Pure Xbox’s Craig Reid recently attended the Summer Game Fest in Los Angeles, where he had the opportunity to preview a series of upcoming Xbox releases. Today we’re sharing his thoughts on a hands-on demo of The Plucky Squire where he sat down with All Possible Futures co-founder James Turner to play part of the game’s sixth chapter.
Every now and then, a game is announced that is actually just that he speaks U.S. Plucky Squire was one of them. It’s been seven hundred and thirty days – two whole years – since it was first revealed at the Devolver Direct in 2022 (you know… not that we’re counting), so we were obviously delighted to sit down with the All Possible Futures co-founder . James Turner at Devolver’s epic SGF Play Days booth to try out the game.
The Plucky Squire is an adventure game presented to us as a children’s book. For less than an hour, and with our charming new companion James Turner by our side, we explored the delicacies contained in part six of the chapter. Our demo began with The Plucky Squire, Jot and their companion Thrash in 2D form attempting to scale the moustache-adorned Mount Trargg. Their mission: to end the torment caused by the book’s evil antagonist, Humgrump, who was so fed up with losing to Jot that they kicked him out of his own story—and into the real world!
After a few initial steps in the game, we were faced with a far-reaching chasm that was too big for our brave heroes to cross. This is where our story could have ended if this adventure was limited to paper. Fortunately, Jot is able to survive outside the confines of his flat world and venture into our reality. It was this concept that first caught our attention in 2022 and experiencing it first hand was very satisfying indeed.
We’d be remiss if we didn’t mention that The Plucky Squire clearly draws inspiration from the Legend of Zelda franchise, namely ‘Zelda: A Link Between Worlds’, in which Link was able to slip through walls and paintings. After going through a number of Link’s adventures ourselves, The Plucky Squire felt familiar, natural, and relatable.
If you’ve ever played any 3D platformer, you’ll find the traversal and combat pretty simple. Aptly named, Jot’s sword is shaped like a quill, and swinging it in the name of artistic expression is both simple and fun. By the time we started our demo in chapter six, Jot already felt like an expert swordsman. We could do a 360 spin attack, a ground slam, and a rather satisfying “boomerang” flip attack. These were readily available in both the 2D and 3D parts of the game.
It was clear from the start that All Possible Futures wanted The Plucky Squire to be enjoyed by the whole family, regardless of skill or ability. This is reflected in the game’s difficulty options: “Adventure Mode” for bold and brash heroes and “Story Mode” for unsung heroes who want an easier ride. “Story Mode” tweaks the damage sliders in your favor and gives you the option to skip the more difficult parts of the game. We were also assisted by one of The Plucky Squire’s best characters – Moonbeard – who was on hand to give us advice or direction when needed. We didn’t actually need Moonbeard for most of our session, but having him there was comforting just the same. Plus his beard was cool.
Joto’s 3D adventure takes place in a dirty nursery. In the demo, we walked through a cluttered table, guided by towering books, mugs and trinkets. On our way we noticed a book called ‘Machines of Mayhem’ which seemed to be missing its cover model. According to James, it’s because Humgrump has hired a bunch of big, scary machines to unleash pandemonium in The Plucky Squire and disrupt Jot’s quest: to restore creativity.
As quickly as we were able to jump from Joto’s 2D beginnings into this new 3D world, we were pulled back into the storybook. The page flipped to reveal a land full of glam rock bunnies and ‘sign of the horn’ shaped topiary. This rapid shift between realities should feel distracting and obstructive, but since The Plucky Squire is about the discord between creativity and anti-creativity, flipping between ‘reality’ and a heavy metal-inspired environment in which we were slapping mini baphomet rams, they felt like a perfect parallel.
Remember those missing Machines of Mayhem? Well, as we progressed through the Trargg Mountains, our progress was halted by a rugged chainsaw gate. In order for Jot to progress, he had to jump from page to table using one of the glowing transition symbols and scour reality to find a special item capable of disrupting the pesky machine.
Our time with the demo and Jot came to an end as we helped the adorable “Baby Rocket” collect the pieces of “Daddy Rocket” (aww?) that were hidden on the dirty table. Once we completed this task, we were awarded a stamp – a special item needed to progress the narrative back into the storybook.
We entered The Plucky Squire’s Play Days booth with high hopes and high expectations. For 45 minutes we giggled, smiled and asked James all sorts of questions like “are we ever going to see the guy who owns the book? and though he said no, James said:
“In the future, the boy (who owns the book) becomes a famous author in his own right because he is so inspired by Plucky Squire. But if Humgrump, the evil wizard, takes over the book, it becomes a much more boring book. He loses his inspiration and it can change his future path… So there’s a story outside the book that you don’t see directly.’
There’s a lesson for us all, don’t you think?
While we may not have a release date for The Plucky Squire on Xbox Series X|S outside of 2024, we here at Pure Xbox had a lot of fun and are chomping at the bit for another charming All Possible Futures game. adventure.