The Wild at Heart is without a doubt the single biggest surprise of the year. It is honestly difficult to find the right words to describe it. It is in many ways a game that feels kind in everything it does. As an exploration of trauma, it does well to explore the reasons people lose themselves, hurt those they love, and even how they can be forgiven. It does all this with a real earnest heart and despite its somber moments is never afraid to embrace the whimsical nature of childhood. As magical as the woods of The Wild at Heart are, they feel like a recollection of our own explorations of the wilderness as youth--Spritelings and all. This is all supported by some stunning production values in the games art and music which are really incredible.

There are very few indie games from this year that felt as stunning to wander around than The Wild at Heart. The aesthetic just gets at that sense of magical realism that suits its narrative intent and creates the environment for a really good video game. Because it is a very good game as well. The puzzle design feels intuitive and created a nice balance between simple relaxing puzzles and ones that genuinely felt smart. The Spritelings bring a literal sense of life to the puzzles that help you feel part of a team when you solve a trickier problem. The design is purposeful and clear in its vision. There is no doubt when I say that The Wild at Heart is an unrelentingly charming title with a wonderful fusion of Pikmin-like puzzles and heartfelt storytelling. I highly recommend it. Rarely has a game been just so impressive at every level coming out of absolutely nowhere.

If you love Over the Garden wall, play this!!!!!! The coziest game!!

The art style for the game feels like....a hug??? A big, warm hug. This game gave me ALL the warm and fuzzies. The art is so lovely, everything from the the story to the music felt so whimsical and really really charming. The writing reminded me of Night in The Woods!! I just really loved it!!!!!

If you like games like Luigi's Mansion, Pikmin or Cozy Grove, or TV shows like Over the Garden Wall and Gravity Falls, this is a must play!!

The only reason I wouldn't give it 5 stars is because it didn't last longer! I was so sad when I finished it. I'll definitely be thinking about this game for a while!

Cried at the end throws up peace sign <3

There’s a great game in here, but there were some big issues that really took me out of the game. Frostfields was absolute hell. If I defeated those flying guys AND destroyed their habitat multiple times, then why do they keep on respawning?? Even a day later they respawn. Why make enemies only the Ice guys can fight if they’re so darn weak and die in two hits?

I was originally having so much fun just exploring and backtracking and trying to find it what I’d have to do next, but after the longest time I’d still end up being stuck. And most of the time I literally knew the answer, but I didn’t throw my spriteling far enough, or I didn’t have the freaking honey in my inventory. Or I didn’t know that I could suck up those barblings on that cliff, because it didn’t look like I could!!! I could go on and on like I am already, but there were so many examples where just a little push, hint something would’ve saved me from wasting time, getting really frustrated at this game and feeling guilty for looking stuff up.

Then the final boss was extremely annoying, so much so that I FINALLY switched to wanderer or whatever to make it easier because I just wanted to be done with this game. For example, in the adventurer version of the boss, I’m standing next to the enemy and then during the cutscene I lose 3 hearts of damage. DURING A CUTSCENE. Or when I just randomly take damage when the crystal feels like it, for seemingly no reason. If one of the two people dies, then you’re done, and it’s so difficult to manage two health bars and two people walking at different speeds (since one is ahead of the other) with all the chaos that happens in that fight. Or when Kirby gets crystallized, and one time she was behind the big non-moving crystal boss so I couldn’t even see her. Then I didn’t even realize when she got out, and by the time I did she was already dead and I had to start over, since she got killed.

Uggghhhh. I liked this game so much at the beginning, but it honestly doesn’t guide you enough. There should be optional hints or something. Or if you craft the honey then say that that’s the clue you need so you won’t have to do trial and error by bringing it to Aatto every single time. There are just so many little quality of life things that would be so nice, but just aren’t there that ruined this for me. It’s worth a play, but I’d say on wanderer, I don’t even know why adventurer was an option in the first place if those flying guys and exploding frogs and stone pear mini bosses respawn every. single. time.

This game really surprised me with how fun it was.

It's a great Pikmin-inspired game, with some modern sensibilities that help make the game more approachable. The art is gorgeous, the story is heartwarming and sad at the same time, the music is lovely, and the gameplay is a great mix between puzzle-solving and action.

It falls short in just a couple of places. The crafting system isn't really explored that much, I was expecting there to be more recipes than there were, and sometimes the "pikmin" AI doesn't work the way you would expect it to. However, these are only minor complaints.

A great game overall!

"we have pikmin at home"

but actually really good?

biggest complaint is I wanted a way to mass control so my lil dudes at once instead of only being able to toss one at a time but I eventually set up a turbo button and that made it less annoying

besides that, very much just pikmin with a different (very pretty!) outfit and some extra light mechanics sprinkled on top

Bloopbloopbloopbloopbloopbloopbloopbloopbloopbloopbloopbloopbloopbloop...

I wanted to love this little indie game. A little boy in a hoodie and jean jacket runs away to escape a clearly sad homelife (in the 90s?) with nothing but a peanut butter sandwich and a vacuuming backpack that looks like a proton pack for a weapon. The soundtrack is gorgeous ambient sadness and the graphics are YA indie comic cuteness. As you adventure farther into a magical wood vacuuming up trash and kicking stuff you're introduced to a horde of very twee little helpers and forgetful older folk as well as some other delightful characters. All of this should have added up to a classic in my library.

