Nuts is quite self-contained, it doesn't try to grasp more than it can, and maybe because of that the gameplay got old fast, and the story didn't expand upon itself as much as it could.

The artstyle and overall vibes, though, were nailed. The restrained color palette choices are good, despite being confusing at times, and contribute to the simplicity of the game.

Maybe, had I liked its story more than I have (I think it can be a better one for some people), I would have enjoyed Nuts more as a whole. In the end, however, it was worthwhile to chase after some funny little squirrels and just enjoy the serene forests it presents during the 3 hours I beat it in.

Completed with 100% of achievements unlocked. While photography-based games are becoming something of an expanding niche, NUTS's premise as a "squirrel surveillance" game is still an intriguing one. The game tasks the player with tracking squirrels' night-time movements across a series of forest areas with strategically-placed cameras, with an environmentalist story providing some narrative drive. While fairly simple, this mechanic works pretty well, with a couple of minor twists - though the later scenarios (there are six) do start to show its limits, as with their longer length the downtime between placing cameras (via first-person exploration), watching back the recorded footage, repositioning and repeating becomes evident - the traipse to and from the caravan observation point becomes increasingly tedious, adding little to the gameplay (though the inclusion of "walking simulator" in the game's official description does, I suppose, give fair warning of this). Overall, NUTS is decent while it lasts (somewhere around 3 hours), but I can't see it sustaining an experience that's much longer than that.

As much as I wanted to like this game, I found the game mechanics tedious after the first few rounds. The plot also didn't provide enough to make me want to keep going. I dropped the game without reaching the ending, but based on other reviews here I don't think I missed out on much that would've changed my opinion. I think there was the foundations of a good idea, but it didn't follow through.

Also, not the games fault, but it did give me motion sickness after a while. The extreme contrasting colours probably did not help.

This gives me random itch.io demo vibes. Fun gameplay, vibrant graphics, and engaging plot.

But unfortunately you can 100% it in 3-4 hours, so you're much better off waiting for a sale.








...I will discover the squirrel's secret...

I've recently been watching Blue Planet with my girlfriend, and beyond putting me in complete awe at the pure majesty of the natural world, I keep thinking about the people behind the camera. The patience, the planning, the incredible lengths needed to get these amazing shots. Some require the crew to be at the exact right place at the exact right time of year, with less than a few minutes' margin of error, and have every single condition in their favour to get a once-in-a-lifetime shot that lasts less than a few seconds. And they do it.

Nuts also makes me think of that. Granted, the shots I get are somewhat more mundane, but if I'm honest with myself, I'll never not be in awe at the beauty of a squirrel enjoying an acorn.

You take photos of squirrels in this game. It's kinda great, honestly. You set up cameras each day, and then at night you watch back the footage. You note where the squirrel moves, and replace your cameras to follow its routine. It's surprisingly engaging, and the beautiful colour palettes give the forest an unreal, haunting appeal. It gives me a chance to appreciate the environments in the abstract, beyond the luscious greens, browns, and yellows I normally associate with the woods.

It does get repetitive at times, and wasting a whole day's work by placing your equipment in the wrong spot does foster a deeper empathy with the documentarians of the real world.

There's a story here too, about an insidious company ruining the forest, and about critters that are acting strangely. It sadly end up mattering very little in the end, as the finale is one of the most abrupt and unsatisfying I've ever seen. It doesn't end so much as stop, with almost no threads resolved, despite the intrigue ratcheting up massively towards the game's final hour.

Ultimately, Nuts doesn't have much to off beyond its central gameplay conceit, which is a shame. It's a little too short to provide a solid narrative and just long enough to not outstay its mechanical welcome. But it gave me a change to appreciate some fluffy-tailed critters in their own habitat and that's not nothing.

"Nuts" portrays the world of squirrels and highlights the impact of human influence on their habitats. However, it falls short in conveying the depth of this environmental struggle compared to titles like "Endling: Extinction is Forever."

The game works with predefined colour palettes, which look great most of the time, but I can imagine that they might be a bit annoying for some people.

You start a new job in the wilderness - the assignment: observe squirrels and send reports to your contact person. You will be equipped with cameras, monitors, a recording device and a fax. You set up the cameras during the day and watch where the squirrels go at night. Adjust the position of the camera accordingly the next day and repeat the whole process until you have found their stashes or nests.

I know, it doesn't sound very exciting. But the chapters are short, you get a new little map in each of the 5 chapters (there are 6, but the first one is a short introduction) and it was really fun to set up the cameras and see the squirrels in the shots and print pictures of them.

I really recommend taking a look.

uhhh, listen. this is a cute game n all, i like watching squirrels as much as the next guy. but when i take a picture of the thing you wanna see, then i should be able to progress in the game. rly wanted to play more but i have no idea how to get past the literal second objective. u want a picture of the squirrel at its stash? okay. i give u a picture of the squirrel at its stash. what do you mean it's not at its stash, it's literally eating nuts right there in the picture i took. its mouth is full of nuts.

For games like an Outer Wilds, Hypnospace,(2 of my GOATs) Witness(eugh), etc. I learned an interesting proposed genre name, "Mentalvania". I would personally also submit Metroidbrainia or Infovania, but all three work. It's for any of these games where you don't quite get real "powerups" or unlock shortcuts by altering the game too much if at all, but you observe and learn the closed system and interact with it in your own way.

Nuts is one of these boys. I think it's one of my favorite not-actually-one-but-maybe-will-catch-on genres, since most(except witness) are pretty great. This one is never as eureka-inducing as like an Outer Wilds, but every discovery or happy accident with your cameras does give a milder version of that feeling.

