As a kid, I used to set up a voice recorder in the middle of a room and act out a scene around it, full of sound effects and rising and falling action. I used to create entire societies around the collectible car toys my dad would bring home from the gas station and introduce new characters and track their relationships as the population grew. I used to tell stories to my cousin about the world of Starcraft, a game my six-year-old brain could only begin to comprehend but was deeply fascinated by.
Games taught me so much and showed me what true creativity could look like. Games like The Plucky Squire are doing that for a new generation, and I cannot be more thankful for it.
Open up a book and join me for the story of a plucky squire named Jot who reignited the childhood joy I still have inside.
Just the Facts |
Developer: All Possible Futures |
Publisher: Devolver Digital |
Platform(s): PC*, PS5, Xbox Series S and X, Nintendo Switch *denotes platform reviewed on |
Price: $29.99 |
Release Date: September 17, 2024 |
Review key provided by publisher via Tinsley PR. |
Once upon a time...
You might not believe it, but The Plucky Squire is the debut release of All Possible Futures, a team founded in 2019 by Jonathan Biddle, who is best known for his work on Swords of Ditto, and James Turner, best known for his work designing and art directing for the Pokémon series. So, while the studio is young, its team is made up of veteran creatives from across the industry ready and able to hit the ground running — building, in their words, "oh-so-special videogames that turn your head and melt your heart."
And almost to a T, that's The Plucky Squire.
The eponymous squire is a little lad named Jot, the protagonist of a series of books called The Plucky Squire that tell the stories of his adventures in the land of Mojo. Jot is an adventurer and writer, one who does battle with your typical villainous foe, an evil wizard named Humgrump, and finds partnership in his trio of friends: a magic-using artist named Violet and a head-banging rocker named Thrash. He's also got a wizened wizard for a mentor — the part-time DJ/part-time hero Moonbeard.
The four of them work together to regularly save the kingdom from Humgrump, to tell tales of friendship, and to do what the heroes of children's books do: make you smile with silly and simplistic shenanigans.
During a time of relative peace, Jot finds himself wrapped back up with the evil Humgrump who, through the power of some new magic, has begun to alter the world of Mojo to his will. When Jot confronts him, Humgrump reveals something earth-shattering to the squire and his friends... that they're all just characters in a book and their existence is nothing more than living on the pages atop the desk of some kid named Sam. Before Jot can even confront what that means existentially, he finds himself ejected from the book by Humgrump's magic and dumped into the off-page world. And the quest is on.
Jumping between the reality within the book and that of the real world on the desk, Jot must work to put an end to Humgrump's reign, because his evil threatens to cheapen and otherwise ruin the story in their book, at which point it'll end up shelved and forgotten — a fate similar to death for fictional characters like them.
The Plucky Squire's story is family-friendly, keeping the adventures of Jot and pals fairly silly and carefree. It's told very much like a children's storybook, with a jolly narrator reading out short snippets that may or may not rhyme. The most adult thing that happens is Jot running into a Warhol-esque character who talks about wanting to paint famous people in the city of Artia. It's light, fluffy, and fun.
But the broader elements of the story — about why Jot's journey is so important, and about Sam, the one character you never see physically in the game — is what really touched my heart. The Plucky Squire is about how stories are able to inspire others to create, and the impact they have on young hearts and minds for generations to come.
Sam, the child who owns this book, is unseen. But their doodles and love for The Plucky Squire series is present all throughout the adventure. Seeing this celebration of art in all its forms, this representation of what I came to love about what video games, and how stories like these could inspire the next generation, really lit me up. It was a reminder about why I love video games in the first place, what they can do for folks, and how they can set you on a path you never expected. (Like running a small video game site dedicating to uplifting the art form. Or something.)
And what an adventure it was...
We can wistfully opine about childhood joy and creative expression all day, but what gamers really want to know is how a game plays. Luckily, The Plucky Squire channels that brilliant creativity into a gameplay experience best described as magical. Plucky Squire's adventures break out in two realms.
It starts in the book, where Jot uses the literal words on the page to alter the world around him — turn a river full of water into an empty one by literally grabbing the words and swapping them around — and decipher some sneakily tricky puzzles in a Zelda-esque top-down adventure.
Eventually, though, you hit a block of some sort and have to leave the book to find a tool to help you proceed.
You then jump out of the book to navigate the desk, restructured in some way and full of enemies Humgrump has sent out into the real world to create chaos. You hop between the 2D and 3D worlds to chart your path to success in increasingly inventive ways. There's a dollhouse to navigate, where you smack furniture to find keys, a paper volcano that turns the game into a sidescrolling beat 'em up, and a series of space-themed mugs you navigate like planets with the help of a rocket ship that soars you across the desk.
The Plucky Squire channels that brilliant creativity into a gameplay experience best described as magical.
My favorite parts of the game were when you found yourself interacting with the book in different ways: when the book's orientation would shift and suddenly you'd be platforming up a giant tower, or when the game would ask you to literally tilt the physical book in the 3D world to get blocks to align the way you want, or you'd flip through its pages to find something you need hidden three pages back. The Plucky Squire's got some really creative puzzle ideas, and the way you bounce in and out of the book to pull them off is so well done.
