Game: Pilo and the Holobook
Genre: Exploration, Puzzle
System: Steam (Windows (also available for macOS))
Developers | Publishers: Mudita Games | RedDeer.Games
Controller Support: Full
Price: US $10.00 | UK £8.46 | EU € 9,84
Release Date: April 10th, 2025
A review code was used, with many thanks to Mudita Games.
Pilo is an adventure game that focuses around a young fennec fox named Pilo. This little adventurer has a camera that can capture images of anything and turn them into stickers that need to be collected.
Pilo is a Very Cute Game
Pilo is the kind of beautiful cartoony look that I adore in video games. The little main character is the cutest little fennec fox, and he is all about adventuring. You gain something called a holobook, which is a mix of a book and a camera. When you take pictures of items around you, they turn into stickers you can add to your journal, keeping track of all the different places you have gone and things you have seen.
Everything is extremely colorful with sweet little cartoon characters. The whole story revolves around Pilo, an anthropomorphic fennec fox that runs around, taking photos of items with a camera that turns items into stickers to decorate his journal with. You need to scan all the items inside the game in order to unlock all the best stickers: the big shiny ones from all the different worlds. There are also a handful of puzzles you have to complete as well.
What is Pilo and the Holobook Like to Play?
The gameplay loop of Pilo and the Holobook is pretty simple; this game seemed to be designed with children or those not super familiar with video games to play comfortably. Basically, you go to four different worlds, chat with NPCs, take photos, and decorate your little sticker book. There isn’t much more to it than that, though there are a handful of odd puzzles here and there to keep everything interesting and different.
In your holobook, you can see how many stickers you have remaining to scan in every location, including your home and all the space worlds you end up on. There are four starting maps, two maps you unlock later on, and then your home. You will need to travel inside of each map several times in order to complete the whole game. It takes about 5-7 hours to beat the whole thing the first time.
It Was All Easy Except…
Pilo, as I stated above, was very simple and straightforward, with a handful of puzzles thrown in. However, there was one puzzle that gave me the hardest time. I’m not sure if it was just me or not, but I actually had to contact the developer to help me find the fourth stained-glass mural sticker. I ended up giving up after about an hour of wandering around. I thought it was pretty odd that a cute little game for kids wouldn’t have a hint feature; I think Pilo and the Holobook would have benefited from one quite a bit. It’s one of those things that you can easily ignore if you don’t want clues, butit would definitely benefit those who need it.
The Pros of Pilo and the Holobook
Pilo was a whole lot of fun to play. It was beautiful, funny, fun, and really wholesome. I wouldn’t have a problem letting children of any age play this (though the youngest would probably need a lot of help). I think it’s great for kids, adults, and families that play games together. It was a fun, short, story-heavy game that had a whole lot of heart and was visually appealing. Also, the music was really good. I really enjoyed playing it, and I think anyone who likes wholesome, simple games with no combat would like this game as well.
I didn’t come across any bugs or problems during my playthrough; it looks like the developer really did a lot of QAing and making sure everything was perfect before release. It was a great experience, and I think that the team did a phenomenal job in making sure there were as few issues as possible.
The Cons of Pilo and the Holobook
I did have a couple of issues while playing Pilo, and most of them involved puzzles. There are a handful of puzzles in the desert level that require you to interact with things with the holobook. You have to scan items with the book, make stickers, and use them to figure out the world. But there are a couple of the puzzles that I thought were too challenging for a kid’s game. As I stated above, I actually had to contact the developer because the puzzle required you to interact in a way that the game had never brought forward as a possibility before.
If Pilo had signposted that this thing (I won’t spoil it, so don’t worry) was possible in the world of the holobook earlier at any point, I think it would have made for a very interesting and unique puzzle, but the game didn’t at all. There was no indication that this particular interaction would do anything, as none of the previous attempts to do it before ever amounted to anything. I understand that this is vague, but I have a feeling that anyone else who plays Pilo all the way through will have the same thoughts on the matter.
Other than that, I had basically no issues. I did fall through the map into a void at one point in my playthrough, but I could not reproduce it, so I think I just got very unlucky.
Overall, the sound design experience was just okay. The music is good, as I said above, and many of the sounds in the environment are fine. However, a lot of the interaction sounds were pretty obnoxious. The sound of placing stickers, getting ticks towards the large world stickers, and the menu sounds were all high-pitched and rather grating. I would recommend turning the Effects Volume down in the menu before starting. Thankfully, all the different volumes are on different volume bars.
Conclusion
Overall, I think Pilo and the Holobook is a great little game. It’s polished, it’s cute, and it’s pretty chill to play. With a hint system, I think it would be the perfect game for kids and families and everyone who like wholesome, fun games with simple interactions.
Final Verdict: I Like it a Lot
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