Grime (video game)

Grime, a Metroidvania released in 2021, was created by the Israeli independent studio Clover Bite and published by Akupara Games. It launched on Windows and Google Stadia on August 2, 2021, with ports for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S arriving in December 2022, and a Nintendo Switch version in January 2024. Critics gave it generally positive reviews. A sequel, Grime II, was announced on August 23, 2023.

The story begins with a stone giant breathing life into a dead counterpart. The player character, a small black hole later named the Spiral Heart, forms spontaneously in a cave called the Weeping Cavity and constructs a humanoid stone body. Inside, it meets half-formed beings called the Stoneborn, who were not fully touched by the Breath. One, Yon, helps the Spiral Heart, impressed by its perfect proportions. Together, they escape the Cavity, cross a desert, and reach the Worldpillar. There, they encounter Shidra, an ancient humanoid serpent, who sends them on quests to discover their purpose. The Spiral Heart fights followers of the Shapely religion—Stoneborn seeking perfect forms to forget the Old Pain, the knowledge they are living dead—and servants of the Child. Realizing its destiny is to consume and destroy the world, the Spiral Heart opposes Shidra. Yon, enraged by his inability to escape the Old Pain, attacks and is killed. The Spiral Heart then crosses a wall built by the Coda, beings of flesh, and enters Cenotaph City. The Coda, who sealed themselves off from Shidra, worship the Spiral Heart as the "Endgiver" and stage a final performance, the Celebration, hoping to be preserved in memory. After annihilating the Coda, the Spiral Heart climbs the Worldpillar, seeing memories of giants realizing Spiral Hearts are forming inside them. Shidra captures the Spiral Heart, trying to turn it into a Stoneborn to stop the apocalypse. If the Spiral Heart gives in, it becomes a Stoneborn identical to its initial form but missing the black hole head. If it escapes, it kills Shidra and reaches the Peak of Creation, where it sees other fully grown Spiral Hearts consuming their giants, then assumes its true form, ending all life inside its own giant. In the Tinge of Terror DLC, a third option exists: the Reality Shift. The Spiral Heart tears open a portal to a new reality, triggering a cutscene like the game's opening, and restarts wit