Grotto

 PC
Grotto Image
Metascore
75

Generally favorable reviews - based on 5 Critic Reviews What's this?

User Score
6.0

Mixed or average reviews- based on 5 Ratings

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  • Summary: Grotto is a mystical, narrative-focused experience. You are the Soothsayer. The one capable of talking with the stars and unveiling their messages. In a time of turmoil, the tribe of the valley turn to your powers of divination and come to you for guidance.

    Their fate will change depending    Grotto is a mystical, narrative-focused experience. You are the Soothsayer. The one capable of talking with the stars and unveiling their messages. In a time of turmoil, the tribe of the valley turn to your powers of divination and come to you for guidance.

    Their fate will change depending on your auguries. Overthink every constellation, or let the stars freely enter your mind. You are the Soothsayer and yours is the way to read the future.    … Expand

Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2 out of 5
  2. Mixed: 3 out of 5
  3. Negative: 0 out of 5
  1. Softpedia
    Nov 22, 2021
    85
    Grotto is an interesting experience that might lose many of its players around halfway through the first play-through. The idea of telling a small number of characters what to do, from the small to the big questions, is an intriguing one. The universe that the developers create is intriguing. I like the way the game moves towards a deeper plot and begins to show the player something deeper than the first few interactions. But everything is too repetitive, and the core narrative needs more variety. I truly wanted to be as careful as possible for each interaction, getting just the right constellation for a supplicant’s needs. But I found myself losing patience at times and simply moving as fast as possible to get to new story bits. Grotto has a solid core concept that never delivers on its promise but I still think that everyone who picks it up should play through it once to see what it has to offer.
  2. Vandal
    Oct 20, 2021
    85
    Grotto is a fresh, unique game with a very interesting concept. Its narrative pacing is uneven, but the story is fantastic, just like its art.
  3. The Indie Game Website
    Oct 26, 2021
    70
    Though the process of playing it can occasionally drift into tedium, it’s worth working through the repetition to see the game to its eventual conclusion. In Grotto your choices matter. But they matter in the same way your choices matter in the real world: in ways you can’t see in the moment and may never see at all.
  4. GameCritics
    Nov 10, 2021
    70
    Grotto can be best recommended to those who can look past simple, repetitive gameplay in service of a thick and emotional story. All others should look elsewhere.
  5. Multiplayer.it
    Nov 2, 2021
    65
    Grotto is a heartfelt, visually brilliant narrative game, but its lack of gameplay and interactions tend to eradicate its artistic value.
This publication does not provide a score for their reviews.
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These unscored reviews do not factor into the Metascore calculation.

In Progress & Unscored

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  1. Rock, Paper, Shotgun
    Oct 19, 2021
    After several months of stalling and dogged perseverance, I finally finished a 350-page book about the art and struggle of being a Japanese literary translator the other week, and not once did it get me thinking about words and language in the same way Grotto did over the course of five hours. When a game provokes these kinds of feelings in me, I don't mind so much if the choices I'm making are actually a little bit fake. Grotto stands on its own as an engaging story about the way we communicate with others and how their meaning can be polluted and morphed over time, and I reckon fans of such things will likely enjoy it even if the game-y aspects of it feel a little undercooked. If it's a meaningful, branching narrative you're after, though, then you'll be better off finding a different rabbit hole to hunker down in than Brainwash Gang's Grotto.

User Reviews

Write a Review
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 0 out of 1
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 1
  3. Negative: 1 out of 1
  1. Ciocolici
    Aug 30, 2023
    4
    I've really tried to force myself to like this game, considering how much it was loved in the reviews on Steam, but my efforts were in vain.I've really tried to force myself to like this game, considering how much it was loved in the reviews on Steam, but my efforts were in vain.

    This game is essentially a binary answer simulator. The entire gameplay loop is confined within a grotto. A character appears, delivers 2-3 sentences, poses a question, and you're expected to determine whether the gods approve. How is this accomplished? You walk to the opposite side of the grotto, where you must connect stars and select a constellation. Subsequently, you return to the respective character, present the appropriate constellation as your answer, and hope that they will interpret your message accurately. Once done, you wake up, and the same cycle repeats with another character. And then again, and again. Occasionally, one of two other events takes place: an encounter in which something or someone with an ominous demeanor communicates with you, or a moment where you literally "roll some bones" to receive what resembles a sentence-vision.

    This essentially sums up the game. While a storyline is present, much like the characters, it held potential. However, the repetitive and nonsensical gameplay left me hoping for a swift conclusion. Ultimately, it was a brief and uninteresting experience.    … Expand

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