Pepper Grinder's unique drilling mechanic and sheer variety of levels do well to distract from its paper-thin length. Players looking for a different type of platformer that is one-and-done outside of crunching for better times should enjoy this brisk grind.
There’s grace in not wearing out your welcome. And I know few platformers that grow more enjoyable the longer they stretch on.
Variety is the spice of life and Pepper Grinder mimics the best kind of platformers capable of diverse levels, challenges, and visuals… all without becoming too much.
But I admit that in its haste, Pepper Grinder is almost over before it makes the most of any potential impact. It’s 19 levels and 4 boss fights will take most players a few hours to complete only for the game to be set aside indefinitely. While there is nothing wrong with that per se, I found myself constantly wanting more with Pepper Grinder, especially of its most clever and inventive challenges.
Earlier this year, Will espoused the many successes of Pepper Grinder when the game released on PC and Nintendo Switch. On August 6, Pepper Grinder finally releases on PlayStation and Xbox consoles. I’ve been eyeing the game for quite awhile and being primarily a PlayStation 5 player, I’m used to having to wait for many of these darling indie games, Pepper Grinder being no exception.
Pepper Grinder is more Meat Boy than Mario, a distinction I often make when trying to differentiate any kind of platformer. I feel like after Super Meat Boy released, the genre splintered in new ways, one understanding what the Nintendo classics did best but amping up the challenge and precision. A kind of Dark Sou… wait, scratch that.
While Pepper Grinder is never expertly challenging, its unique movement mechanic stems from the desire to have the player character do more than simply bounce between surfaces and avoid enemies. Like a princess saving a castle, Pepper Grinder‘s story is literally unspoken and virtually absent. Pepper is the heroine players control, landing on an island of Narlings–little green monster guys with horns on their head–and using a massive drill named Grinder to carve her way towards the end goal.
I don’t need games like this to take me on some metaphysical journey or be concerned with ludonarrative dissonance. Pepper Grinder uses its worlds to tell a story and a handful of small cutscenes to establish a bit of a mood. Pepper’s fight takes her from the beaches of this world, through mountains and lava and ice, all the way to dilapidated villages. What’s most important is that each level feels distinct from the other. Though each world has its own palette the levels work inside, those individual levels tend to inject smart movement mechanics, a fun tool, or risky challenges, making them memorable and not having a singular experience drag on for too long.
The thread stringing each of these levels together is Grinder. The humanoid-sized drill can be activated to literally start digging through several surfaces littered throughout the game. Piles of dirt and bones, water, hardened magma, pillars of ice, and the meat of Narlings are a few of the things Pepper can puncture. When players activate Grinder they burrow into this surface and can then move around almost as if they are swimming. No longer is movement tied to lefts and rights and a pitiful jump, when burrowing, Pepper has omnidirectional capabilities. She can complete full circles, dart at an angle, or activate a boost and burst out of the surface.
Moving in Pepper Grinder is quite fun, especially the ways in which developer Ahr Ech thought to implement the possibilities of the mechanic. In one of my favorite levels, players dug horizontally and vertically through floes of moving ice like frosty waterfalls. In another, Pepper had to swim through frozen water, trying to dig into solid ground to maintain warmth.
As one can imagine, each level is an intricate series of not just stationary platforms but diggable ones. Often, players need to dig into one material and burrow through a pathway, usually bursting through the surface to dig into a new one. This mechanic replaces traditional floating platforms, the need to dash, or evoke any kind of powerups. But the more time I spent darting around and digging, the more I began to bristle at Pepper Grinder‘s weird physics. While players can navigate Pepper in complete circles once burrowing, ejecting out almost leaves players stuck at the angle and velocity of that point.
I can’t tell you how many times I shot out of a patch of dirt with my goal in sight only to watch Pepper helplessly fly at a curve into a bottomless pit or a patch of thorny brambles. Many moments in Pepper Grinder require precision and it takes a lot of mastering to really understand the quirks of the game’s physics and momentum. In cramped spaces where a player might be asked to dive-bomb a Narling nest, a missed ejection may cause Pepper to crash into a wall, completely stopping momentum.
Because of Pepper Grinder‘s length, it doesn’t necessarily require players to become experts at its movement. Honestly, that’s what the optional time attack versions of its levels are for, which remove checkpoints and provide rewards for accomplishing blisteringly tight times. I think that imprecision is a reflection of Ahr Ech wishing to make a platformer that is different and fun rather than mechanically challenging.
Pepper Grinder‘s real thrill is hopping into a level and waiting for something cool to happen. If you’re trying to be “great” at the game it’s going to take a lot of beating your head against the wall to stomp out that curb of imprecision. When I removed the desire to be precise, I had more fun. The game generously dots its paths with various coins and gems meant to act as a guide to where players need to jump and angle themselves. It’s a friendly touch that not only helps players with trouble navigating not get lost but provides the screen with more readability.
I adore Pepper Grinder‘s minimal pixel art aesthetic. It’s clean, bright, and full of personality. Whether up close or zoomed out, the game always runs great. But due to its charm, it really is a shame that the limited amount of levels and worlds aren’t expanded just a little bit more.
That same appeal applies to the game’s boss fights but mechanically, they just don’t do it. All but one of the bosses are a single-screen affair and all require more precision than I think the game’s mechanics inherently allow. The first boss needs players to stab the soft underbelly of a beetle but I often found the sweet spot to not be entirely clear. Each boss room also has surfaces Pepper can burrow through and burst out but ironically, I found the most success staying on even ground, jumping at the boss, and activating the drill for hits. While the final boss is visually cool, it still felt frustrating until I found an easy cheese to strip away a big part of the challenge.
For me, Pepper Grinder would have likely been a better game if it had a better balance between its minimalist approach and unique quirks. A handful of levels introduce a gun or sled or mech that transform gameplay and almost negate the drilling part, providing more variety for players. But the optional bits just weren’t exciting to me. Each level houses 5 skull coins that are tucked away or rewarded through expert platforming. My collectionist brain forced me to find them all before moving on but it usually caused me to die more often. I hated how health didn’t reset at a checkpoint to the point where I started intentionally dying knowing I wouldn’t make it past a hard section with one or two hit points. Its cute players can unlock hair and coat color changes for Pepper but it’s the bare minimum. Even completing the time attack merely rewards players with stickers that can be used in a sticker book to create a static screen packed with items and characters.
These lackluster rewards really emphasize that unless you love what Pepper Grinder offers, you likely won’t have much to desire to play it again after completion unless you get the itch or really want all the achievements. Honestly, a level editor would have been amazing! Player-created challenges would have given this game a great community that would undoubtedly create some amazing stuff.
Pepper Grinder‘s unique drilling mechanic and sheer variety of levels do well to distract from its paper-thin length. Players looking for a different type of platformer that is one-and-done outside of crunching for better times should enjoy this brisk grind.
