Judero review

What is it? You are Judero, a warrior-Druid putting right what has gone wrong in Scotland.

Release date September 16, 2024

Expect to pay $18

Developer Talha and Jack Co.

Publisher Talha and Jack Co.

Reviewed on Steam Deck

Multiplayer None

Steam Deck Unverified(but works well)

Link Steam

Strangeness and eccentricity can often feel like an affectation, so I cherish it when a game is genuinely one-of-a-kind. Judero could have only been made by Talha Kaya and Jack King-Spooner, two independent developers who crafted a vision of the Scottish Borders entirely out of action figures and modeling clay, a game with the kind of rough edges and pleasant surprises that could only come from a genuine artistic vision.

Judero casts you as the titular Judero: a rough-hewn warrior-priest clearly made out of Milliput and an old GI Joe action figure. He cuts an imposing figure, but he's actually a very thoughtful, open-minded guy: One defining early moment of the game begins with the jumpscare-adjacent, discordant introduction of a clearly evil witch, then cuts to her and Judero having tea and discussing the townsfolk's mistaken impression of her.

Judero is an indie's indie game, made by two guys with most of the rest of the credits taken up by their family, friends, and Kickstarter backers. Like this year's Harold Halibut, Judero uses real, physical models for its digital assets, with full-on stop motion in its cutscenes while the gameplay uses sprites in full-3D environments like the original Doom. The music is also a real treat: acoustic guitar-driven folk tunes that set a nostalgic mood and dovetail with Judero's pagan, earthy influences.

The result of Judero's unique building blocks looks like the Last Voyage of Sinbad but even more deliberately uncanny: The characters are all misshapen and rough-cut, with bulging eyes and cratered flesh, but it's somehow not a horror show. Like so many classics of stop motion animation, Judero's characters are unsettling but not unpleasant,