In this era of extreme AAA budget games that dominate headlines there’s a refreshing perspective to take from those simpler titles that do just a few things well. It’s easy to forget that we used to be forced to simplify a game experience due to the limitations of the platforms available to us, given just how capable the current generation is. Thankfully there’s still a vibrant indie scene that manages to do a whole lot with not much and Pico Park 2 is a fantastic example of this. Shout out goes to my crew who’s now engaged in a regular games night for putting this one forward to me as this isn’t something I would’ve ever gotten around to myself.

Pico Park 2 is effectively a co-op puzzle platformer, suited for 2 to 8 players either locally or online. All the challenges will require you to coordinate with everyone else on your team which you can do with in-game emotes or, more likely, just getting everyone on a Discord server so you can yell to your heart’s content. The puzzles start off as simple platforming, usually requiring you to stack up in a certain way or just pressing buttons in the right order, but then it ramps up in all sorts of weird and wonderful ways. The screenshot below gives you a good idea of the variety of mechanics you’ll be introduced to including: stacking, being chained together, timed challenges and, most importantly, becoming a tank.

Everything about Pico Park 2 is a riff on the platform games of old, from the visuals to the sound effects to the platforming which has a certain feel to it. The visuals are extremely simple with their boxy pixel-art renditions of what I assume are cat people and the barren green landscapes. You can customise your avatar with a bunch of different hats and colours, all of which appear to be available from the start as I didn’t see anything telling me we’d unlocked anymore as we were playing through.

The controls take a little bit to get used to, at least if you’re playing on a keyboard like I was. Whilst they’re intuitive enough there were more than a few times where we’d failed puzzles because someone forgot how to jump or move just a hair further than they thought they were going to. Using a controller would probably mitigate this somewhat but by the time we’d gone through a few puzzles together those airhead moments just became part of the fun.

Which is what this game is all about at the end of the day. Whilst it’s one thing to be good at platforming what makes this really fun is all the shenanigans you can get up to with a bunch of mates whilst trying to solve the puzzle. You’ll quickly figure out who’s the best platformer, the shot caller that everyone will actually listen to and the agent of chaos who loves nothing more than ruining a run at the last second just for the sheer thrill of it. You’ll tear strips off each other for making a critical error at the wrong time, hard locking yourselves out of a solution or trying to do something the hard way without realising it. All of this is part of the attraction of the game because at the end of the day it’s just a good time with your mates.

We played with a group of 3 or 4 which felt like the right balance of chaos vs ability to actually solve the puzzles. I can’t imagine how crazy it’d get if you had a full complement of 8 players on it as just co-ordinating the 4 of us proved challenging enough at times. Still though there’d be a lot of fun to be had in the chaos that ensued, if you’re into that kind of thing.

The game’s simplicity also seems to have ensured that it’s well polished as we didn’t encounter any bugs, crashed or puzzle lock outs that we didn’t create ourselves. There was a bit of confusion around how certain mechanics worked initially, but it doesn’t take long to understand them once you’ve had a few unsuccessful rounds. The only issue we had was the server joining process which felt a bit cumbersome but otherwise the game is flawless in its execution.

Pico Park 2 is a stellar example of what a focus on simplicity can bring. To be sure almost all of the enjoyment that I got from this game came from the meta-game, the time spent with friends having a laugh over how bad we were as a collective when it came to simple platforming challenges. But there’s a lot to be said for a game that can facilitate the creation of those meta-narratives, ones that wouldn’t have existed without them to provide the background for great interactions between friends. This is a game that I think I’ll be seeing a lot more of in the future, maybe with some smaller people who are just getting their first taste of platform gaming.

Rating: 8.5/10

Pico Park is available on PC, Nintendo Switch and Xbox One right now for $11.95. Game was played on the PC with a total of 2.1 hours playtime and 23% of the achievements unlocked.

About the Author

David Klemke

David is an avid gamer and technology enthusiast in Australia. He got his first taste for both of those passions when his father, a radio engineer from the University of Melbourne, gave him an old DOS box to play games on.

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