When I first heard of Grounded it kinda sounded like a dream come true. I always loved stories about going small and exploring the world from the point of view of an insect and I just adore bugs in general. So a survival game based on the Honey I Shrunk The Kids scenario sounded absolutely fantastic to me.
But I was hesitant to play it myself because I generally suck at crafting and resource management based survival games. That sort of stuff can get really tedious and frustrating to me. So I went into it with some skepticism.
Thankfully it turned out to be a great experience.

Grounded is still in an early access stage, or as they call it, a game preview. But there is already a huge map to explore with a lot of interesting, creative locations based on real-life sections of a typical garden. They all feel different and unique to each other too: From the wet pond area to the colorful rose bushes, the dark nooks under the porch to the dangerous treetops... All scattered throughout are several spots to explore and work towards like an abandoned ant hill, an area shrouded in toxic gas, or plot-relevant tiny research stations to break up the pace with some sci-fi elements.
I spent hours walking through the foliage and exploring the surroundings. And looking at the map you can see how much free space there is left to be filled in the future development time. This game must have an incredible amount of content once it's finished.

This game is also really effective at making me feel vulnerable as the tiny squishy thing in a world full of large exoskeleton tanks. And meeting the giant orb weavers and wolf spiders has never stopped being scary if you're unprepared. If you got arachnophobia, you definitely wanna check out the settings to tweak that stuff because those are fucking terrifying in this game.
I eventually found every creature the current build has to offer but I'm pretty pleased with the number and assortment of those bugs right now. It definitely had some surprises and I still love looking at them.
Generally, this game looks absolutely gorgeous. The way the sunlight shines through the blades of grass never stopped to amaze me, honestly. Everything is so vibrant and lively. And underground sections are genuinely atmospheric and moody.

As far as the plot goes, you can't "finish" the story yet. There are only a few major plot locations in here yet, one of which is a full-blown dungeon-like adventure in itself. But thankfully there is enough scattered around the map already to keep you busy. Also, apparently, there is a huge update coming some time this month that will add a whole bunch of new creatures and an entirely new area. So that's exciting.

As for my personal problems with resource management and crafting games, I eventually got into the flow of things here and while it can still get a bit tedious to have to farm for things at points, it is pretty satisfying to find new material and analyzing them to figure out what you can do with them. I also loved that you can essentially explore the entire map right from the get-go and literally build your base anywhere.
Really my only gripe with this game, and it's not even really a gripe because it rarely actually affected my experience negatively, is that the creatures do get stuck on the environment a bunch. There were a lot of moments where a bunch of ants were stuck on a rock and couldn't get down, or a spider stuck on a tree stump. Sometimes creatures even ended up inside of objects which is just confusing, and the lawn mites just seem to be stuck in place a lot. As I said, it only rarely actually had a bad effect on my gameplay. Most of the bugs walked around just fine and the ones that got stuck weren't important anyway. But it's definitely something that should be fixed before the full release. Whenever that's gonna be.
I really wonder when this game is supposed to be finished anyway. It already has so much content but as I said before, there is a ton of free space marked as "under construction" that has yet to be filled that would essentially at least double the current map and I wonder how long that will actually take.
I know I will buy this game when it's complete, even if that will take years. But I'm pretty much done (and pleased) with the current build for now and ready to wait for the rest. I only got to play it because I was subscribed to Xbox Game Pass anyway and I already planned on canceling that subscription soon. Once it's done and complete, the retail price is definitely gonna be worth it. I'm sure of that.

I spent a lot of hours in this game already and it's not even finished yet. I think that's already a pretty damn good sign for a great game. If it was a complete release already, this would have been a game of the year contender for me.
Also, I only played this alone, which worked great, but I can definitely see how great it would be playing together with friends as well.

