A review code was used, with many thanks to Press Engine.
Out and About is an educational game that strives to teach you all about foraging edible plants while helping a small community impacted by a storm. You will need to identify plants, forage them, cook them up, and feed them to the villagers in your Granny’s town.
Educational Doesn’t Mean Lame
I think any game labeled as “educational” has a bad rap, mostly because so many educational games just aren’t fun. However, I have found that in the Indie Game Renaissance that we currently find ourselves in, more and more educational games with real gameplay and fun mechanics are finally being made. So let’s dive into whether Out and About makes the cut.
Out and About focuses around teaching you how to identify edible plants in my neck of the real world; I have some little background in foraging myself. Learning more weeds and random plants that are edible is a fantastic real-world skill to have. So I was super stoked when I got the key for this game to be able to play it and review it.
Overall, the educational value appears to be there. While everything is in a cartoony style, the plants are drawn to real-life specifications. You could probably identify some basic plants like nettles and clover after putting a handful of hours into this game.
The Story and Gameplay
Your granny’s hometown has been hit by a bad storm, and trees have fallen all over town. In order to keep everyone fed during the emergency, you need to pick wild plants, cook for everyone, and then give away or sell your items at a food stall. Villager friends will stop by and ask for specific items for their problems, like something that will quench their thirst or help with a headache, and you have to come up with the right combination of items to feed them.
The gameplay feels like an adventure game on the same level as Fruitbus, Alba, or Tales of the Shire. It’s not a big, open-world game, but it has a lot to do and a ton of things to interact with. There is a lot of love and detail put into each area, and you get to explore without timers to get all the plants.
My only complaint is that it does feel a little hand-holdy until you get out of the tutorial. Once the game opens up and gives you freedom, it feels a lot better, but it will take a bit to get to that point in the story. Out and About then gives you fetch quests to make items for villagers, sell your cooking at your little stand, and use the money you earn to clean up parts of the town.
I did come across some weird “bug” while playing; if you have enough money and points to complete a project, sometimes the game just won’t let you complete it anyway until more time has passed. It might be a choice to slow progression, but it didn’t feel like it was on purpose.
A Love of Nature
You can tell that Out and About was created by someone super passionate about nature, foraging, and the environment. It’s a very cute game with fun gameplay mechanics, but it is also a thoughtful piece on the way humans treat the world around them. And it does it without hitting you in the face with its message; it just is part of the lifestyle of the little community.
For example, when you forage, the game rewards you for only taking what you need and not upsetting the plant by pulling too many leaves or flowers off. If you take too many, the gentle bell sounds that accompany all of the foraging turn discordant, signaling that you are not longer in harmony with the plants you are taking from. It’s beautiful, simple, and thoughtful in a way I was not expecting.
Beautiful, Fun, Perfect
It’s really hard to state how perfect a game Out and About really is. It’s well-planned; you can see each detail was considered with care. The sound design is relaxing and beautiful, the plants are detailed and recognizable as real plants, and the run/walk cycle of the main character is so incredibly charming. Passion for the project really leaks out of every pore of the game, and it’s hard to overstate how wonderful an an experience it is.
I think my own real complaint is how shallow the NPCs seem to feel. They aren’t really the main focus of the story of Out and About, so it’s hard to get too upset about it, but all the characters kind of feel very flat. They don’t have voices of their own, but that’s easy to overlook given how the rest of the game has been playing out.
After taking a look at the Kickstarter page, I recognize that it doesn’t quite look like it was promised to be, and some promised features seem to be missing, so hopefully there is more to come. However, I can’t imagine a better, more polished, or more fun educational game that can teach all ages about some important facts about the natural world around you. And this is still Early Access which bodes well for Out and About in future! There is a lot to learn here, and I cannot praise it enough.
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