Adorable Adventures – Review

There is a lot of chatter online recently about what constitutes a ‘real game,’ and I’m not even going to try to dissect that nonsense in this review. I will say there are so many genres and game styles out there, and there is something for everyone, and if you know me, you know I love a great chilled gaming experience, especially if it has a lovely emotional story to go along with it. It also helps if it has an adorable main character like the baby boar named Boris in Adorable Adventures.

Wild Sheep Studio, Top Hat Studio and PQube bring us the Adorable Adventures of Boris as he tries to find his 6 brothers and sisters, whom he’s separated from after a forest fire, all before they rescue their mother together. As a quick aside, I had been impatiently waiting for Adorable Adventures since its reveal. Growing up, my dad always called me Piglet, and while yes, I know Boris is a boar, not a pig, I couldn’t help but be drawn to it after having a soft spot for piggies my entire life. I think he would have loved seeing me enjoy playing this game.

Back to the game. Narrated by Maxime, the park ranger, Boris will explore a vast, beautiful world with a variety of landscapes, track scents, and uncover secrets.

Since you are a boar, your primary way of interacting with the world is your nose. You will follow visual scent trails through the world to locate your family members, food, flowers, etc., even the occasional secret. Boris, understandably, will follow a newer or stronger scent if it is present, so you will often spend time wandering around, sidetracked from the original patch you are tracking. Once you interact with an item multiple times, you will be able to filter it out/ignore it through your menu, thus giving you the ability to fine-tune and focus the scents you want to follow over time. This is particularly helpful when you are looking for a particular flower, seed, or mushroom to complete a task.

You will use this from time to time, since some of your sibling just won’t join you until you find a particular mushroom for their garden, or a glowing plant to guide them out of a dark cave.

Because this game felt very cozy and sweet, I was worried that I would eventually encounter predators, but that’s not the case. The entire world is non-hostile, so you have no fear of dying or any fail states. The biggest challenges you have are in the form of environmental puzzles, like trying to convince a sibling to come with you by locating a favourite snack or other item requested. There are also some fun side quests, like tidying up trash left by humans or taking Maxime’s trail camera to locate a variety of pictures in their journal. These can be challenging at times, but I found a lot of joy in taking on these completely optional tasks.

The game’s handcrafted world is beautiful, and a lot of care was taken to make each environment unique and distinct. Based on the Cévennes National Park in Southern France, the devs took a lot of care in the creation of the environment. The vegetation, lighting, etc., are all different in each zone. The world isn’t just beautiful, it is interactive. Grass leaves and branches will move if you touch them. I love how the adorable Boris always had his head down, searching, but never lost his ‘childlike’ wonder and would sometimes get distracted by something nearby, like a new scent.

I loved the sounds of nature and the small snorts of the boars, or even the little sneezes when ash got in his nose. The animations of Boris were also very well done, from his clumsy scampering or running to the way he would just plop down and sit when idle. As you gather more of your siblings, you will travel as a group, but it is clear that each has their own personalities in how they act, particularly when idle. One completely lies flat on his face with all his legs stretched out behind me, and it’s simply delightful. Leave Boris alone for long enough, and a butterfly will land on his nose, and he’ll get a ‘little twitchy face’ while he tries to figure out his new friend.

There are secrets tucked away everywhere throughout the National Park, and plenty of things to distract a tiny boar. I found a football and scored a goal. I found sunglasses, a tin can, and flowers (all of which I could wear). There are races, tire jumping courses, and photo challenges mentioned earlier. Oh, and helped a mother rabbit find her missing babies. This wasn’t an easy task when they blended into the environment, but thankfully, my hearing didn’t fail to track their little squeaks.

The main story took me approximately 4 hours to complete, and I could see it taking another 2-4 hours if you wanted to complete all the tasks from Maxime’s journal.

Maxime’s narration feels like it’s modelled after a children’s nature show. I don’t mean that in a bad way, it feels casual, natural and doesn’t make large declarations with an overwhelming amount of information. I thought it was well done. Simple, to the point. Short, sweet and a little cheesy at times.

The world is generally open from the beginning, but certain paths will be blocked until you have the required number of family members with you to break down a particular gate. I’m guessing this is to make sure you don’t have to backtrack over a large area to find a sibling you missed along the way. This also means that the game is potentially slightly easier to navigate for younger players who are looking for a simpler or cozier experience.

If I have one complaint, it’s the map. It’s static and doesn’t have a ‘you are here’ location. I guess it’s more like an actual park map. I found it difficult to use and normally just relied on my instincts, visual landmarks, or trial and error to get around.

I came into Adorable Adventures expecting nothing other than a game about a cute boar. What I got was a beautiful, emotional, and shocking solid game with its lower price point. I will be popping back in to clear up some achievements soon, and can’t wait to spend some more time with this adorable family.