The Plucky Squire Is Clever, Charming Mix of 2D and 3D Gameplay

ign.com:

Sometimes, a video game feels like it was made just for you. That’s never true, of course, unless you’re a solo developer making your own indie game, but I reckon you know the feeling. It happens when a game just speaks to you, when the art, music, and gameplay feel tailor-made to your taste and you can’t keep a smile off your face while you’re playing it. That’s how I felt playing The Lucky Squire, the first game from All Possible Futures.

You step into the shoes of Jot, the titular Plucky Squire, a… well, squire of great renown who defends the land of Mojo, a place of unbridled creativity, from the malevolent Humgrump. Jot’s also something of a writer, and his skill with a quill means he turns his adventures into books that people adore. World-saving hero, beloved author? What more could a guy want?

The first thing you’ll notice about The Plucky Squire is its look. It’s quite literally set in a children’s storybook, with areas mapped to each page. When you move on, the page will turn, taking you to the next area or revealing a bit more of the story, and each “level” in The Plucky Squire is its own chapter. It’s a charming setup, but a great conceit is only half the battle. The Plucky Squire pulls everything together with beautiful sprite art that evokes childrens’ books you might find on the shelves of your local library. Everything is bright, colorful, and gorgeously animated. Seriously, I think this is one of the prettiest games I’ve ever seen. I mean, just look at it.

My three-hour demo started by sending me on a quest to help my wizard friend, a sunglasses-wearing, Merlin-from-The-Sword-in-the-Stone-looking dude named Moonbeard get some beeswax so he could press some more vinyls. What can I say? He likes to DJ. A suitably humble origin story, but every hero’s journey begins somewhere. The Plucky Squire starts off playing like the top-down Zelda games of yesteryear; Jot’s armed with little more than a sword, a rolling dodge, his wits, and a cunning hat with a