Full Bore – Dig into an amazing indie puzzle game
Mining, puzzles, and pigs – now all wrapped up in one game like you’ve always wanted. Full Bore, a game about a boar that just wanted to chase butterflies and ends up getting framed for a vault heist and forced to work in a mine, recently made its way to Steam. I do so enjoy pixel art games and with a choice between two porcine protagonists, this was a huge step for pigs in video games everywhere. So I spent some time getting down and dirty in this indie puzzle platformer to see what shakin’ with the bacon.
Full Bore started back in January 2013 with the successful funding of its Kickstarter. The guys over at Whole Hog games finished part 1 (The First Dig) and released it in order to fund part 2 (Into Hard Earth) and improve upon part 1 all for the recent Steam release. What they’ve produced is an amazing looking pixel art puzzle game with a great soundtrack and a phenomenal story buried beneath the surface. It’s nothing short of a testament to the power of a devoted team of programmers making their dream a reality.
Beautiful art, color, and lighting.
My first delve into Full Bore was done live on the Dorkadia Plays channel on Twitch. I was so focused on the game that I hardly said a word during the broadcast. Full Bore gives you all of your tools for the game very near the beginning and then lets you loose into a large open (albeit underground) world to explore as you please. So it is possible to solve every puzzle you come across as you find it without having to find some other power up later on and come back. It’s a game that allows you to explore every option without fear because one of the key abilities in the game is that of rewinding time. So if you, like me, tend to rush in and realize that you’ve made a grave error, it’s easy to back things up and find a better way to proceed. However, as you learn new things about how to best manipulate the various blocks in the game, it’s probably a good idea to return to previously visited areas to see if you can find more gems. As a hint, if you’ve cleared all the gems, secrets, and paths from an area, the border turns gold on your map.
No idea what I’m doing here.
While I love the soundtrack and the story that can be pieced together about scientists experimenting on pigs until they became so intelligent that they formed their own society which eventually suffered a civil war between two pig factions, the puzzles and the very open style of the game have had me feeling like I’m running in circles. I want to reiterate that I think the game is fantastic, but my personal puzzle solving skills aren’t entirely up to task for this one. There have definitely been a couple rooms where I think I see what the solution should be, but I have no idea how to go about making it happen. I’m certainly going to keep at it for a while before I resort to YouTube for council, but for some of us, that may be the only way to get through parts of this game. I always feel much better when I solve these things on my own because it feels silly to have not seen the solution before when someone else shows it to me.
Despite my own personal shortcomings in my spatial problem solving, Full Bore is a cute, fun, and worthwhile addition to the library of anyone that enjoys a game that actually makes you think. The wide cast of colorful characters helps to keep things interesting as you delve deeper into the ground to repay your debt and uncover the mysteries buried there. It’s hard for me to do the game justice without letting you see it in action, so I suggest checking out this trailer: 5 Reasons to Dig the Pig.
