Sniff your way back to your family.
Adorable Adventures is a cozy third-person adventure game where you explore your environment as Boris the Pig. He must learn to use his highly developed sense of smell to recognize different types of scents and smells in order to be reunited with his family. They were separated by a natural disaster.
About the research and background of the game
The game is being developed by a team of developers from the French independent studio Wild Sheep Studio. Amsterdam-born Steven ter Heide is the creative director here. He began his career in the gaming industry here, at the Guerilla Games studio, which has, for example, the famous and successful game Horizon Zero Dawn. A slightly smaller studio, Wild Sheep, first made its presence known with the game Wild, which was even announced by PlayStation. However, in 2023, the development of this game was unfortunately canceled.
They were inspired to create this game by the nearby national park.
However, the studio is now reasserting itself and focusing on this cozy little pig adventure. They were inspired to create this game by the nearby national park. Therefore, they like to go there themselves, observe the surrounding nature and immerse themselves in the relaxing atmosphere and sounds of nature. The main goal is to bring exactly these feelings, sounds and atmosphere into the game to offer players the same relaxing experience without the dangers and bad things. 4 weeks after its announcement on Steam, the game received more than 20,000 wishlists.
Olfactory system
As already mentioned, here you will play as a small and naughty wild pig. However, due to a disaster in the form of a forest fire, Boris finds himself separated from his family, and it will be your task to find a way back. Together, you’ll explore breathtaking natural environments such as peaceful forested meadows, rocky highlands, dark caves and sun-drenched paths. To know where to go, you will have to take advantage of Boris’s very sensitive and well-developed sense of smell. This will allow you to keep track of your family’s familiar smells.
Boris is easily distracted by other surrounding smells that he is not yet familiar with.
But there’s a slight catch. Boris is easily distracted by other surrounding smells that he is not yet familiar with. Because of this, it loses the original scent it tracks. So we have to follow this new unknown. However, if you encounter a new smell several times and honestly identify it, Boris will then be able to ignore it and will no longer stop him from continuing. Thus, this smell system is one of the key systems in this game and, in fact, forms its main content.
In practice, it looks like you choose which odor you want to track. You will literally follow in his footsteps, because for us, the players, the smell manifests itself with the help of luminous particles that gradually disappear into Boris’s nose. We mostly see inspiration here from animated films, where characters sometimes literally float in the air, following some irresistible scent. If you are distracted by another, new smell, Boris will automatically focus on that new smell and you must identify it. This could be, for example, new types of flowers or other plants, or objects such as smelly, rusty tin cans, which, of course, have no place in a national park.
Gameplay
However, besides sniffing, you will also get a lot of other entertainment. Boris is a very open pig with whom you will never be bored. You will find a variety of tasks and interactions with your brothers and sisters, as well as with other animal friends. There will also be opportunities to build various collections, such as an interactive herbarium, take photographs, or engage in other playful activities. However, the animals here remain animals and do not behave like people. In the story, you will be accompanied by the so-called “Forest Guardian”, who will tell a touching story, describe your actions and create a relaxing atmosphere, as if someone was reading a book of stories to you.
Detailed world
The goal of Adorable Adventures is to create a realistic environment. However, the creators do not want to recreate real places, but focus on what it is like at the moment and how this forest world lives in their imagination. They record the necessary sounds of nature themselves, and for the music they chose soft and relaxing tones that will only emphasize the impressions. Additionally, the environment also reacts to how the protagonist moves through the world, creating beautiful moments. For example, when you run over dandelions, their seeds fly into the air, creating an enchanting moment. Here you will see butterflies flying, leaves falling from the bushes through which you and Boris decided to run, and you can also notice flying dust particles illuminated by sunlight.
Demo version
A few days ago, a free demo version of this game was available on Steam that you can try for yourself. The demo version captures Boris’s life before the fire, offers exploration of the mountainous area, you get to know his brother, and the game introduces you to a complex system of smells, which, however, is not at all difficult to understand. It’s fairly simple gameplay where you spend most of your time sniffing around, but still gets the nice, relaxing atmosphere the creators promised.
The demo depicts Boris’s life before the fire.
The game requires a controller, and the good news is that the developers have updated the demo so that it can be played on Steam Deck. It was known from the start that some more time would need to be spent on some improvements, such as managing the piggy bank, which was slipping too noticeably, especially when sprinting. However, even the demo version is receiving the necessary maintenance and has already received three updates. For example, based on player feedback, the aforementioned scheduling was changed, minor performance improvements were made, or English voice acting was made (at first only French was available). If you’re interested in the game, I definitely recommend trying out the demo as it will do a great job of introducing you to the story.
At least for now, there has been no mention of platforms other than PC, however, since the game requires a controller to play, it would be a shame not to consider releasing the game on consoles as well. Unfortunately, the release date is unknown. As I mentioned, the demo felt like the game needed a little more time under the hood. So, if the creators of the release take their time, this could certainly be another promising, cute entry into the cozy gaming genre.
Source :Indian TV
