Glum is not your usual game protagonist. He has no chiselled jaw, no artfully coiffure ‘do and absolutely zero charisma. In fact, he’s a completely unlikeable stinky little goblin, which paradoxically makes him charming in his own way. What he does have, though, is the kind of feet that not even the darkest parts of the internet would pay to take a look at. It is fortunate that quite early in the game you’ll find a boot to cover up the offending appendages, as you’ll be spending a lot of time staring at that foot.
Glum begins with the titular ‘hero’ locked up in a barracks. Your first task is to find a way to escape and this takes the form of a well designed tutorial. You learn how to kick objects, obviously, but also how to use kicks to jump higher and even chain jumps together. As you progress you’ll also find a magical boot that you can fire off to reach distant objects and enemies. You’re not entirely restricted to kicking, however, as you can pick up some objects and carry them so that you can, well, kick them at things. Look, kicking is what this game is about, OK?
The world of Glum is bright and colourful and feels like it’s been taken straight out of a Shrek film. You’ll face hordes of armoured knights and archers, all just needing a swift kick in the face to conquer. Combat is made more interesting by the vast numbers of hazards scattered around the environment, from fires to iron maidens. Kicking foes into these reminds me a lot of the classic Bulletstorm, with obvious nods to the grandfather of kicking games, Dark Messiah of Might and Magic.
As an Early Access title, Glum currently offers one major level to explore, as well as the tutorial area. This might not sound like much, but the map is fairly large and has a decent amount of hidden areas and secrets. As well as the core objective (in this case ringing bells to disturb the local commander) there are gnomes to smash and – ahem – mature magazines to track down. These unlock extra boots and abilities respectively and this looks to be one of the biggest areas of potential in the game with skills that can change the way you play hopefully added as development progresses. Finding these hidden items adds a welcome amount of depth and replayability.
Gnomes can be tracked down by listening out for their sinister little chuckles whilst the jazz mags are either hidden away behind intricate platforming sections or rewards for sidequests. These sidequests are appropriately bizarre, too, with highlights being kicking rats into a sentient campfire or feeding a chicken to a mysterious creature in a well. I don’t think Glum will be getting any PETA recommendations to be honest.
Once you’ve finished the main questline of the level you get to face a wonderfully ludicrous boss battle that would be a shame to spoil. This encounter requires that you use all of your abilities to triumph and is a good demonstration of what the full game will hopefully offer. Once you’ve cleared the narrative part of the game there is an arena mode to enjoy, but an update killed my save so this wasn’t unlocked for me to try out.
This latter point is core to the Early Access experience. If you like the sound of Glum and want to support the devs as they bring it to completion then it’s well worth the price, but there can be snagging issues along the way. A roadmap has been outlined by CinderCat Games, with a festive clown-filled level, another arena mode, building up to a Halloween level this autumn.
It’s always important to know what you’re signing up for. In Glum’s case, I think there’s plenty of fun to be had in its current form and I will definitely be going back in for more once the extra levels are added.