Bravest Coconut

Languages: English

Official website →

Hours played at review time, across 35 reviews with recorded playtime.

Charming and breezy Zelda-like game. Like some other people here, I've heard of it because I use Nathan Hoad's Dialogue Manager plugin for Godot; I've played as Coco in the example scene included in the plugin's tutorial, so I had to see the whole thing I guess — partly to support a Godot project, partly because I'm a cat fanatic, partly because the game's proposition genuinely interested me (also: eternally grateful for Dialogue Manager. It saved and still saves me an infinite amount of trouble). "Bravest Coconut" mixes the trappings of a traditional Zelda-like adventure (emphasis on exploration in the overworld with bits of the map unlocking as you gather more tools, dungeons that essentially work like macroscopic environmental puzzles etc.) with the inventory- and dialogue-based riddles of a point n' click adventure game. This combination actually pans out quite well and allows the game to strike a personal note in a genre (Zelda-like games) that is a bit oversaturated at the moment. It also seems to learn the right lessons from point n' click games while thankfully steering clear of their clunkier aspects: its humour informs the gameplay, and the logic behind the puzzles might sometimes be "moony", but it's never so absurd that it might leave you stuck. In fact, the exploration bits are re-enforced by the riddle-solving components that stem from the more "Monkey Island"-ish influences of the game (in that puzzles require both to manipulate the environment and interact with characters, objects, and your inventory). The overworld map, while cozily manageable, is neatly designed and packed with things and places to discover. Each dungeon has something new to offer, too, in terms of the type of challenges, enemies, traps and puzzles they confront the player with. It is also commandable that the game comes with a variety of difficulty and accessibility options, including a dyslexic-friendly font. Some of the things that I thought might need improvement are more on the quality of life side of things: the movement is sometime jittery to the point that I occasionally ended up bumping into an enemy when rolling into a different room, for instance. The inventory works fine, but maybe for convenience's sake it would have paid to have Coco's notes be toggled separately from the main inventory grid, as it tends to happen in most games. The inventory management, furthermore, is an area where maybe the game could have skewered more Zelda-like than Monkey Island-like, at least as far as the tools are concerned: if I'm using an object that has an impact on the environment like, say, a shovel, it would be more convenient to be able to map it to a button rather than having to open the inventory every time I need to use it (which is OK, on the other hand, for items needed for a puzzle or a dialogue). Aesthetically the game is very pretty and charming, but some things could use a bit of polish (please, use more elegant / stylish fonts, especially for the main menu!). But these are all things that might have to do with the game being a very small production - this is basically a solo endeavour, I gather, and it's indeed a remarkable feat in that sense. My last gripe - and the biggest one, though it's definitely the most subjective - is the meta level of the story. By that I mean the humour - and a sizeable portion of the story - being based on the well-worn self-referential trick of the characters being aware they're in a game, and frequently cracking jokes and quips about that. We've seen this bit too often and I reckon it's starting to turn a bit too glib for my taste. "Bravest Coconut"'s world is a fascinating and lovely place with antropomorphic animals living side-by-side with humans, a very cozy and curious owl village, birds playing in bands, a gallery with weird and fascinating art, and a graveyard with very funny puns and jokes based on various philosophers, and more; why not focus the story on flashing out the ins and outs of this world, rather than resorting to the usual stale self-aware meta stuff we've encountered so many times before? Putting that aside, I had a lot of fun with this short but original outing and hope that the game designer behind this will take the good bits of this adventure and develop them further. Long live Coco, but the real-life model for the protagonist and the feline from the game as well!