Grounded: How I Went From Screaming at Spiders to Building a Four-Story Base
Grounded · Xbox Game Studios
▶ SCORE8.8/10
JJenna
Good for couplesMust Play
▶ TL;DRIf you like exploration, crafting, and slowly becoming stronger while the world around you stays just a bit threatening, Grounded is worth your time. It’s the kind of game that doesn’t rush you - you kind of grow into it. And once it clicks, it’s surprisingly hard to put down.
The Game I Never Meant to Play (But Ended Up Loving)
I knew Grounded existed for a while. My partner had been playing it solo, proudly showing me his little tiny-human character building forts and battling ants. He kept saying, "This would be so much fun together."
One evening, just as I finished a couple of Nintendo games, he looked at me with that hopeful sparkle. He said, "I’ve always wanted to play this with someone. Could we please play together?"
And really, when something is your partner’s dream, playing a game with them feels like the easiest happiness you can give, right?
So we decided to start. He opened his Steam version, I downloaded it on Nintendo, and we jumped into the backyard.
+ PROS
Play solo or with friends (up to 4)
A satisfying blend of exploring, collecting, crafting and leveling up
Lots to do beyond the main story
− CONS
Enlarged insects can be very scary
Some item drops rely on luck
For better building, you need better platform (my nintendo was struggled)
The Story - Shrunk Teenagers and Backyard Survival
The game opens almost like a tiny sci-fi movie. It's start with a television show, and coming with alarming local news, that four local teenagers have gone missing. But the twist is that they haven’t vanished into thin air… they’ve been shrunk to the size of an ant. Which means the backyard becomes an entire world. Grass blades are tall as trees. Pebbles become boulders. A ladybug is suddenly majestic. A spider is... absolutely a horror villain.
From there, survival becomes the heart of the adventure. You need to figure out how to cut grass to build your first little shelter, scavenge anything that resembles food, and craft weapons out of sticks and insect parts. All while avoiding getting chomped, poisoned, webbed, stung, or startled into throwing your controller.
And scattered across the backyard are mysterious labs hidden in the strangest places. One up in the branches of a giant oak. One underwater in a pond. One tucked deep inside an ant hill. One surrounded by a cloud of toxic haze where you need to craft a gas mask just to breathe.
Each lab leads you closer to the truth behind the shrinking experiment. And, hopefully, how to become a normal-sized human again.
It’s quirky, cinematic in its own small way, and surprisingly clever in the way the world unfolds as you start to understand it. Like the backyard is both a map and a puzzle, and you slowly learn its language.
My First Impression… was Chaos
If I’m being entirely honest, I did not enjoy this game at the start. Not even a little.I spawned into the backyard, tiny and confused, staring up at grass taller than me, and within minutes I had already died… several times.
First, I died from thirst because I couldn’t find a single droplet of clean water.
Then I panicked at a spider and died...
Then I fell off a tree...
Then I drowned in a pond...
Meanwhile, my partner was having the time of his life.Running around like some backyard survival expert. Collecting resources, crafting armor, unlocking quests, discovering secret labs.
And me? I was just desperately trying not to die from all of these. Every time a spider appeared, I screamed. (And why the spider attack sound is so scary!)
While playing this game, I knew I would have died already if I were shrunk.
It took me almost the entire game to finally get the hang of it. And then, when I finally reached that moment where things clicked where I understood the crafting, the exploration, the thrill of oooooh there’s something cool over there– let’s go!
My partner… got bored.
He wandered off to play something else, while I was suddenly the one saying “Wait. No. I’m actually having fun now!”
So, I did something unexpected. I restarted. Alone.
When I Restarted Alone… Everything Changed
Playing alone felt like someone turned on a light.
For the first time, I actually had to read the survival guide instead of screaming and hiding behind my partner. I had to gather my own materials, learn which plants become fiber, which bugs drop what, how to track water droplets by looking up instead of down. I learned to hit grass for dew. I learned to cook mushrooms and roast aphids (yes, I felt bad, but survival is survival). I learned to build my own little safe spot before nightfall.
Without someone sprinting ten steps ahead, the world slowed down in the best way.
The backyard stopped being terrifying. It started feeling familiar, even comforting. Though I will admit, exploring new areas alone still gave me that tiny nervous feeling. And yes, I continued to die for many, many reasons.
But I kept going. I built my own base, that turns into a four-story house with storage chests lined. I crafted better armor. I upgraded my weapons. And I even adopted multiple pets: an aphid, a black ant, and a red ant.
Exploring the labs became the real heart of the game. Each one tucked in strange corners of the yard. On top of the big oak. Under the pond, glowing and eerie. In the hazy poisonous fields where everything tries to kill you.
Every time I unlocked a new clue, I felt that quiet, satisfying spark of progress. That feeling of: okay, I can do this.
By the time I completed the main story, finished most of the side quests, and returned to full size again… I was genuinely proud of myself. The scared, confused, constantly-dying player from the first hour would have never believed it.
When I finally stepped back and thought about why the game hit me so deeply, I realized: Grounded taps into something ancient.
Yes, it’s just a backyard. But the curiosity it sparks feels old. Like the kind of curiosity that must have lived in our ancestors when they stepped into tall grass they couldn’t yet name. Try, fail, try again. Learn which plants heal you and which ones will wreck your day. Invent tools because your hands alone aren’t enough. Build shelter not because the game tells you to, but because night genuinely feels unsafe.
There’s something beautifully human about that.
And maybe that’s why playing alone felt so meaningful. No one to rush me. No one to drag me or save me. Just me, my tiny shoes, and this enormous world full of secrets. I wasn’t just completing quests. I was becoming someone braver, bit by bit.
Final Thoughts
Grounded kind of snuck up on me. I started playing just to keep my partner company, but somewhere along the way it quietly became my game. The kind where progress happens in small steps, and one day you catch yourself doing something you definitely couldn’t at the beginning - like casually fighting a mosquito instead of running for your life.
It’s funny how a backyard can turn into a whole world once you slow down and actually live in it a bit.
Now that Grounded 2 is on its way, I’ve already started hinting to my partner like: “So… you ready to get tiny again? Or am I going solo this time?”
Either way, I’m going back in. There’s always something new behind the next blade of grass.
★ FEATURED
9.0
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