Grunn is wonderfully weird. It’s a puzzle game at heart, though what the puzzles are and how you solve them is deliberately obtuse and foggy, though it never veer into being frustrating. Perhaps its because underpinning those puzzles is a delightfully serene and nostalgic – if increasingly eerie and nonsensical – world, where we can cut the grass, water the plants, and maybe stumble into a haunted house or two. And “stumble” is the perfect verb here, as Grunn’s lack of direction almost necessitates, at least at first, that we aimlessly fall into “side quests”; small seemingly (and sometimes truly) unconnected plot holes, from the mundane task of trading an “eggball” for a band members instrument, to the outlandish endeavour of reviving a dead goldfish pried from its earthy resting place in the park to live a new life inside a fishbowl, inside warp hole, inside the park grounds.

Despite this psychedelic description, Grunn isn’t an overwhelming bombardment of nonsense. I’ll repeat: it’s weird, but it’s mechanically very simple. We slowly build up our arsenal of gardening tools, from shears to trowel to watering can, and from there we can interact with the world in different ways. Grunn quickly establishes a “groundhog day”-esque gameplay loop, where after our first run, we’re told we’ve achieved one of eleven endings, followed by a short piece of dialogue from some unknown person stating they’re trapped and need saving. There is a “good ending”, which for me was the seventh one I got, though by all accounts, my enjoyment of Grunn stretches past merely “finishing” the game in that sense, and comes more through interacting with the world and seeing what bizarre occurrences I can experience.

Visually, Grunn’s world is pasted with hazy, blocky textures, with a wide mix of both muted colours interspersed with bright, almost blinding splashes of warm floral pinks and reds. Grunn never lands on one particular tone – though I suppose eerie and suspenseful comes closest to a through line – as at times it’s funny and cute, like watching a snail race itself over the course of the weekend, to bordering horror with intermittent jump scares or distant figures watching you with gremlin-like mugs. Part of the fun with Grunn is never knowing what will happen, facilitated through that “learning though death” loop, you’re always encouraged to just try stuff and build upon that the next time round. My aforementioned dead fish friend existed in my inventory for many playthroughs until, naturally, I discovered the well of life unearthed by a friendly fisherman. On the other end of the spectrum, it was sometimes the most grounded resolutions which brought me joy, even if the path to get there involved many wacky steps. One achievement requires you find a seed in an otherworldly greenhouse, hop back into your own bizarre world, plant it on Saturday, water over the weekend, and come Monday plant the now sprouted flower next to a grave.

This all might sound dull and/or convoluted, and to some degree, Grunn’s unwillingness to help the player at all might be off putting for some. After achieving seven endings, I’m not too sure how to go about getting any of the other four. Additionally, I’m at a standstill at many of those inconsequential side larks, like one which requires you equip three members of a band with instruments, though I’m completely stumped when it comes to finding the final one. Of less importance, though definitely of note, the game doesn’t seem to run very nicely. Even though it barely pushes my rig, it’ll randomly dip into the 40’s and 50’s when looking in certain directions.

You don’t need to commit a lot of time or effort to get something from Grunn. Unlike a grand RPG which demands multiple weekends and mental acuity to really absorb its value, Grunn simply hands you a watering can and shrugs. Grunn is like a half-lucid dream, one where you’re flying through the sky with nothing but the clothes on your back, where you’re aware of the impossibility of such a feat, but also completely absorbed by the feeling of the wind through your hair. Grunn is weird, and it doesn’t demand you make sense of it. I don’t feel pressured to find every secret, nab every achievement, see every ending. My only regret is not seeing the snail cross the finish line.