Pepper Grinder Reviews

Pepper Grinder is ranked in the 75th percentile of games scored on OpenCritic.
7 / 10.0
Mar 26, 2024

Pepper Grinder is a good video game but it doesn't feel like a complete video game. The mechanic of burrowing away through different biomes is always satisfying as you make platforming leaps of faith between different bodies of ground. What exploration, world and mechanical growth is there is really strong, it's just limited and brief. Fun throughout but over before you know it, Pepper Grinder is a charming title that is just missing that extra little spice.

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9 / 10.0
Mar 28, 2024

Pepper Grinder is a great platformer with smooth gameplay and a nostalgic, pixelated art style. It’s a fantastic game to play and has the potential to go down as one of the best indie games of this year. If you’re searching for a new platformer game to play, this is the one.

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9 / 10.0
Mar 28, 2024

Pepper Grinder is a treasure trove of excitement and charm, beckoning players to sail into its captivating world and embark on a thrilling adventure unlike any other.

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8 / 10.0
Mar 28, 2024

Pepper Grinder is a condensed experience but offers thrilling and unique levels. The drill is the star of the show and feels great to use as a tool.

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Unscored
Mar 28, 2024

Pepper Grinder is a beautiful game that surprises me with new and crazy ideas every couple of seconds. Moving around with the giant drill is fast, challenging, and satisfying. The intuitive level design guides me through the game with subtle hints and teaches me new gameplay mechanics without much explanation. The only thing that drags down the extremely fast pace of the game are the boss battles, which are a little too long. After around four hours of drilling and jumping, I saw the end credits of the game. If I wanted to collect all the remaining items and unlock everything, I would add a few more hours. Despite the short playing time, I recommend the game to all fans of challenging platformers. It's a perfect gaming snack for a rainy weekend.

Review in German | Read full review

8 / 10
Mar 28, 2024

At a $15 price tag, it feels like a light weekend thing, something you can drill through in a few nights of idle play and then pick up again whenever you have a hankering for something similar. That’s… what it wants to be. And so I have to kind of give it up for that. There are frustration points, sure, but if you like this style of platformer it simultaneously doesn’t feel like something that’s been done a dozen times before and is fun to play start to finish. Not every game manages that.

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70 / 100
Mar 28, 2024

Pepper Grinder offers plenty of fun during a surface level playthrough. Once you drill into the depths of its game mechanics, however, you'll find an overly forgiving "casual" game and a relatively frustrating "time attack" game. That said, you can collect stickers and that's pretty cool.

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8.8 / 10.0
Mar 28, 2024
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6.5 / 10.0
Mar 28, 2024

Pepper Grinder nails its mechanics, but its humdrum visuals and world-building stop it from being the modern indie classic that it could've been.

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Unscored
Mar 28, 2024

Stuffed with great ideas and visual pizazz, Pepper Grinder is a sparky little platformer that's over all too soon.

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8.5 / 10.0
Mar 28, 2024

Pepper Grinder is a unique and challenging title that has you drilling through everything to recover your stolen treasure. With great visuals and jazzy music, this is a title to check out!

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Liked-a-lot
Mar 28, 2024

For what is on offer, there’s enough game to be had if you know what to expect coming in. It’s a cute game with a fun mechanic that is put through its motions well enough, but it lacks the depth to keep you coming back for more for more than the length of its campaign.

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9.5 / 10.0
Mar 28, 2024

Pepper Grinder is one of the most entertaining 2D platformers I've played in ages, with fantastic motion and seriously creative and varied stages.

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8 / 10
Mar 28, 2024

Pepper Grinder is a digestible adventure that can be completed in about six hours. While there is some replay value to be had, the short runtime helps ensure the game does not overstay its welcome, making it perfect for those looking to play a satisfying platformer in manageable doses. Despite its brevity, the fluid mobility provided by the drilling mechanic and overall frenetic gameplay make for an engaging retro romp that will likely tunnel its way straight to your heart.

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PC Gamer
Top Critic
80 / 100
Mar 28, 2024

Five hours of fun, frantic platforming that's unwieldy and all the better for it.

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9 / 10
Mar 28, 2024

Pepper Grinder is a wonderfully inventive and fun platformer that no fan of the genre will want to miss out on. It may have a runtime that feels a little too short, but this is ultimately a deeply enjoyable, challenging, and highly replayable game with lots of personality. If you think you'd be interested, we'd suggest you pick up Pepper Grinder at the next opportunity (and there's a even downloadable demo if you're on the fence).

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Evan Norris
Top Critic
7 / 10.0
Mar 28, 2024

Thanks to Riv Hester's diligence, Pepper Grinder succeeds mechanically, creatively, and visually. It could do with better unlockables and would certainly benefit from a longer running time, but overall it hits the right marks.

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8 / 10
Mar 28, 2024

Riv Hester debuts with a platform game that starts from the best influences, but that knows how to stand out not for what it takes from others but for how it goes beyond its referents.

Review in Spanish | Read full review

8 / 10.0
Mar 28, 2024

If you're into unique and creative takes on platforming, Pepper Grinder is well worth jumping (or rather, drilling) into. I'm not the biggest fan of the boss fights (especially the one that currently glitches out), but overall, this is a good grind from start to finish. I'd love to see more takes on drill-based platforming along these lines, though the tight package developer Ahr Ech has put together is a concentrated blast of fun.

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GameSpot
Top Critic
8 / 10
Mar 28, 2024

Pepper Grinder is a brief but frenzied platformer that finds myriad ways to build around its inventive central hook.

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