I've grown up playing Amanita games so I was pleased to see Pilgrims as part of the humble bundle I picked up. The gameplay is quite unique with each area acting like a stage on which you can play your character and item cards to 'add' them to the scene and see what plays out. It's a very imaginative re-envisioning of the point and click adventure.

The art style is, as always, wonderfully done like the imagining of a folk story. The characters are very expressive through the grunts and rough animation that Amanita are famous for. You quickly grasp how one character relates to another and using the 'speech bubble' icons you understand what a given character wants.

Unfortunately the game is incredibly limited. There is only one map to explore with a handful of scenes to see things play out on. Plus you can only play one character card at a time and each item card essentially plays through an entire animated scene before playing its role or popping off the scene again. So in actuality there's not much you can do with the variety of cards at your disposal.

Equally the puzzles are all very straightforward. Once you've explored a bit everything becomes very obvious and just a matter of going through the motions. There's very little in the way of challenge and the couple of times I found myself unsure what to do you can just brute force the solutions.

What's there is a fun an interesting little sandbox that has clearly been painstakingly made by a small team - I guess my main complaint is just that I wanted more! As it is the game felt like a very lovingly crafted demo.

Nice little game from the makers of Machinariam.

Short and allows the player to explore with different options. A few different endings depending on what you did in the game.

Card style game which is different from the typical point and click

Game #10 of 2024 finished!

This was a super short and cute point and click adventure game from the visual wizards over at Amanita Design. They were the creators of Machinarium. One of my favorite point and click games from the early 2000s. This game much like their previous works is absolutely oozing with charm. The characters the design and the story told through motion and grunts alone always gets me.

This game being only an hour may sound like a weak point but after my first play through it was clear there are many different ways to complete the various puzzles the game has to offer. Be it killing a dragon, befriending a dragon, or finding a way to get the dragon hitched. There are things you can do to get those outcomes. And with a collection of cards you unlock as you play communicating back if you have completed a task it is easy to track what things you have done.

I really liked this game and I will say it is the first Switch game I was able to play in a portrait mode. Holding the switch sideways and touching the screen felt natural but super weird at the same time.

If you can find this on the E-Shop for cheap and have an hour to kill give it a try!

Ein wunderschön und liebevoll gestaltetes Spiel, genau wie alle anderen von Amanita Design – der Fokus liegt hier besonders bei der Gestaltung und dem Sound!

Der Drache hat mich etwas an den aus Samorost 3 erinnert. Schön, dass man künstlerische Meisterwerke dieses Studios nach so vielen Jahren seit dem ersten Spiel immer noch treffsicher erkennen kann. Hier kann man so gut wie alle Items mit verschiedenen Umgebungen und Personen kombinieren, sodass stets unterhaltsame und detailreiche Animationen zu sehen sind.

Mein einziger Kritikpunkt ist, dass es noch viel länger weitergehen sollte.

Achievements: 100 %

I enjoy the works of Amanita design, I've always enjoyed their artistic style and whilst I can admit not all of them are worth seeing through they're all worth checking out.

The art style is lovely, the cards which are really just action choices are great visuals and the game doesn't have any text (bar the title and the credits).

In game achievements reveal there is a variety of things you can do to progress or just for a laugh and I'm already thinking of running through again just to see more as each interaction is entertaining.
It's sweet, it's not mind blowing, it's not side splitting comedy but it'll make you smile and occasionally chuckle.

Both a pro and a con of Pilgrims is that it's far too short to ever outstay it's welcome, it's sub one hour play time (for a single completion) actually seems perfect for being on the phone and this was Apple Arcade first.

However is it worth a fiver it costs on Steam, Switch and wherever else? Well how much is a fiver worth to you?
I say this because for me it was a yes because I had that in Nintendo gold points so it was "free".

More often than not I say "it's hard to score this".
This game does what it aims to do and does it well, it's possibly a little too short but it's main issue is that if you aren't sure how to progress the game doesn't have any hint systems which means you fall into the classic point and click sin of just trying every combination.
Thankfully there isn't hundreds of cards, you're not getting an annoying bit of dialogue repeated to you and every animation is short and sweet.

TLDR give this a go on Apple Arcade it's nice.
If you don't have that, check if you got steam credit or Switch coins and treat yourself, just don't expect a life changing experience.

Although if you like the art style and want something with more meat on the bone, get Machinarium from the same studio. That's a belter.