Grounded is a really cool idea for a game and one that I am surprised has not been done more often. Thanks to being on Xbox Game Pass, I was able to spend a fair bit of time with the game over the last week or so. It is worth noting that as of writing, Grounded is very far from finished.
The idea of the game as I said is cool. Remember the movie Honey I Shrunk the Kids? Well, that movie is kind of what we have going on here. A group of teenagers has been shrunk down to tiny bug size and they need to survive the horrors of the backyard. As of now, the story is a tad bare-bones, but I do like the surprising sci-fi twist that it ends on so I am excited to see where it goes from here.
The game can be played from a first-person or a third-person point of view. It is a personal preference of course, but I felt the first-person viewpoint was more immersive. It is really cool the way that they were able to make you feel like you are a shrunken down teenager! With giant grass, rocks, and bugs… oh my god, the bugs!
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The Game Review
The way the gameplays I think is best described as that they have taken parts of Minecraft and parts of ARK and mixed them together. You need to gather resources so that you can make a base, fortify it, make weapons, and so on. Grounded also has a system where you need to make sure you are keeping fed and drinking plenty of gross garden water.
The resource management part of the game is very interesting. You have a machine that you can use and this allows you to catalog stuff as well as improve it. The whole game is very easy to figure out and after around 30 minutes, I would bet most people will have an idea of what it is they are doing.
I really liked the fort building aspect of the game and this is where it feels very much like Minecraft. You have to build a fort of some kind or bugs can wreak all kinds of havoc! It is very easy to do and you have many different ways you can go about it. As you would expect, Grounded also has combat and this is also fun.
There are many smaller bugs that do not pose much of a threat, but there are many larger ones. The alpha bugs for me are things like stink bugs and especially the spiders! The game even has an arachnophobia mode if you are scared of spiders which I find super weird. There is nothing more terrifying than walking along and then coming face to face with a big ass spider!
The backyard setting is a decent enough size at the moment, but I am interested to see what new areas are going to be added as the game progresses. Right now, it feels very light on what there is to do, but to be fair the game is in early access so I give it a pass for that. Speaking of early access when there is a lot of stuff happening the game really struggles in terms of the framerate.
As well as playing the survival mode by yourself. Grounded also lets you jump online and play with three other people. The idea here is great, but in this early state, I could not get into a game with my friends and ended up always playing with random people. The game also has a creative mode which is great for getting ideas on how to build strong forts.
While it is not completed yet. I feel that Grounded has a lot of promise. So far, so good as far as I am concerned. The game has a lot of charm, I really do enjoy the plot and the gameplay is fun and I can see it only becoming even better as the game moves forward with its development.
