Pikuniku

Pikuniku is a puzzle adventure video game developed by French-British indie collective Sectordub and published by Devolver Digital, that was released on January 24, 2019 for Linux, macOS, Nintendo Switch and Microsoft Windows. It was later released on March 12, 2020 for Xbox One and on February 9, 2021 for Stadia. The player controls the titular red creature, Piku, through a colorful world, to put an end to a plot to harvest the entirety of the land's resources.

It received generally positive reviews from critics, with its main criticism being the short length of the game.

Gameplay
Pikuniku is a puzzle and adventure game where the player must control the protagonist, Piku, through levels and solve puzzles to progress. The majority of puzzles involve kicking and pushing objects onto switches to open doors and access rooms, allowing the player to proceed through the level. Piku can also lasso their legs to swing from hooks or curl into a ball and roll, allowing the player to move around faster and reach higher or previously inaccessible areas. Throughout the game, the player will encounter villages, where they can interact with villagers, and spend currency earned in the game's levels on items such as hats. The game also features a local cooperative mode with 9 levels, and the second player controlling Niku, an orange creature similar to Piku. Both of the players must cooperate to navigate themselves to a boat at the end of the level.

Synopsis
The game begins with the protagonist, Piku, waking up from his slumber in a cave. After venturing to a nearby village, locals become terrified of Piku. They locked him up in a cage calling them a 'ghastly beast of legend', settling on imprisoning them until they agree to fix the town bridge, which they'd accidentally destroyed. After repairing the bridge and being set free from imprisonment, the town enlists him to help deal with the entrepreneurial Mr. Sunshine, a pink creature similar to Piku, who attempts to harvest the entirety of the world's natural resources for his own wealth.

Plot
The game opens with a commercial in which the character Mr. Sunshine, a pink creature in a top hat, offers to give the island's citizens "free money" in exchange for their "junk".

Afterwards, Piku is awakened by a ghost in a nearby cave. After they come out, they discover they've actually been erroneously painted by a legend as a dark beast, and after accidentally breaking the bridge, they are put in a cage by the frightened inhabitants of the nearby village. However, Piku is let free after they decide they are harmless on the condition that they fix the bridge.

Once Piku has earned the townsfolk's trust by fixing the bridge, they explore the area, soon encountering a flying robot which sucks up all the corn the townspeople have been growing and scatters free money to placate them. Mr. Sunshine is on board, and offers to take a member of the crowd back for a tour of his volcano base. He chooses a townsperson called Eli, who is picked up by the robot and taken away.

Piku then travels through a swamp and reaches a forest, where they find another robot chopping down all the trees. After helping a local drive off the robot with an explosive pine cone, Piku joins the Resistance, a trio of forest villagers based in an abandoned underground metro station who intend to stop Mr. Sunshine. Together, they destroy the tree-chopping robot.

Afterwards, the Resistance are approached by a worm asking for help because the water in their home has dried up. The group suspect Sunshine Inc.'s involvement and decide to help, using the newly reactivated metro system to reach the lake. When they get there, they find that the robots have built a dam and one is sucking up all the water with a straw. The Resistance head underground into the mines to meet the worms.

Mother, a giant worm, recounts how they have been suffering due to the lack of the lake's water, which they use to drink and bathe. Before helping Piku, she asks them to rescue her child Ernie, who they find has drunk too much green water from a pipe further underground and become too full of liquid to move. While transporting him through the cave, Piku discovers a room full of charred bodies of creatures that resemble Mr. Sunshine, and a worm reveals they were killed by an erupting volcano after mining too close to it. Once Ernie is brought back to his mother, the worms assist Piku in destroying Mr. Sunshine's last robot.

The final portion of the game takes place inside Mr. Sunshine's underground base, where he is plotting to destroy the surrounding land by covering it with lava in order to establish a new city populated with "perfect" inhabitants made by splicing people together - however, these inhabitants appear to be unable to move or communicate on their own.

After leaving the laboratory, Piku reaches a pit over live magma where Mr. Sunshine tries to have him killed. Piku avoids Mr. Sunshine's robot's lasers until his robotic henchmen piloting it go on a strike after discovering they aren't equally paid. Suddenly, Ernie comes to the rescue by rolling into the pit and letting Piku use his body as a platform to jump out of it. Piku chases Mr. Sunshine over the magma, avoiding pop corn launched from the latter's motorboat. Upon arriving at a dead end, Mr. Sunshine presses a button which will make the volcano erupt, but the lava is so unexpectedly powerful that they are both ejected into the atmosphere on a platform.

Piku kicks Mr. Sunshine into space. A mysterious being rescues Piku, informing them of their mission's outcome before sending them safely back to the base. Piku leaves along with the other Resistance members, and wakes up back in their cave.

After the story's events, the player can explore the slightly altered post-game world.

Reception
Pikuniku received "generally favorable reviews" on the Nintendo Switch and "mixed or average reviews" on the PC version of the game, according to review aggregator Metacritic.

Accolades
The game achieved multiple nominations and selections, including "Best International Indie Game" at the Pégases Awards 2020, "Excellent in Audio" at the Independent Games Festival (IGF) 2019, "The Innovation Games Award 2019, " and official selections at the XOXO Festival in 2018 and the PAX East Indie Megabooth in 2018.