The concept of exploration is intimately entwined with video games as a medium, but rare is the game that uses it as its sole conceit. There’s a systemic purpose to it that makes it so compelling; there are power-ups that add layers to the game play, Easter eggs that make you feel part of an in-joke or simply an entrance to a new area. While these are all parts of video games that I enjoy and actively seek out, I often find that admiring the design and aesthetics of the world that was created to be more interesting than the ingrained dopamine-pleasing gameplay loop itself.

So color me surprised when I played SomeHumbleOnion’s Smushi Come Home and discovered that someone made a game where the journey was just as enjoyable as getting to the destination, to use a very tired cliché.

Our hero Smushi lives a pretty peaceful life on an island with a handful of smaller fungi that he dotes on, until he gets caught by a large bird and summarily dumped in the middle of an unknown forest. Not one to pout or scare easily, he takes off into the unknown in the hopes of finding his way back home. It’s refreshing to play something that doesn’t really have any antagonism to it; he’ll meet challenging people along the way, sure, but it’s usually a misunderstanding that you can resolve by solving a puzzle or finding a bauble. Rather, Smushi Comes Home is all about poking in all kinds of nooks and crannies to either be given a knick-knack or to simply enjoy the incredible design of the forest.

For the most part it’s a scalable affair; you can do the minimum requisites in order to get yourself closer to home or you can plumb the depths of each area and be rewarded with stuff like fungal biology note cards, new caps to wear and the ability to lengthen your wall climb or parasail. Everything facilitates making the ability to dink around more approachable and sometimes quicker. It’s not necessary through; there isn’t a fail state to be had. Just you hiking around, taking in the sights and being rewarded for your tenacity in exploring.

The nice thing is that SomeHumbleOnion is very good at pacing the game in a way that doesn’t drag on with fluff but holds your attention long enough to be satisfying before you reach your goal. Everything presented here feels just right, and neither feels truncated nor like it overstays its welcome.

It seems lazy to compare this to the most recent Zelda games, but they share the same sense of complete control over your character in such a way that it makes it feel great to go to the outer reaches and just… check things out. I can become enthralled by myriad checklists as much as the next guy, but it can be really nice to just exist in a game world and admire its design. If Smushi ever gets lost again, I’ll help him find his way back anytime.

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Smushi Come Home was developed by SomeHumbleOnion and published by Mooneye Studios, and it’s available on PC and Switch. We played the Switch version.

Disclosure statement: review code for Smushi Come Home was provided by Mooneye Studios. A Most Agreeable Pastime operates as an independent site, and all opinions expressed are those of the author.

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