Squirrels are very cute! The ending is sad but in a beautiful way. The game looks cool, though some palettes are a little challenging. The story is light. but interesting.

Wash away all but the squirrels (prayer emoji).

I really wanted to like this game going into it. I know up until its release I was looking forward to its art style and the thriller direction it was going to take.

It's main mechanic, placing the camera and watching the recordings during the night becomes tedious after the novelty wears off and for the most part you're better off just wandering the sectioned off forest to find any secret acorn piles there might be.

I know on one of the levels I glitched my way up a hill and was able to place my camera in an "unreachable" tent that the squirrels would store nuts in.

A big thing that makes the Firewatch comparison possible is the story. A story that sadly doesn't provide as much as it's aspirations with more questions than answers.

The beauty of Firewatch is the chemistry between Delilah and Henry. A game where on top of that their back and forth banter through the woods makes the whole experience even better.

Here, our player is voiceless and being spoken to without truly trusting the player or giving in world clarification for game events. Mysteriously your stuff show up from a character briefly mentioned, but most of the time it's referred to as just like "oh, your stuff's here".

Same with the moving of the trailer, it's moved by the same guy (whom I cannot remember the name of for the life of me) and you just wake up in the new areas after a fade to black.

There's no comment about "oh congratulations on doing that, we'll collect you this evening" or anything like that.
It just happens. There's such a disconnect between the narrative and gameplay at times that it's hard to keep my mind in the game.

The recording mechanic never gets improved once the player has mastered it and teeters off with the confusing end.

Unlike Firewatch, this game doesn't let the player play the ending, they more stumble into cut-scene triggers until the game reaches an inconclusive ending.

My goal isn't to compare them necessarily, it's just hard to see a game I wanted to succeed fall this hard.

There is a lot to love about the main mechanic. The act of taking photos is always fun and the idea of setting up cameras during the day, recording during the night, panning and zooming the cameras to take the perfect shot.

I know a couple people didn't like the art style and although it was a bit much at times, I did like the overall feel of it. The sound work was recognized as outstanding but I cannot say they stood out in my playtime.

At the end of it all it just feels immensely unsatisfying.

it is the best game about squirrel photography just like Mandibles is the best funniest movie with a giant fly.

Biggest problem with this game is the disconnect between the story and the gameplay, both in the writing and the game design:
story: corporation is destroying forest
plot: take pictures of squirrel for???
and you're just constantly alternating between gameplay and narrative phone call, making the disconnect even more obvious.

I feel forced to compare but this is just shitty Firewatch. Firewatch isn't good cause there's a nice looking forest and someone you're talking to, it's the whole execution, the way the game kept you immersed and engaged.

Played this through in less than a day - appreciated the brevity; there isn't a mechanic that outstays its welcome. I really got into & involved in the loop of surveilling these squirrels across various spots in the forest. Keeping track of them and refining your camera placement is really fun.
Has to be said that I hit my head on some issues toward the end, one task in particular requires you to take several photos of a squirrel at various timestamps on playback, I had delivered all but one and the last photo wouldn't seem to register with the game as having a squirrel in the photo despite being there - solution ended up having me take a screenshot a second or so out of that timestamp despite the game specifically asking for a time. The framerate (on Switch at least) took a dive a couple times as well which doesn't necessarily bother me but it worth mentioning for those interested in this game.
My final qualm might be a bit picky given the 'grounded ethereal' vibe of the game, but it bothered me the total lack of 'presence' the player character has. I wasn't necessarily bothered by the fact that they don't speak at all, but rather that they didn't have any hands, legs or feet. This wouldn't really be a problem if there was some kind of sound design aspect (footsteps etc.) that did some of the legwork instead but instead I felt like a sort of sluggish, floaty orb which felt a little odd. Nitpicky or not, I felt that it significantly affected the way that I interacted with the world.
Those things aside, this is a short, enjoyable surveillance game with a very striking aesthetic and a folky, quietly sinister story that I'm glad I ended up playing.

Side Note: I'd love for there to have been a way for me to save and/or share my photos - maybe in a future update.

Good first person walking sim/detective game in the vein of Firewatch, though with more engaging gameplay.

I will say that the novelty of the gameplay loop kinda wears off after the first chapter, and that I wish there were a bit more variety. You do spend the whole game placing cameras around and following squirrels through the footage. That said, it's only like 2-3 hours long, so it didn't get tiresome for me or anything.

The story is good, though I do kinda wish it had a voiced protagonist. You're very much a non-character in this, and you have no name or backstory. I get that that might've put it too close to Firewatch, but it just felt off to me, being called by the game's actual main character over the phone and listening as she has one-sided conversations. Might've felt different if I'd ever gotten to hear more than just one character's voice, even if it weren't the player character. The story itself was good and kept me engaged, but it wasn't stellar or anything.

The visuals, of course, were great. And not just aesthetically. If the game had been in a more generic, multi-colored art style, I can only imagine how much of a nightmare it would have been to track these squirrels as they scurry about, running through bushes and climbing up trees. The stylized color palettes make sure that the squirrels stand out from their environments as much as possible.

On that note, the design overall is great. The way you interact with things in the world (mainly the camper in which you conduct your research) feels so natural. There's hardly any UI, just things which diegetically exist in the world that you use in intuitive ways, mostly only using LMB. Makes me wish more games were like that. I only wish the game weren't so repetitive, because I feel that it barely taps into the potential of its mechanics.

That said, I enjoyed this very much and would recommend it to anybody who's into this sort of game.