Guide a colony of chubby pals through life in Sproots

I have a new dream pet, and it’s a handful of Sproots, the friendly Pikmin-like stars of game collective Sokpop’s latest. I am tempted to say that I would like to be one, putting my hands in the dirt and eating berries, but they do have an unfortunate habit of dying. Which perhaps indicates that I wouldn’t be the best pet parent for them either. The cheery little “good luck!” at the end of this trailer may betray some of the cut-throatedness behind the cute.

There is a lot to be done in the busy life of a sproot. As well as constantly needing food and water, they can explore, study, craft, and teach one another about everything they know. Which will be useful info to pass around, because they will eventually die, so don’t forget to sit ‘em on the nest for a while to produce new baby sprout eggs.

They do struggle a bit, bless. Their round bodies and wiggling arms lend a comedy to the whole affair, like when I ask them to please spear a bug so they don’t starve to death and instead they just drop the spear a whole lot. They’re clearly trying, but, uh, whoops. It remained firmly sweet, though I confess to stopping playing right around when my oldest sproot died of starvation, so perhaps it would have gotten more morbid from there on out.

Still, if you’re not too worried about doing everything right, it’s nice to just listen to them burble to one another or make crispy snacking sounds as they bobble around.

If it seems like we write about Sokpop’s games often, that’s probably because we do. They put them out fortnightly as part of their Patreon rewards, and they’re typically very good. You can sign up to get ‘em delivered straight to you for $3 a month. Or, you can also buy any of them separately, including Sproots, on itch.io for $3 apiece.