The main game mechanics are vacuuming, kicking, and throwing your little helpers at things. I think that last bit was the one that broke me out of the world. At one point, I learned to defeat an enemy simply by smashing the throw button a ton of times until my little spritelings knocked it out of the sky and then chomped on its stunned body until it exploded. It took a while to learn this and I thought this was a roguelike at first with how many times I was dying against certain enemies. But as I learned to chuck more tiny beings at things in order to win, I learned that this mechanic was kind of annoying, actually. For one, the strategy became just "throw more of them." Worse, though, the spritelings and the other character you control are stupid. They will not dodge on their own and only follow your exact footsteps. This makes them die pretty often if you're not precise or clever in your movements. I think they have health bars and there's a mechanic for healing them, but it is not in a tutorial. The isometric view made it difficult for this aging player to aim and dodge as well, so I found myself frustrated with controls more often than I should be in a game like this. Additionally annoying was the day/night cycle, since I would get close to solving a puzzle and then night would drop (with a very scary musical warning) and I'd rush back to sleep only to have a bunch of monsters respawn and probably kill me or my adventuring companion.

In general, everything else was very nice, but gameplay choices took me out of the chill, sad-ish magic and into annoyed, button-mashing land. If that's your jam, then maybe this game is for you!

Review from thedonproject.com

This game is very atmospheric with its soundtrack and art style. It feels a lot like Pikmin but 2D. It’s a good game but it has some flaws in terms of balance if you pick adventurer as difficulty. The fights become cheap and frustrating. I played it for 10 hours until I had enough and switched to wanderer. I usually love fighting in games but wanderer feels like the way the game is meant to be played. Unfortunately the crafting becomes worthless. But honestly, crafting doesn’t seem needed for this game. It’s good at exploration, puzzles and finding collectibles. Play it for those elements.

This game is currently in the Humble Choice for April 2022, this is part of my coverage of the bundle. If you are interested in the game and it's before May 3rd, 2022, consider picking up the game as part of the current monthly bundle.

An Indie Pikmin

The Wild At Heart starts with a kid named Wake running away from home. He takes a few supplies he has stashed around the house and a special vacuum cleaner and from there embarks on a journey into the woods. He gets lost and meets a strange Pikmin. Oh, wait I’m sorry, they are called Spritelings. But come on, we know where they’re going with this.

The thing is while it takes a lot of influence from Pikmin, it’s also a more narrative-driven game, with a focus on puzzles rather than time management. The story here is interesting with unique characters, and the gameplay is solid so far, but it’s the characters that have me interested in returning to see more.

Pick this up if you like Pikmin and want to see indie studios take on this. The nice thing is this is in the Humble Game Collection and technically on Game Pass, so if you want to check it out you can pick it up at any time. I am looking forward to playing more of this title and seeing what else it will do with the premise.

If you enjoyed this review or want to know what I think of other games in the bundle, check out the full review on or subscribe to my Youtube channel: https://youtu.be/FeCvVH50kas

A pretty darn good indie take on Pikmin, The Wild at Heart takes these mechanics and throws them in the pot with a very charming art style and a heartfelt story. Having one big connected world to explore and new areas to unlock as you received new Spritelings is a very good addition to the formula as well, something that I hope future games of this vein iterate upon.

There is however some tension between the game's relaxed aesthetic (even in more dangerous looking areas) and the day/night cycle which pretty much enforces a time limit on your adventures which can be frustrating at times. You can still venture around after dusk but you're met with severely overpowered enemies and most crucially there's very rarely any reason to do so. Maybe with a bit of tinkering that could have been remedied but as it stands it makes a lot of the light-giving items obsolete as the simplest solution in every case is to just camp and wait until morning.

Thankfully that's the only real issue. The puzzles work well and while combat is simple, I don't think it needs to be too involved here especially as you're able to skirt around some areas to avoid battling which is very welcome when you just want to trek through the visually and aurally gorgeous world for a bit.

Theres been a trend over the last few years of indie devs basically taking pre-existing franchises, ones mostly abandoned by the owners, and making their spin on it. This has been a very mixed bag as for every great Bloodstained, theres always a Mighty No 9 to prove that maybe the past is best left behind.

"The Wild at Heart" is obviously made to take elements of Pikmin and for the most part this works very well, the art style is adorable and theres a real sense of exploration, puzzle solving and whimsy at play. While there is combat, there isnt a lot and the focus is instead on the puzzling, getting the Spritelings around to open doors, find artifacts and collectables.

For the most part everything works but there are two major issues which do hamper things quite a bit. Firstly theres the rather slow burn nature of the game. At the start it can feel like a real chore to get just from point A to point B thanks to the limited amount of resources available. You'll frequently just bump into impassable areas and unsolvable puzzles and its quite annoying and flow breaking. As the game progresses and the amount of tools and spritelings expand, this becomes less of a problem and the game becomes much more fun because of it.

The other major issue is the day/night mechanic. Sure Pikmin had this too and it was mostly used to keep the pace of the game and keep track of progress. The day/night mechanic here feels arbitrary and frustrating more often than not and again, contributes to the slow moving start.

Overall 'The Wild at Heart' is an incredibly charming title that any respecting Pikmin fan should check out as long as they are willing to tough through some of that initial slog.