still loads it up frequently enough when friends are over just because the co-op levels are a pretty guaranteed good time full of laughs.