I’ve been trying the demo for Squirreled Away, and for some reason it keeps wanting me to play it as some kinda 2024-as-heck survival crafting game.
At this, I make several rapid sniffing-like movements, then scarper adeptly yet dismissively up the nearest tree. It’s just far more fun to treat this as a casual squirrel sim, or, at the very least, a platformer where you occasionally need to steal some strawberries.
Look, I’ve played enough Minecraft to appreciate the pleasures of hewing a home together from Mother Gaia’s offcuts. But Squirreled Away’s scavenging and building don’t really do anything to explore beyond familiar stick-to-plank-to-hut tropes, even with the briefly amusing sight of your fluffy protagonist lugging a tiny rock axe on his back.
It’s not like you’re crafting to survive anything, either: there are no elements to endure and the only consequence of letting your stamina run out is an inability to swing your tools.
No enemies to be scared of either, unless you’re that American cop who magdumped an acorn. Instead, I recommend using what the demo gives you for gathering purposes – a roamable forest, freeform climbing abilities, zero fall damage – to engage in a spot of chilled-out tree rat parkour.