Game: Pilgrims
Genre: Puzzle, Adventure
System: Nintendo Switch (also available on Steam, Windows, macOS, Linux & Apple Store)
Developers | Publishers: Amanita Design
Age Rating: US E10+ | EU 3+
Price: US $4.99 | UK £4.99 | EU € 4,99
Release Date: November 3rd, 2022
Review code used, with many thanks to Amanita Design.
Pilgrims is an adventure game about finding multiple solutions to a problem. It’s an entire story told without words. So let’s jump in and have a look at it.
Point-and-Click
Amanita Design is the Czech developer behind other well-known indie titles like Machinarium, and the recent CHUCHEL. They have done it again with their latest title, Pilgrims, creating a fun romp across a hand-drawn 2D landscape of dragons, a princess and a king without even writing one line of dialogue. It’s not a long game by any means, but it did have me chuckling while playing it.
The game begins with an opening scene featuring a collection of hand-drawn figures playing a rowdy poker game. Then it switches to the Pilgrim crawling out of a tent in the woods. It seems he wants to go on a boat ride, but the elderly boatwoman won’t let him on the boat until he finds a lost bird. And so begins a chain of fetch-me puzzles set in a series of locations depicted on a hand-drawn map. You are given free rein to explore the map from a bird’s eye view and choose your location.
Pick Up Items
As you progress on your adventure, you pick up items. However, the items are represented in the shape of cards. For example, pick a coin up from the ground and get a coin card in your deck that can be played in a scene. Later you will also collect cards representing other characters, which can be played into a scene instead of the Pilgrim.
On the overworld map, there are destinations you can visit. You’ll find some items to use or meet someone to interact with when you visit each area. When you interact with someone, you see a thought bubble above them, letting you know what they want and what you need to get them to continue your adventure.
Play with Cards
A collected item is shown as a card on the bottom of your screen. To use that card, you simply drag the item card or character card onto the screen to play it. If the item is what’s required, the story will go on. If the item is not required, in that scenario, usually the character will take it, play with it, and then give it back. Some animations are quick and funny; others just drop whatever you give them and move on. I giggled during those moments; some of the over-enthusiastic animated reactions were hilarious.
Solve Fetch Puzzles
You also make friends who join you on your adventure, at least for a while. When they join you, they can be used to solve certain puzzles. For example, some people will only talk to certain character cards. It’s up to you to work out who they will talk to. There isn’t any help or hints in the game, but you shouldn’t need them as it’s all fetch-me puzzles.
As I said at the beginning of this review, Pilgrim is a short game; you won’t be playing it for hours on end. Instead, your first run through the game will probably only take half an hour. After that, however, you can replay the game and select different cards for your answers to see the reactions they gain.
Visuals and Controls
The game is presented in hand-drawn muted tones and is shown in the middle of the screen, surrounded by a black border. I like the game’s look, but I’d like to see all of the switch’s screen utilised and not just a portion of it. Also, having extensive black borders around the image seems an awful waste of a perfectly good screen.
Controls are via the joy-cons or you can use the touchscreen in portrait mode, both control methods perform as they should, no complaints from me on that aspect.
Conclusion
Pilgrims is an enjoyable and entertaining adventure game for as long as it lasts. However, be aware that you are getting little gameplay time for your five bucks. Of course, it does have a little replayability, though I enjoyed it the first time, I didn’t enjoy it as much on my second playthrough as I already knew how the game pans out. I do wonder if I would have played it again if it wasn’t for writing this review.
Final Verdict: I like it 