A game by Jan Gihr, Sam Rassy, Juli Kralik, and Jonas Ellermann for PC, originally released in 2020.
Plokoth is a precision platformer starring Plo who is on a mission to save his girlfriend, Oth, from a terrible disease that has overcome her. As she lies weakened within a hollow that is surrounded by overgrown tree roots, she falls into a coma. Her spirit then rises up out of her body, taking the form of a white orb, and this orb becomes Plo’s companion as he ventures into the forest (called Plokoth) to find the core of the disease and destroy it.
The game takes place across three themed areas, beginning in the green forest where Plo and Oth live, before descending into a darker region, and finally to a place filled with gnarled roots and dead trees. The action transitions seamlessly from one area to the next, with no level transitions. The game features a strong focus on art and offers beautiful landscapes, as well as a couple of hand-animated cutscenes.
Plo begins the game with a 2x variable jump, as well as a wall slide and a wall jump, and his movement speed is very fast. Early into the first level, he learns an air dash maneuver, which may be performed in eight directions. When Plo gains this ability, Oth’s spirit turns blue, letting the player know when the dash may be used. When Plo dashes, the orb turns from blue to white, and when Plo touches the ground, it turns blue once again. This air dash ability is expanded upon in a variety of ways throughout the game.
There are no enemies to be found; instead, the game is built entirely around environmental navigation, with insta-death thorn bushes being the primary obstacle. Fortunately, checkpoints are very frequent, resulting in very little repeated gameplay – and very quick restarts – when the player is killed. Much of the challenge in the opening area comes from lining up jumps and wall jumps to ensure that your one-time air dash is used at the most effective time. Some of the tougher challenges here involve jumping onto the far side of a pillar, sticking to the wall, and then jumping away and performing a diagonal dash to hit a platform on the far side.
In the second area, the player is introduced to a couple different kinds of fruit, as well as a gelatin substance. Red fruits burst when you dash into them, which in turn grants you another dash in midair, allowing for the introduction of new obstacles where you must wall jump, dash into a fruit, allow yourself to fall, and then dash once more. Glowing yellow fruits work similarly, except that they reappear after a moment… but there are no challenges centered around re-using them.
Gelatinous globs appear in many areas, with most containing red fruits. Dashing into gelatin causes the player to continue moving along in the same direction until he emerges from the other side… or is killed by dashing into a solid wall, operating similarly to the clear watery blocks in Celeste (and the color-changing orb operates similarly to Celeste's hair color changes). As the game continues, the player encounters increasingly complex configurations of gelatin globs that force him to consider the best way to tackle them.
In the third area, new challenges are presented in the form of yellow fruits that are fired out of cannons, requiring the player to hit moving targets and sometimes line up multiple targets in succession. It is also in this area where the final bit of the story occurs, as the blue glow fades from Oth’s spirit, removing the player’s ability to perform an initial air dash. Instead, dashes may only be performed by first touching yellow fruits in midair.
It is also here that the player gets the opportunity to tackle an area in a nonlinear fashion, as the final bit of the level allows the player to choose his direction of travel. Each path loops back to the starting point near a statue, but exploration allows the player to see what has happened to the other members of Plo's tribe who have also been infected. Completing each of these branches restores the Oth's blue glow and the player's dash maneuver, leading to the end of the game.
Plokoth is a student project, and as a result, it is not as fleshed out as other genre entries, but it explores a number of interesting ideas during its short length, which comes in at under an hour and is designed to be completed in a single sitting. There are also a couple of minor issues, such as the fact that Plo’s running animation doesn’t always stop when he does, and the controls for jumping and dashing are reversed in the Controls menu. The game features some lovely artwork and it manages to convey some emotional moments through its hand-drawn and wordless cutscenes.
2D CRED
Plokoth was a student project, developed by a 4-person team over the course of three months. Jan Gihr is credited as the game’s programmer, game designer, and project manager, and he previously did programming on Anno 1800. The game’s artists were Sam Rassy, Juli Kralik, and Jonas Ellermann, and the game features music by Lucas Wolf.
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