If you are not familiar with Sokpop, they are a collective of game developers who create bite-sized, short experiences in small amounts of time. Recently, however, they started working on Grunn, which is a longer form game! This is quite exciting already, especially with the sheer number of games they have created over the last few years, so when I saw Grunn at the European Game Showcase at GDC, I wanted to play.
In Grunn, you are a gardener, hired to garden at a house over the weekend. You have been tasked to clear the garden within that time frame. Nobody is around this house (or really, this town), and your tools are missing. Although you’ve got the homeowner’s number, they also aren’t picking up, so you’ll need to just try and get on with the job.
Your time is limited in the garden, so you need to start making use of it. There are a lot of bushes to cut, grass to slowly clip away at, flowers that need watering… It becomes a game of tidying up while the sun is up, then returning to your little room to sleep. The entire time that you are gardening, something just feels off.
As you find areas around the game, you will find pictures that give clues as to how to find different tools or make your way to new areas. You can actually cut the grass all around the town — far beyond the home! Although, you can also get lost, drown, and as the day turns to darkness, find mysteries that maybe you didn’t want to discover. It’s a curious game and one with multiple endings, making you want to dive back in and see what you discover next time.
When I played the demo, everything was strangely quiet and there were a few interactions that had me feeling a little uneasy with what I was doing! With so many places to explore, I found myself wondering what else was hidden around this strange place or why I had gone there to garden in the first place.
Grunn can be wishlisted on Steam ahead of its release later this year.
