Developer Ahr Ech 

Publisher Devolver Digital 

Format PC (tested), Switch 

Release Out now

When we talk about games being designed with their hardware in mind, it’s generally in reference to unconventional interfaces. The Wiimote duels of Skyward Sword, say, or Half-Life: Alyx’s ‘Jeff’ chapter requiring you to clap both hands to your mouth to stay quiet. Pepper Grinder, though, demands only that you play it with a controller – keyboard controls are technically possible, but bound in such a counterintuitive way that it’s almost certainly intended to deter you from trying. Because at its heart, this game is a celebration of the humble analogue stick.

Not that this is initially obvious. The movements of your avatar, Pepper, are simple enough – left, right, jump – that you could tap them out on a D-pad. They’re certainly fit for purpose, with a carefully studied degree of inertia, and after-steer in the jump, but not joyful enough to carry an entire platformer. But then you pick up Grinder, a conical power drill almost the size of its wielder, and rev its engine with a squeeze of the right trigger. As it sends Pepper tunnelling through at high speed, the transformation is like watching penguins in an Attenborough documentary turning from ungainly waddlers into torpedoes the second they hit the water.