When you were little, did you ever have a sticker album?  It seemed to be a popular thing when I was a youngster back in the 80s anyway.  Not sure if they’d allure today’s technology savvy kids or not, but what if I told you now there’s a game about filling up a sticker album!  Because that’s just what you do in Pilo and the Holobook.  In the game, you play as Pilo, a little humanoid fox critter who assists a Professor.  This Professor has just invented a Holobook.  Just point the Holobook at something and it’ll scan it and make a sticker out of it that you can then place in the book and it’ll store info on it like an encyclopedia.  So your job as Pilo is to go from planet to planet scanning everything you can to fill up the Holobook.  The game is available on most current consoles and PC, but reviewed on Switch here.

In the game you’ll walk around these beautiful hand drawn top down 2D locations.  Hold down the A button to open the Holobook and begin scanning.  Point it at nearby objects to scan then and then place the sticker you get into the book.  Sometimes you might have to solve a simple switch or map puzzle with the stickers, and some can be placed in certain spots in the book for more points.  When you have enough points, you can usually move on to the next area or story section.

I liked the graphics and creative gameplay ideas, but it had some problems as well that caused me to stop playing after a while.  The game is a bit repetitive and tedious, especially since they make you scan things twice later on in the game.  And some of the goals and objectives are unclear, which caused me to get ‘stuck’ so to speak.  Just a bit more guidance in that regard would’ve made things a lot better.

Kid Factor:

Nothing violent or objectionable here.  Reading skill is needed for all the text, though.  Pilo and the Holobook is rated E for Everyone.

Tags: Game Reviews