Chaotic platformer Pepper Grinder lets you take on monsters with a truly gigantic drill, and it's one of my highlights of Steam Next fest

Pepper Grinder is a lovely little action-packed platforming adventure, all done with a drill the size of a human being - and it's one of the standouts of Steam Next Fest.

Ahr Ech's demo doesn't tell you much from the jump - it just hands you a gigantic drill and tasks you with burrowing through the Earth to defeat monsters and claim treasure. Admittedly, that's actually all the setup you'll need to have a great time with Pepper Grinder's demo. When something just works this well, it needs little introduction. 

This is a platformer at heart, but a damn weird one. Priming the drill and burrowing into the Earth feels like firing a bullet, only you're the bullet, and you're controlling where you delve into the ground before you coming careening out the other side of the pile of Earth you've just dug into. 

You're rapidly steering yourself around our through monsters to kill them, or trying to keep your path in line with a series of gems to claim them all. Mercifully, the drill isn't too hard to control, and feels like it can be brought to heel with some practice, not unlike some wild animal you're trying to tame. 

Pepper Grinder even has you hopping between the Earth in mid-air, so sometimes you'll need to prime a boosted jump before you reach the end of a patch of Earth, to send yourself flying over vines and other nasty terrain. The whole thing feels like a rollercoaster, only one you're directly in control of and responsible for. 

Thankfully, Pepper Grinder's level design is short and sweet, and doesn't punish you for missing any gems. It's a simple case of going for what you want to - more skilled players might rapidly flit between piles of Earth to claim the maximum number of gems possible, while others might just take the safest path from point A to B to complete the level. 

Speaking of gems though, Pepper Grinder's sound design goes hard with the collectibles. If you can collect a full line of gems while controlling the drill, a bigger gem will spawn for you to snap up, and the sound design urges you towards this by providing a little beep that subtly gets higher in pitch the more gems in a line you collect. It's oddly compelling stuff. 

Pepper Grinder is due out at some point later this year in 2024, releasing on both PC and Nintendo Switch. Head over to the game's Steam store page to wishlist it and stay up to date with all the latest news going forward.

You can also keep an eye on our upcoming indie games guide for a look at all the other small-time gems set to debut in full later this year.