Never mind the crafting, Squirreled Away is at its best when you’re simply a scampering rodent

I’ve been trying the demo for Squirreled Away, and for immoderate crushed it keeps wanting maine to play it arsenic immoderate kinda 2024-as-heck survival crafting game. At this, I marque respective accelerated sniffing-like movements, past scarper adeptly yet dismissively up the nearest tree. It’s conscionable acold much amusive to dainty this arsenic a casual squirrel sim, or, astatine the precise least, a platformer wherever you occasionally request to bargain immoderate strawberries.

Look, I’ve played capable Minecraft to admit the pleasures of hewing a location unneurotic from Mother Gaia’s offcuts. But Squirreled Away’s scavenging and gathering don’t truly bash thing to research beyond acquainted stick-to-plank-to-hut tropes, adjacent with the concisely amusing show of your fluffy protagonist lugging a tiny stone axe connected his back. It’s not similar you’re crafting to past anything, either: determination are nary elements to endure and the lone effect of letting your stamina tally retired is an inability to plaything your tools. No enemies to beryllium frightened of either, unless you’re that American bull who magdumped an acorn.

Image credit: Amplifier Studios

Instead, I urge utilizing what the demo gives you for gathering purposes – a roamable forest, freeform climbing abilities, zero autumn harm – to prosecute successful a spot of chilled-out histrion rat parkour. Now this is simply a bully time. There’s a perfectly judged stickiness to however you latch connected to bark and branches, and galore of the second look similar they were placed specifically for daring cross-canopy leaps. Screenshots for the afloat crippled contiguous the tantalising anticipation of yet gaining a dinky bent glider, which mightiness beryllium the 1 happening successful each of beingness that could get maine backmost to crafting. You volition judge a squirrel tin fly.

Down connected the ground, the capableness for hijinks is diminished, though I did a grin astatine my expectedly unspeakable attempts to strum a guitar, and astatine however readily I could destruct camping instrumentality successful pursuit of uncommon aureate nuts. Squirreled Away decidedly leans further towards cosiness than chaos – it’s not precisely Squirrel With a Gun, with oregon without the weapon – but it besides has a mischievous broadside that’s astatine slightest passingly amusive to explore. When, again, you’re not filling a look checklist of twigs and pebbles.