As children, it is pretty common to imagine ourselves as a giant monster causing havoc over a city. Then there were the kids that would want to help their little friends as a giant. Well, Firepunchd Games and Devolver Digital are giving players a chance to live out this imaginary scenario in their latest game Tentacular. After trying out a preview build for this game, I have to say that it is definitely an entertaining game for virtual reality!

Gameplay

You’re a giant sea creature, so naturally, you have suction-cupped tentacles for arms. With these literal suckers, you can pick up a variety of items with any part of your arm. It isn’t too far into the game that they even show you that you can use any part of your arm too.

Starting out the game, you will be given some quick tutorial areas that go over how to interact with people, items, and basically use your tentacle. There is a lot of grabbing and throwing or grabbing and pulling or grabbing and lifting if you can believe that. You’ll be able to grab a lot of stuff and then use different parts of the city in different ways.

Eventually, you will get to areas where you can just destroy the place and act like a monster, thanks to the handy reset button that is always there to start the whole setup over. To actual progress in the game, you will have to be a helpful giant monster and complete tasks for the people though. These tasks are handy though and show you how you can utilize your tentacles better - mainly through a try until you succeed method.

One thing I didn’t expect is that there would be strength-based struggles in the game. It is pretty early on that you will need to pull a container out of a stuck area and at first I didn’t understand what to do since it wouldn’t move. Turned out, you just keep pulling till your tentacle lets go and basically pull with all your might. This section does lead into a mystery zone that I’ll let players find themselves, but I will say this: don’t expect to always be in the water.

Expectations

While I do appreciate them letting me just figure things out along the way, there were times that I wanted a hint. Funny enough, I know there is sometimes a guy at the reset button to offer a hint, but the one time I actually needed a hint he wasn’t there. Bit of a spoiler, but this moment was with the bandages. Being told to somehow get them off and there was no hint on how to do this and simply trying to slide them off with my other tentacle wasn’t working. I ended up figuring it out, but some more detail in what to do at times would be helpful - just don’t take this suggestion as a reason to hold the player’s tentacle the whole way through.

I didn’t come across any in the game, but I hope we are given actual tasks and jobs to destroy stuff. That slingshot mission was pretty fun and I want to see more of it, but I also want to be able to grab stuff with my tentacle and destroy it for the good of the people! Give the monster in me a chance to act like a monster!

Verdict

Tentacular is shaping up to be a fun virtual reality game with a carefree setup and a do-gooder task list. I like that each of the NPCs seemed to have their own personality and attitude towards the monster character. They definitely seem to have put some thought into the different aspects of the game and are going to offer a variety of gameplay styles with unique moments mixed in. I will be looking forward to the finished version of this game!

Tentacular is planned to release on PC VR via Steam sometime in Spring 2022.