I spent a really nice day with this! What a cute, silly, and pleasantly queer game. Jumping and gliding around is pretty nice, but what I most loved was the fun dialogue and endearing little characters (including the artwork for them). The game isn't long enough to give the characters' relationships with one another a whole lot of depth, but to me, the feeling of a silly little neighborhood community was successfully crafted. Feels a heck of a lot warmer and more human than most IRL spaces I've been exposed to these days (yikes).
It's a fantastic helping others simulator. Gotta love spending real time † helping fake people haha. It's not really a complaint, but I wish it were a longer game so I'd have more incentive to make regular returns to Grumblewood Grove.
Mail Time was pleasant and chill almost all of the way through, although I did get frustrated for a bit due to some navigational difficulties. A map might have been helpful, but there's also something to be said for exploring the open space without one.
It has cute character customization, with a sufficient level of complexity.
Optional ungendered pronouns for the player character, and the inclusion of numerous other characters that go by gender-neutral pronouns — and even combinations of multiple pronoun sets — are still relatively rare in video games (especially that same-sentence alternation! Entropic Float might be the only other game in which I've seen that). Both are present here, helping me to feel immersed and as though this world was crafted for my enjoyment too.
It's still a little buggy (as in, programming bugs... but yeah, also actual bugs, wee~) in places (particularly the very ending scene). And on two occasions, I had the misfortune of getting trapped between mushrooms the player character can bounce on... Just rapidly bouncing between them with no way out (other than exiting the game without saving). Decidedly the least fun part of the game LOL.
The developers seem like they're actively fixing stuff, though.
All of this considered, it was definitely a worthwhile time for me~ And if you enjoy the comedic style of Frog Detective and/or Purrgatory, you may similarly enjoy this (I did).
† time is an illusion
(Functions well on Steam Deck. Sometimes the game became unresponsive after manually closing the virtual keyboard -- it's better to use in-game controls to proceed after entering the text for the player character's name. Played mostly docked with a controller.)
It's a fantastic helping others simulator. Gotta love spending real time † helping fake people haha. It's not really a complaint, but I wish it were a longer game so I'd have more incentive to make regular returns to Grumblewood Grove.
Mail Time was pleasant and chill almost all of the way through, although I did get frustrated for a bit due to some navigational difficulties. A map might have been helpful, but there's also something to be said for exploring the open space without one.
It has cute character customization, with a sufficient level of complexity.
Optional ungendered pronouns for the player character, and the inclusion of numerous other characters that go by gender-neutral pronouns — and even combinations of multiple pronoun sets — are still relatively rare in video games (especially that same-sentence alternation! Entropic Float might be the only other game in which I've seen that). Both are present here, helping me to feel immersed and as though this world was crafted for my enjoyment too.
It's still a little buggy (as in, programming bugs... but yeah, also actual bugs, wee~) in places (particularly the very ending scene). And on two occasions, I had the misfortune of getting trapped between mushrooms the player character can bounce on... Just rapidly bouncing between them with no way out (other than exiting the game without saving). Decidedly the least fun part of the game LOL.
The developers seem like they're actively fixing stuff, though.
All of this considered, it was definitely a worthwhile time for me~ And if you enjoy the comedic style of Frog Detective and/or Purrgatory, you may similarly enjoy this (I did).
† time is an illusion
(Functions well on Steam Deck. Sometimes the game became unresponsive after manually closing the virtual keyboard -- it's better to use in-game controls to proceed after entering the text for the player character's name. Played mostly docked with a controller.)