Drill-Wielding Indie Game Pepper Grinder Has A Demo!

Fancy a game built for speedrunners like yourself? Then this Digital Devolver-published 2D platformer might be your 2024 cup of tea.

Pepper Grinder is a 2D platformer with lovely pixel art and a solid hook: you play a girl named Pepper who wields an awesome human-sized drill that lets her burrow through dirt, water, and all sorts of drillable obstacles at very high speeds. Including the flesh of your enemies. In fact, the speed and momentum of her burrowing also allows Pepper to dart out through the dirt and make big jumps like a dolphin.

Think Ori & The Will of the Wisp’s burrowing segments and sandworm escape scene, but the entire game and a lot less taxing (for now). Pepper Grinder’s controls are great and intuitive, and you’ll get the hang of the game’s burrowing mechanic in no time flat, but you don’t just have to take my word for it. There’s a demo out right now with three levels you can replay over and over for the best times, or if you want to collect all the “skull coins” in the map. Because every 2D platformer needs a collectible of sorts.

In any case, you can either take the levels slow and uncover its secrets, or just blaze through it like the speed-drilling demon that you’re born to be. Pepper Grinder will be out for PC and consoles in 2024.