Shaggy and Scooby. Finn and Jake. Lilo and Stitch. A new human-animal duo has joined the ranks of these other famous pairs. They go by Hermit and Pig, and they spend their days combing the forest floor for mushrooms of both the nutritional and psychedelic variety, while avoiding the rest of the human race if they can help it.
Hermit And Pig is a turn-based RPG with a time sensitive, combo-based combat system. You play as the titular Hermit, a social recluse living in the woods with his best friend named Pig (also a literal pig). Their woodland isolation is interrupted when a nearby town needs help. A mysterious company has taken over the local factory and laid off all workers. With a corporate conspiracy afoot, Hermit must not only battle angry creatures and capitalist shills, but his own social anxiety in order to connect with the community that needs him. And yes, you can pet the pig.
There’s no denying how bleak our current world feels. Fascists are running around attacking and killing human beings in broad daylight at the behest of the American government, and rich CEOs are bending the knee to the administration in order to maximize profits at the expense of human beings. None of this is necessarily unprecedented, but the recent escalations are enough to make anyone’s despair palpable. Artists of all kinds across all mediums are questioning their day-to-day lives, wondering how they can meet the current moment. Hermit And Pig, and the game’s developers at Heavy Lunch Studio, are meeting it with wit and whimsy.
This story is refreshingly to the point about what is necessary in these dire moments, all while maintaining a good sense of humor and charming aesthetic. Hermit And Pig’s writing and gameplay hold a clear reverence for Earthbound, Paper Mario, and the Mario & Luigi games, but with an explicit political edge. As the town’s inhabitants suffer from lack of work and the degradation of the natural habitat due to the cruel actions of the company and its boogeymen, Hermit and the entire town must work together to overthrow the capitalist overlords ruining their lives. If you’ve ever felt catharsis watching a video of a fascist receiving karmic retribution, then Hermit and Pig are your comrades.
The battle system and encounters are an engaging and unique entry into the RPG canon. While Hermit does gain experience after each battle and uses it to level up, it’s really the player who is gaining the experience by learning the muscle memory for attacks. Not unlike a fighting game combo, every punch, kick, stomp, slap, or use of a slingshot has its own string of multi-button inputs attached to it. On the player’s turn, there is a set amount of time to complete various actions, and the more the combos become ingrained within one’s hands, the faster they will be able to complete them. This in turn allows players to complete more actions before the timer runs out as they improve. The prioritization of individual skill growth keeps the game’s pacing as urgent as its call for local organizing and direct action, preventing it from getting bogged down with excessive grinding. As you progress, you will gain access to even longer combos for more damage, and special attacks that depend on precise timing, all requiring nothing other than your own ingenuity to learn.
While the combat remains exciting across the game’s 7 hour runtime, the conversation sequences are noticeably easier by comparison. With Hermit being a, well, hermit, he faces extreme stress in social situations, fearing ostracization from other people. Because of this, dialogue sequences are staged as battles of their own, where you must pick the correct thing to say or risk taking damage. These moments rarely carry the difficulty or stress one would think they would given Hermit’s characterization and the timer sitting in the upper right-hand corner. Hermit’s arc hinges on him breaking out of his agoraphobic shell and working with others for the greater good. These narrative bits are never dull thanks to the comical sensibilities of the writing, but the actual mechanics behind these anxiety-riddled social situations feel as though they could’ve been taken further to flesh out Hermit’s angst.
Hermit And Pig’s focus on mushrooms becomes an apt and immediate metaphor for our current moment. Like fungi, our communities function like a large, interconnected, singular organism. An attack on any one of us affects all of us, and it will be through mutual cooperation that we will get through the grim times ahead. The cartoonish depiction of our present societal ills allow the game’s messaging to motivate us in a time where we all might need it. Hermit And Pig is an uplifting take on sending the capitalists running with their tails between their legs, and a reminder that it will take your friendly neighborhood fisherman, a neurotic old lady, the young students of the next generation, and every other eccentric person in your community to save the world from those destroying it. It is the exact kind of game worth playing to kick anyone out of cynical doomerism. If Hermit and Pig can break out of their day-to-day—their “business as usual”—for the greater good, then so can all of us.
Hermit And Pig was developed and published by Heavy Lunch Studio. It’s available for PC.
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