Save the World or Get a Job?
It’s a simple enough question really, and yet PEPPERED: An Existential Platformer manages to stretch it out into one of the most bizarre, inventive and genuinely funny platforming adventures on Xbox.
Developed by Mostly Games, PEPPERED introduces you to a world in which the God of Death has been imprisoned, leaving everyone functionally immortal. For better or for worse. Each year, the hero of the living is supposed to deliver a new star to the God of Death’s prison that will keep this ‘paradise’ everlasting. Simple. Until on the 100th year of the imprisonment, our hero is nowhere to be found.
From there, the game asks what happens when some unimportant office intern decides that, on the day of their interview, someone has to save the world? Naturally, if you choose that option, the world responds by branding you as a terrorist and setting the entire population on your tail.
Pixel Art With Personality
Now whilst the player character may not actually have a tail, it wouldn’t be out of place in the world of PEPPERED. Whilst they could’ve kept things simple with a world of humans, Mostly Games decided their design philosophy would be, as they put it, “completely random cr*p.”
Amongst the many immortal inhabitants you’ll find fishmen, goatmen, crocmen, cyclops businesswomen, frog news anchors, cart-riding bulls and much, much more. The developers went for a fairly standard pixel art style that depicts fairly nonstandard designs – which fits nicely with the ‘existential’ part of the title.
These choices mean that PEPPERED isn’t the most technically stunning game out there, but it is packed with personality. Characters also have an exceptional amount of life given to them by the immensely exaggerated animations.
Wonders in Environmental Storytelling
Even when the design gets crazy, the developers find ways to keep the world feeling real, reactive, and messy. The writing benefits massively from how much of the narrative is scattered through the environment. Almost everything can be interacted with, and most objects or NPCs have either a joke, a bit of worldbuilding, or some detail about themselves or even your own character that they can share. I really appreciate that PEPPERED does not just throw all of its story at you through exposition, and it lets you experience the world through interacting with it – like when you stumble across a library full of books that detail maps, events and lore. None of these are huge deep dives into the world, but there is enough information to keep the world feeling alive and it’s presented with enough variety that keeps the player wanting to learn more.
You are not just platforming past set dressing; you are poking at it, reading it, finding jokes and lore, finding Kickstarter backers painted as graffiti on slum walls, finding evidence of the many groups of the world and what they believe… and yes the occasional deez nuts joke because, the developers think their funny. And, luckily for them, they are.
Lava, Office Chairs, and Workplace Hazards
The comedy was one of the biggest surprises for me as, although it is labelled as a ‘platformer,’ the humour seemed to be the primary focus. Evident from the moment they pose the question: “save the world or get a job?,” PEPPERED’s humour lands. I am not one to easily laugh at games, but this got more than a few chuckles out of me.
Sometimes the comedy comes in the form of classic slapstick, like flaming fish rolling around on chairs screaming that the world is going to end. Sometimes it comes from fourth wall breaks, like the game pointing out that maybe you shouldn’t be using a controller to type on an in-game keyboard. And sometimes it comes from the setting itself, such as coffee jobs that require thirty years of experience because everyone is immortal. Varying the punchlines throughout manages to stop the jokes stagnating, meaning PEPPERED can keep the comedy a major focus without gags overstaying their welcome.
Things begin in an office, which I think is a great call. Recent media has proved time and time again that there is nothing like a soul-crushing workplace environment to squeeze humour out of, and PEPPERED understands that all too well. From signs about not having the budget for an elevator, to office chairs becoming a legitimate form of movement, it all lands. And that’s all before they even add the immortality aspect into it, like the fact that the office also requires deadly drops into lava to traverse the areas where stairs would just be far too expensive… brilliant.
Strange Sounds For a Strange World
The audio can be strange, in a good way. Symphonic tracks overlap with cheering crowds, melancholy backing, and otherworldly gurgles, all at once. It’s messy, but deliberately messy, and to great effect. The opening menu alone feels like a strange experiment in how many conflicting moods you can layer on top of each other before it all collapses. Definitely ‘existential.’
The fun sound design however, gets interrupted whenever platforming becomes a focus, which brings with it the predictable Celeste-Ori-Super Meat Boy 8-bit electronic melodies. For PEPPERED’s standards… boring.
Simple Controls in Ridiculous Situations
In terms of controls, PEPPERED keeps things simple. You have thumbstick left and right movement, a jump, crouch, dash and glide. That’s basically it, reinforcing the idea that comedy is the main attraction. Although simple, actions feel good and the animations give everything a nice sense of snappiness and movement. It doesn’t drown you in complex inputs or upgrade trees, and that works in its favour. The fun was never meant to come from mastering movesets, but instead from seeing how PEPPERED bends these simple tools around whatever ridiculous situation it has thrown you into. For example, placing shopping trolley racing as one of its primary movement features.
When I found the movement and platforming systems worked best, was when they were used hand-in-hand with the choices system. Early on, you and the other NPC’s are pushing yourselves around squeaky floors in an office chair. Later, depending on your choices, movement can change entirely. One route saw me slowly scooting around in a wheelchair fifty years in the future, converting my mashing of inputs into centimetres of ground coverage. I know this sounds like a one-note gag, but it works because PEPPERED stays committed to its own madness. Sections upon sections have you performing actions like blending into the environment by shuffling along the floor with a homeless guy and his bins, jumping into freezers to escape the heat, and hiding from mother birds in ball pits. It’s funny, but also clever, constantly trying to find an in-world problem and fix it with suitably ridiculous mechanics.
