It’s arduous to face out at BitSummit, Kyoto’s yearly indie video games competition, particularly on the third flooring the place the Nintendo Indie World and Sony cubicles dominate a lot of the true property. However regardless of taking over a tiny slice of area and operating on a single monitor with little adornment, Petal Runner stood out greater than most with its vibrant pastel pixel graphics.
At a look, the quaint little cities and character sprites seem like they had been pulled straight out of EarthBound or Pokémon Pink & Blue. It’s clear to see the place developer Nano Park Studios drew inspiration from. As such, the gameplay seems prefer it may lean into creature-collecting or turn-based fight as you go about cataloguing little critters known as HanaPets; nevertheless, this isn’t the case.
The core gameplay is to wash up and ship HanaPets to properties and companies somewhat than battle with them, as lead author Lauren Crown defined as I sat right down to play by way of the demo. They’re for companionship the identical manner pets are in actual life, and it’s your job to put in them into individuals’s properties.
“It is a world the place there are not any pure animals,” Crown mentioned. “The entire animals you see are these digital pets.”
From what I noticed within the demo, there are two sorts of HanaPets: Gen 1, that are all however extinct except for Kira, the little white fox pal of the principle character Cali. The primary era mirrors real-life Tamagochi, as seen once you inspect Kira’s standing within the menu. Then again, Gen 2 HanaPets reside in Leap Cells that are a bit extra biologically based mostly, as these comprise flowers that present the HanaPet with energy.
There’s loads of HanaPets to seek out. Within the demo’s opening moments, I got here throughout somewhat mouse known as Checkers that was searching for ‘snax’ and a snake-like dragon creature known as Root Zero that helped me escape from a lab after I cleaned up its Leap Cell. Extra widespread HanaPets like Checkers have a number of completely different variations whereas Root Zero is a little more ‘legendary,’ if you’ll, and subsequently distinctive.
Once more, I battled towards none of those critters. Nano Park Studios leans into this, together with humorous however meaningless little stats like their ranges of cuteness and fluff in every HanaPet’s description and — Crown assured me — included a couple of tongue-in-cheek jokes in regards to the absurdity of battling pets all through the journey.
You continue to do accumulate them and add them to an encyclopedia, and this isn’t a sport with out strife. The opening moments see you and your pink-haired good friend Dahlia stealing an android sensor to assist out her robotic good friend. If you handle to nab mentioned half, a ‘corrupted’ HanaPet makes an look, which triggers a number of minigames to clear with the intention to cleanse it.
These minigames take a web page out of Undertale’s graphically easy battle screens and include fast, five-or-so-second challenges that wouldn’t be misplaced in a WarioWare title, although they’re a lot much less weird.
Right here, you’re cleansing somewhat canine by shifting the left joystick up and down as quick as doable, mashing ‘A’ for a chubby cat to eat its bowl of meals, and — my least favorite, as a result of I messed it up so many instances — taking part in ping pong as somewhat mouse, strafing to the left and proper.
Crown confirmed that there are seven whole minigames within the demo, however couldn’t inform me what number of there have been within the full sport. “As for the entire checklist, we’re engaged on making it so long as we are able to earlier than launch. So I don’t know precisely what number of, however we’re doing our greatest.”
Once I cleared all the corrupted HanaPet’s minigames with out failing too many instances, it was then cleansed, revealing the aforementioned Root Zero critter that then helped us escape from the lab with the android sensor in hand. From there, I separated from Dahlia and obtained a nasty telephone name about late deliveries, so it was again to work with Kira the HanaPet in tow.
Hopping on somewhat bike, I drove round a beautiful city known as North Valley searching for a close-by mall with the HanaPet store inside, speaking to and registering a couple of completely different HanaPets alongside the best way. Right here, the place the principle story progresses, so too does a sidequest that Crown identified. A boy named Percy stormed off to chase down an odd HanaPet, and Kira and I made a decision to assist him out.
“I’m significantly keen on this sidequest as a result of the pet you’re chasing began as a bizarre joke once we had been making an attempt to regulate the sprite of one other HanaPet and it went all wonky,” Crown mentioned. “I used to be shocked when our artist created an actual sprite for it.”
Crown and the staff then turned this messed-up HanaPet — known as The Boy — right into a sidequest that ties into the narrative’s themes. As Percy, Kira, and I tracked it by way of the beautiful little city, residents exclaimed they noticed the ugliest little creature operating about. We adopted it to somewhat shady spot within the woods the place it was glitching out and, as you’d count on, I accomplished a couple of minigames to repair it up.
However this time round The Boy didn’t flip into one thing extra visually pleasing. As a substitute, Percy determined to check it additional, ending the hunt and highlighting a story thread operating all through the demo and presumably the total sport: What was occurring to the HanaPets? First, the Gen 1 HanaPets are practically extinct. Root Zero was lined in goop and needed to be rescued. And now this wonky, glitched-out creature raised much more questions.
“Petal Runner actually is primarily story-based,” Crown elaborated. “It’s about Cali and Kira and that relationship you could have along with your childhood pet that grew up with you and the way essential that’s.”
Percy and The Boy’s questline additionally seems like it should discover these relationships between individuals and their pets, as Percy first perceives The Boy as an educational quandary to resolve however — doubtlessly — turns into one thing way more significant and private to him.
As a lifelong canine proprietor myself, I started to fret somebody may begin chopping onions close by as I performed. Whereas I didn’t get a very good sense of the general plot, the demo was packed stuffed with endearing, lighthearted dialogue that I sensed might flip to melancholic and heartbreaking at any second.
The little white fox Kira typically stole the present along with his portrait subsequent to his dialogue field, because it featured lovable and expressive animations. Residents on the town bickered with one another and one snarky boy challenged me to wash a Leap Cell faster than he might. HanaPets themselves (they’ll speak, clearly) requested after ‘snax’ and protested when Kira obtained their title fallacious. As such, I couldn’t assist however speak to everybody I bumped into as I explored Petal Runner’s gorgeously rendered world.
Crown assures me there are separate areas with completely different color palettes. I can’t wait to see them.
However I’ll have to attend some time – not less than to play it on a Nintendo Swap. There’s the same demo to the one I performed on Steam and a deliberate launch date in 2026, however a launch on a Nintendo console continues to be unconfirmed. However very similar to each different small developer I spoke to at BitSummit, the Swap is an eventual objective.
Regardless, Petal Runner’s beautiful artwork path and endearing characters stole the present this 12 months regardless of the small quantity of actual property it commanded, and I can’t wait to play extra.
