Platforming Through Corporate Oppression & Impending Doom
HIGH Retro graphics, nuanced platforming. Darkly whimsical satire with surprises.
LOW Having to start over if the right choices aren’t made in the early game.
WTF Not knowing whether to laugh or to cry at the state of the world, in-game and out.
The people behind Peppered didn’t mince words when they added the subtitle, an existential platformer, nor did they stutter when they wrote the description on Nintendo’s eShop so that it could (and should) be taken as a warning: “You [only] have ONE SHOT at everything.”
In real life, the consequences of making the wrong decisions can sometimes be catastrophic. But in the case of Peppered, the player often runs the risk of funneling themselves into a corner where they no longer have the ability to make any choices for their character, ending up committed to either wage slavery or a prison cell…
…And yet somehow, it manages to be hilarious.
After an opening cinematic that states the imprisoned God of Death will be set free once again, the player’s retro-bit bunny-like avatar is plopped into an office chair and informed by a cyclopean secretary that they are being seen for an interview. Along the way, the player may notice signs encouraging them to keep working or posters giving them the false notion that “it’s all in [their] hands.”
They then shuffle over to a coffee machine, after being told that the company is looking for someone with 30 years of experience in order to brew coffee for the office, and that they only get one shot – and I’m assuming this pun was intended.
The player is then asked to demonstrate their skills as a giant white arrow drifts across the screen ever so slowly (in contrast to the frenetic drum ‘n’ bass track) until it reaches a green strip where the player must hit the corresponding input – then the music stops and the coffee slowly begins to pour from the machine.
Even for an entry level position, it’s hard to imagine the bar being any lower.
From this point on, the player can go into the next room to meet their new boss or take an elevator up to the roof where they will discover that the Life Star is missing from the briefcase that had been containing the God of Death, then they will be prompted to make their first choice – save the world or get a job.
On my first run, I chose to get a job because I was curious to see what sort of miserable future awaited me and I mean c’mon – who’s got the time to save the world in this economy anyway? I don’t want to give anything away but needless to say, it didn’t end well. On my second run, I went with saving the world.
Although the basics of Peppered‘s platforming are fairly conventional (with the exception of floating or movement combos like the slide jump which allows players to go higher than they could with a regular jump) there’s a good degree of variety thanks to all the different types of platforms and vehicles.
In addition, there are a handful of whimsical sections such as one where a very determined canine cop tries to apprehend the hero (or as she calls them, “the perp”) by firing a taser gun with shots that appear as orbs, creating obstacles courses for the player to overcome. Another section has the player craft a letter of apology by filling the letter with chunks of text as one does with blocks in Tetris.
Further in, Peppered offers fresh ideas from something like using ice cream freezer boxes in which the player can take cover from sweltering heat as platforms, or ending up on a game show where the player must attempt to sway the host, using win-the-crowd mechanics to ‘prove’ their own innocence — it turned out that I wasn’t so likable and was soon faced with an ridiculously depressing ending but still an effective critique of modern society.
I was constantly impressed by all these changeups that made it nearly impossible to know what might come next, and after making my way through a number of events, my impression of Peppered shifted – rather than being a darkly whimsical tale with light platforming, I began to see it as an inventive platformer with strong visual novel elements, including sophisticated (though often silly) dialogue trees.
Echoing Peppered‘s opening scenario, there are several key moments when the hero is faced with different contexts for the same decision that they had to make at the onset. As before, whether the player chooses to save the world or get a job, their choice will create a new path for them to follow, but it may limit or block access to another.
These are not always easy decisions to make, as the moral distinction between two options becomes increasingly gray, but there are many NPCs with colorful personalities who will help to fill in some of the blank spaces. One such is a feline merchant who reveals a disturbing truth about the man who was heralded for entrapping the God of Death, offering info that may influence the player’s choices from that point on.
Thankfully, such disturbing conversations are balanced by encounters with silly little guys like the lazy security cat who gets off his phone and hypes the player up when they arrive, or the shifty chameleon who could just as easily be seen tweaking out in an Adult Swim cartoon like Smiling Friends.
My sole critique of Peppered is how, when interacting with different NPCs, it can be difficult to determine whether or not being affable is the right way to approach a conversation, as opposed to being direct and assertive. This lack of clarity sometimes led to consequences that I found to be a little too severe for simply not knowing the NPC well enough, especially in the early game.
Peppered is not an easy experience, either content-wise (I often didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at the parallels to the current political climate) nor gameplay-wise, but as trite as it sounds, playing Peppered: An Existential Platformer feels like a form of finding hope because even if there may not be a truly happy ending, I want to believe that making the right choices ultimately pays off.
Rating: 9 out of 10
Buy Peppered – PS4/5 – XBO/X/S – PC – Switch
Disclosures: This game was developed by Mostly Games and published by Mostly Games and LynxBite Games. The game is currently available on PS4/5, XBO/X/S, PC, and Switch. It was obtained via publisher and reviewed for Switch. Approximately 7 hours were devoted to the campaign mode. The game was not finished. There is no multiplayer mode.
Parents: This game is rated E10+ and contains Fantasy Violence, Language, Mild Blood and Use of Tobacco. There is only mild cartoon violence here, so not much to worry about in terms of graphic visual content.
Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.
Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game features text-based dialogue and no audio cues that impact the gameplay in any significant way, making it fully accessible.
Remappable controls: The controls can be remapped.
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