The Plucky Squire

One of the creative highlights of this year's autumn gaming season is The Plucky Squire, developed by All Possible Futures and published by Devolver Digital. In this playable love letter to action-adventure games such as Zelda and the like, storybook characters discover a three-dimensional world outside the pages of their books and must jump between 2D and 3D realms.

The Plucky Squire is the magical adventure of Jot and his friends. They are storybook characters who discover a three-dimensional world outside the pages of their storybook. "When the seriously unchill wizard Humgrump realises he's the villain of the book - destined to lose his battle against the forces of good for all eternity - he kicks the heroic Jot out of its pages and changes their story forever," says publisher Devolver Digital. The game is special in that it is a creative and colourful action-adventure that jumps between 2D and 3D worlds, interweaving them again and again, while also recalling many other influential games.

As well as sword-swinging, players will solve puzzles, fly with a jetpack, enter the right words in storybook word puzzles, box badgers and complete mini challenges - and of course there are all sorts of surprises that we won't reveal here. Just one example: Jot jumps into a two-dimensional trading card game in the 3D world, and then fights a female elf round after round in the flat world. It's a creative melting pot of genre reminiscences, perspective shifts and a love letter to action-adventure games - and the way they've looked over the past 30 years, all realised with kid-friendly and sometimes wacky characters.

The main story takes between eight and ten hours to complete and can be played in either the challenge-oriented Adventure Mode or the more relaxed Story Mode. There are also a number of help features to make the game as accessible as possible. There is a jumping assist, falling platforms can be disabled, hidden portals can be revealed, and players can set the main character to invincible or make fights one-hit kills. Alternatively, NPCs can be activated to give players hints directly in the game world.

The Plucky Squire was developed by All Possible Features. The studio was founded in Australia in 2019 by James Turner and Jonathan Biddle "with the goal of making those oh-so-special videogames that turn your head and melt your heart," the duo said on the company's website. Turner and Biddle have experience working on titles such as the mainline Pokémon series, The Swords of Ditto, Fluidity/Hydroventure and Stealth Inc. Devolver Digital announced the game in their 30-minute non-E3 press conference 2022, which they described as "Devolver's Countdown to Marketing was a Countdown of Marketing".

The Plucky Squire will be released digitally on PC, PlayStation 5, Switch and Xbox Series X|S on 17 September 2024. PS Plus subscribers (Extra and Premium) will be able to add the game to their library as part of their monthly subscription. The Plucky Squire marks Devolver Digital's entry into the world of localised game names. For the first time, a Devolver title will have different names for different language regions, namely German, French, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese and Russian. In the GSA region, the game will be known as "Der Kühne Knappe".

Conclusion

The Plucky Squire is a creative love letter to childhood fantasy, colourful storybooks and, of course, 2D and 3D action adventure.

Features

• A charming mix of 2D and 3D
• Colourful, charming and creative
• Two difficulty modes and more assist options

Hit potential

AA