Where in the world is Peppa Pig going?
Our household may have seemingly moved from toddler to teen over the last few years, but one thing that hasn’t changed is a kid’s love of some of their favorite characters. Peppa Pig may be aimed at kids under 8, but the writing and memes seem to extend well into middle schooler life as the characters and imagery are infinitely shareable.
Putting our friendly pig onto modern consoles is an obvious choice. Sure, it’ll work fine on mobile platforms, but those would be highly individual interactions for kids. On a console (whether it’s on a TV or not) makes the game a little more collaborative, especially between parents and kids. Kids can play and parents and siblings can point things out or jump in. The first game, My Friend Peppa Pig, did a nice job of introducing lite adventure game play mechanics. It was essentially a point-and-click for young kids, with a story seemingly playing out exactly like an episode so that it’s not too long and easy to follow. It was open ended by design, so that it’s an endless loop to play over and over. The sequel, World Adventures, takes that concept and pushes it forward juuuuust a little bit more with an actual completable story, while throwing in a little edutainment along the way.
Much like the series it’s based on, the game’s themes are still firmly based on friendship, joy, accepting differences, and “just being a kid.” It comes as no surprise then that the opening portion of the game lets us create a character, their family (which can be any make up of animals, ages, and genders), and their home, and drops us next door to Peppa to meet and befriend her. The simplicity of the controls are explained right away by through a soccer match (sorry, FOOTBALL match) and some bike riding. That exposes kids ot pressing an action button and moving the character, and that’s really all we need to know going forward. World Adventures is still an adventure game, but now with a few more action sequences within than its predecessor and several more meme-worthy sequences.
The gist of the plot moves us out of the confines of Peppa’s town to go sightseeing throughout world. As the new kid, Peppa introduces us to her playgroup where we learn about an upcoming cruise that will take us to several international destinations in the US and Europe. There are eight places we can visit, each with a few small tasks to do accomplish and things to see. And they’re all famous landmarks, too, that kids will find familiar. The Statue of Liberty is nice. The Hollywood Sign. London. Even the late Queen makes an appearance (in the wildest of ways). Each stop on our tour is lite, lasting roughly 10-15 minutes depending on how much we really want to collect the souvenirs (which can be added to our rooms in our homes later). The little stops are lite, and we can replay them over and over if we want, but once we’re done with a location we go on to the next until we’ve completed them all and returned home for a finale. Where the first game ran like a few playable episodes or a mobile game, this is more like a mini-movie, so that when we’re done, we are DONE.
Peppa Pig: World Adventures is an easily digestible adventure game, obviously focused on the younger crowd, but even playing it with my 13 yr old left us giggling several times. We know exactly what age range this is intended for, and those kids will love it. We managed to stream it from our Steam Deck at home through our MacBook at a coffee shop, and the kids sitting at the table next to us with their family kept peaking and pointing But even so, the collaborative play especially can make this a fun way to pass an hour or so with a family member, even if they’ve moved on past the intended demographic.
This review was based on a Steam code sent to SideQuesting by the publisher. It originally appeared on the April 6th, 2023 episode of the SideQuest. All images and videos courtesy Outright Games.
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