Das was schon da ist spielt sich gut, aber man merkt durchaus, dass es sich hierbei noch um einen Early Access Titel handelt. Das Konzept, dass man einen geschrumpften Menschen spielt bringt frischen Wind in das Survival Craft Genre und generell hat sich Obsidian einige schöne Sachen einfallen lassen um nicht wie jedes x beliebige Survival Spiel zu sein. Nervig ist lediglich der dauerhafte Zwang zur Nahrungs- und Flüssigkeitsaufnahme und ich habe noch nie in einem Spiel so sehr Angst vor Spinnen gehabt wie in Grounded (wenigstens gibt es einen Arachnophobie Modus wenn man möchte).

Takes a cute concept and spins it into an algorithm-driven gameplay loop completely barren of any soul. Totally threadbare in terms of characters, questlines or narrative. There was nothing keeping me attached to this game aside from rather frantically exploring the admittedly gorgeous and well-realised map to find something that could make the data entry-esque gameplay feel worth it. It's in early access at the time of writing this review - and if history has proven anything, it will feel unfinished long after it hits 1.0. Worthless.

Honey, I Shrunk the Survival Game.

I’m old, I grew up in the 80s and one of the best movies, when I was a kid, was Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, where four teens had to explore the outdoors and survive. Grounded takes that plot and makes it into a video game and that works extremely well. The environment is huge, and spotting different landmarks from juice boxes to baseballs is a unique feeling. There’s an imposing feeling to the hostile world as well.

While Grounded has a story and quests, at its heart Grounded is a survival game. In the beginning, there are a lot of dangerous enemies, and stealth or evasion is most of what the player will be able to do. This can be frustrating when enemies sometimes camp on top of your corpse, but the building and exploration work extremely well here.

Pick this up if you like Survival games and this sounds interesting. This is intended to be played by up to four players, and I’m curious how the game will work with more. Even solo, the experience went rather well, and I’m oddly curious about how the rest of the game will play out. If you like the idea of being shrunk down and experiencing the world from a new view, this is a perfect choice.

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Grounded é um jogo de sobrevivência em um quintal do qual fomos encolhidos e agora o jeito é lutar pra voltar ao normal, é divertido, fácil de aprender e com uma vibe anos 80 muito bacana.

A gameplay do jogo é pura sobrevivência, constantemente você estará coletando recursos e administrando sua fome e sede. Tanto a gameplay em primeira ou terceira pessoa é muito competente, tudo aqui funciona muito bem e de forma bem fluidal, nada travado ou complicado.

Os gráficos são bonitos, com texturas simples, mas com um iluminação e um estilo de arte magnífico, durante a noite o jogo se torna basicamente um jogo de terror com os insetos e seus olhos vermelhos passando e você torcendo pra que não te notem.

A trilha sonora é muito anos 80, a vibe que esse game passa é muito bacana e nos momentos mais principais da história a trilha sonora faz um trabalho fenomenal, só a música de combate fica repetitiva, já que você vai estar lutando contra esses insetos o tempo todo.

a história acaba sendo o ponto mais fraco aqui, não é nada muito profundo ou mirabolante. É bem simples, direta e dá pra entender muito bem o que tá acontecendo, não há nada aqui que seja interpretativo, é bem preto no branco.

Não encontrei bugs ou alguma coisa que atrapalhasse meu progresso. Joguei em Coop e é o que recomendo, sozinho esse jogo não parece ser tão divertido. Caso goste de jogos de Sobrevivencia com gerenciamento de recursos, Grounded é um ótimo jogo pra isso.

This is a tiny adventure best played with friends. Even better - create a shared world that you can explore asynchronously. It was a treat to jump in and find new items and structures that my partner had built. And even more rewarding was when we could explore the game together.

The world is novel and interesting and the exploration is rewarding. There are so many secrets packed into the backyard. The combat was more of a utility than a fun gameplay mechanic, but nailing parries was a decent reinforcement.

I would have liked a bit more enemy variety. Don't get me wrong - spiders are the devil spawn - but there are plenty of other gross creepy crawlies to frighten a player (uh centipedes anyone?)