Pepper Grinder review

What is it? A hectic platformer where you travel via pneumatic drill.
Release date March 28, 2024
Expect to pay TBA
Developer Ahr Ech
Publisher Devolver Digital
Reviewed on ROG Ally, Gigabyte G5
Steam Deck Verified
Link Official site

Poor Pepper. She’s the star of Devolver Digital’s new platformer, but she would be laughed off the stage at the Annual Platforming Protagonist Awards. Not that she’d have much luck leaving that stage unassisted. Pepper’s hobbled with a pathetic jump, a mediocre little hop that can barely get her a few feet off the ground. So it’s a stroke of good fortune that she’s rammed her arm into a drill attachment that can send her swimming through dirt, then use her momentum to burst out and fly through the air.

Well, maybe less ‘good fortune’, more ‘mixed blessing’ and perhaps even ‘get this damn monkey’s paw off of me’. It turns out that having a drill for an appendage can actually be quite cumbersome. Pepper drills through dirt a little faster than you’d like, demanding quick reflexes to move in something close enough to the direction you wanted to go, or at least a route that ideally doesn’t end in certain death. This is all completely by design, of course, and gradually mastering such a joyously unwieldy method of navigation makes for a terrific little platformer.

Cumbersome as it can be, the drill is a delight to use, with excellent rumble feedback. This is an absolute must-play with a controller, unless you own a vibrating keyboard (why do you own a vibrating keyboar… actually, I’d rather not know). Swimming through dirt feels great, as does introducing enemies to the sharp spinny end of your new toy. Comparisons to Game Boy Advance cult classic Drill Dozer are obvious, but it actually plays more like that same console’s Donkey Kong: King of Swing. That game was all about carefully timing swings to reach higher ground. Pepper Grinder plays a bit like this, if you were playing King of Swing with a dodgy emulator that quadrupled the game’s