Choices That Actually Matter
Now, I mentioned the choices system, so let’s dive into that. Choices are the main aspect that separates PEPPERED from most other games in the platforming genre, massively dictating what your experience will be on a scale far larger than any other game, let alone platformer, that I have played.
My first playthrough lasted about twenty minutes, and that is not a complaint. In a way similar to some Far Cry games, PEPPERED includes several ways to end things extremely early on, usually by making certain less thrilling decisions like: getting a job. Where PEPPERED differs to games like Far Cry, though, is that its choices can also keep the story going on long past the point where you would expect a run to end. Some moments become entire routes, whilst others end suddenly and without ceremony, adding weight to each decision.
There are eleven endings in total, and these are not the usual ‘a character lives, or a character dies’ sort of variations either – they can wildly alter the world, story, length of your run, and sometimes even the type of game you are playing. One of my runs basically had no platforming in it at all, which may leave some players a bit bemused after buying something with ‘platformer’ in the title. For me, however, that was exciting. It made me want to go back and see what else I had missed, because it was clear the game was not afraid to hold back its punishments for the decisions the player makes. On the other hand, making playthroughs this varied, although always a gameplay bonus, does lead to what some might consider a drop-off in the narrative.
Where PEPPERED Loses the Plot
Not every part of PEPPERED lands perfectly. Some routes, especially the later ones, lose the plot a little. That is not to say they are bad, but the writing is noticeably stronger for its opening stretch. Where storylines start in really interesting places, they can just as easily end in what feel like small and unimportant circumstances, leaving the player dissatisfied. Without spoiling too much, there is a court scene that plays a large role in what your playthrough will look like, with choices that lead to what look to be exciting directions, only to have disappointing conclusions.
Although, in my opinion, the writing becomes less polished, I can still see it working for those who fully embrace the ‘existential’ part of this platformer. But don’t get me invested in a plot and its characters just to drop it abruptly, run it way past its course, or introduce something last minute that chaos ex machina’s its own ending out of nowhere. I understand that the point is to be unpredictably ‘existential,’ but is that an excuse for a noticeable dip in writing quality? I’m not so sure it is.
I was also not the biggest fan of one late-game route that introduces limited lives. The idea itself is fine, but it clashes with PEPPERED’s other systems. For most of the game, being immortal encourages players to throw themselves off cliffs, explore weird out-of-bounds spaces, and rewards you for such endeavours. These secrets are something I would praise the developers for, with amazing subversions of expectations like a sign claiming “the only way is down” might very well mean there is a hidden passage above.
Alongside secrets there are also ongoing puzzles involving a rather odd-looking creature that I will not attempt to describe here. Finding all of its shrines is clearly one for the completionists – a smart decision considering how many completionists are in the platforming community. So why then, did they decide that this section (which is not short by the way) should punish the same curiosity that’s been so well rewarded up till then? Especially when secrets or collectables are still hidden in odd, dangerous places, suddenly the exploration feels at odds with the rest of the game that is constantly reminding you of your limited lives and how devastating losing them would be.
Again?
PEPPERED’s solution to these problems is to add a replay system. After ending a run (satisfied or not) you can go back and replay specific areas from the start. Not the best solution as it doesn’t fix some of the fundamental issues discussed above, but also not the worst. There are helpful nudges like seeing an “again?” pop up when about to repeat a previous decision, alongside the ability to both speed up and outright skip dialogue removes a lot of the friction that comes with replaying a game.
Another aspect of replayability that Mostly Games nail is the motivation. The cast and narrative are sometimes strong enough to be enough reason to try again. For me, there was a police character who was written with such sympathy and emotional ties to the player character that I replayed sections solely to see if I could get a better outcome for them. Having such a powerful non-gameplay related incentive to repeat content is a great place for PEPPERED to be, as it does a lot of the heavy-lifting to motivate players to hunt down those eleven endings where the simple platforming might not be able to.
Last issue
One issue I cannot stop myself from including though… why do the save points look identical to the launch pads. Whilst I exaggerate a little, they aren’t exactly identical, the amount of times I hurled myself onto a checkpoint expecting to be launched across a gap, only to realise I had only saved instead, was genuinely maddening. It is a small issue, but just felt completely avoidable.
A Wacky Platformer that is Existentially, Intentionally funny
The real triumph of PEPPERED is that it makes choices feel meaningful. A lot of modern games promise that choices matter, then give you endings that barely differ beyond a few lines of dialogue. Mostly Games went beyond that, changing routes, mechanics, characters, endings, and entire tones to satisfy that ‘choices matter’ label. PEPPERED: An Existential Platformer is ridiculous, strange, funny and much smarter than it might first appear. It is not the tightest platformer, nor does it have the best written narrative, and some late-game routes might leave players disappointed, but it is one of the most inventive, plot-focused platformers I have ever played. It understands comedy, it understands choice, and most importantly, it understands how to keep you guessing.
So what would you choose, save the world or get a job?
Important Links
PEPPERED: An Existential Platformer Arrives On Console And It Only Gives You One Shot – https://www.thexboxhub.com/peppered-an-existential-platformer-arrives-on-console-and-it-only-gives-you-one-shot/
Buy from the Xbox Store – https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/store/peppered-an-existential-platformer/9N1CQDT457ZG/0010
