It was a skateboarding accident. I mean, technically it was a skateboarding accident because I tripped over a skateboard in my office, but it totally counts because one, it was an accident, and two, it involved a skateboard. That’s basic science. So I had to get surgery to fix a broken metacarpal, I’ve got a cast (it’s pink, though, so that’s fun), and now I can’t play games for the next four to six weeks.
A preview version of Obsidian’s Honey-I-Shrunk-The-Kids-’em-up launched on PC and Xbox One on 28 July, and it’s a significant diversion from the studio’s previous catalogue of RPGs and… other RPGs. Taking cues from games like The Forest and Ark: Survival Evolved and the Pixar movie A Bug’s Life, Grounded mixes improvised building and big insects with a unique suburban backyard aesthetic, and players must work – solo or co-op up to four – to solve the puzzle of what exactly got them into this fun-sized predicament and how to not get killed by spiders.
Because my, uh, situation precludes actually trying this myself, I was stuck watching my husband playing Grounded this weekend instead. Insult to injury and whatever, although his numerous failures were some consolation (and a convenient opportunity for learn from somebody else’s mistakes), I suppose. I think what’s most interesting about the game is that it’s so immediately intuitive – when you need water, for example, you should look for dew drops on the grass, and a discarded box or soda can – an irrelevant geometry prop in most games – is an obvious resource, or maybe even a potential base of operations in this one. It’s a reinvention of the “ordinary”, and subverts expectations in a genre that’s perhaps become too copy-paste for me.
As a preview version, Grounded is kind of limited for the moment – the story content is over in about 30 minutes, and much of the game’s world is blocked out with “under construction” tape, but it’s an intriguing start and the first monthly content update is scheduled to drop on 27 August.
Grounded is also available on Game Pass for Xbox One and PC, if you’re a subscriber.