The first few times Plucky Squire pulls you out of the book, it's like a magic trick. The fact that All Possible Futures manages to keep that feeling of enchantment across the game's 8-10 hour story is something else.
Playing The Plucky Squire is a constantly changing experience. At most, you're playing one style of game for 45 minutes at a time. It's Zelda-like one moment, word puzzler the next. The out-of-book 3D platformer turns into an arcade-y space shooter minigame the next. There are minigames associated with each of the game's heroes that resurface throughout each chapter: a battle-focused Rhythm Heaven-like from Thrash, a Bust-a-Move bubble puzzler comes with Violet, and finally a Punch Out-inspired fighting game for Jot.
When I walked away, the experience of playing The Plucky Squire was almost reminiscent of 2021's It Takes Two in the way the game keeps you constantly bouncing from new idea to new idea. The foundation is familiar, with its dodging about and slashing willy-nilly, but it's guessing where the game will take you next and discovering how its puzzles evolve the world in interesting ways that keeps you hooked.
Each part of the game is pretty simple and easily accessible, though Plucky Squire's core combat does come with a surprising depth through unlockable and upgradeable moves that add sword throws and jump attacks to Jot's repertoire. It makes it easy for gamers of all skill levels and affinities to enjoy all aspects of the game, particularly as the game is consistently asking you to hop from genre to genre at a moment's notice. It makes things anything but challenging. When magic is at play, though, who needs difficulty? It's cliché to say these days, but The Plucky Squire really is the one of those "best Nintendo game not made by Nintendo." Not because it plays better than any of those games, not because it changes the industry in some grand way, but because it prioritizes creativity and celebrates fun above all else. And we certainly need more of that in the industry today.
When all seemed lost...
Like all magic, everything doesn't go off without a hitch. We all know The Magic Castle has some dark secrets.
I'll start with its smaller issues. Each of the game's most unique minigames are over before you know it, with no real way to revisit them other than to replay each chapter and get back to those moments. I almost wish there was a challenge mode for each of the trio's specific games, to chase high scores and find some replayability. They're small morsels of fun when they feel built to be even more, and right when you get used to any one concept, it's gone from the experience.
On the bigger side, sadly, The Plucky Squire is plagued by a few technical issues that get in the way of the act at times. There's noticeable slowdown when switching between the book and the desk, some textures that fail to load in properly in the 3D environment, and some strange moments where characters failed to be in the right place to trigger cutscenes that slowed the pace down as they eventually were forced into the right spots by the game.
Polish is hard to come by, and for the most part, The Plucky Squire is a polished experience full of tons of little sneaky details. But when you see the seams of its act, it certainly diminishes the overall effect.
It's a constantly changing adventure of a game.
But The Plucky Squire's sparkle and shine is particularly special, blending the 2D art stylings of James Turner's artwork as the basis for the in-book art, with an almost plasticky vinyl pop figure-like vibe for when Jot and foes burst out into the real world. Seeing that aesthetic consistently shift was a treat, too. There were the child's sketches on a series of post-it notes, or the moments when Jot would soar across a branded bucket and transform into a burly and hyper-detailed He-Man like beefcake. I kept wanting to see more, to see how far All Possible Futures artists would take it.
The strewn-about tools and miscellanea of Sam's desk are brought to life with such meticulous detail and the many tiny flourishes in animation cycles that add so much personality — like a soldier's face gasping in horror as he's taken away in a hot air balloon that you've let loose, or the complex handshake that Jot and his friends do to celebrate the little moments, which shows off each character's personality so succinctly.
And to then have all that accompanied by a mostly acoustic soundtrack, made up of what feels like classroom instruments and simple percussion, to further sell that idea of childhood creativity, of using whatever you've got around you to create? It's so well done. (But shoutout to the surprising thumping electronic beats that accompany Moonbeard's appearances. He can really DJ.)
The end.
Simply put, The Plucky Squire is a celebration of the creative spirit; of how art can inspire others to create for themselves; of childhood imagination never burning out. If you were the kind of kid who saw entire worlds in your toy chest, who daydreamed about books so much you got chastised by teachers for not paying attention to the books they wanted you to read, or who immediately pretended you were the hero of a movie you just watched on the way out of a theater, The Plucky Squire sings to that part of you that still burns inside.
It's a constantly changing adventure of a game that'll take you through genres and ideas you thought you'd left behind years ago, through a world so playful and joyous, and with a character so darned plucky, that you just might walk away ready to create something magical of your own one day.
Video Games Are Good and The Plucky Squire is . . . GREAT. (9/10)
+ a game that'll reawaken your sense of childlike wonder, thanks to a story that celebrates creativity in all its forms, anchored by a gameplay experience that constantly evolves
- technical issues get in the way of the magic of the game, not enough time to really appreciate each of the game's unique twists, easy but not necessarily in a bad way
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