Botanicula
Game Description
Botanicula is a point-and-click puzzle adventure game where the player controls five botany-related characters on a mission to save their world from corruption. During this mission, there are various puzzles and interactions the player must undergo. This game was developed by Amanita Design, who developed another puzzle game reviewed here on our website, Machinarium. Similar to Machinarium, this game lacks dialogue. In place of dialogue, the characters in the game make adorable sounds and noises that captivate and amuse the player.
The art style of this game is very unique and artistic. The look of the game feels as though it's a Pixar movie or a children's storybook.There isn't a background for most of the game, as the majority of each scene takes place on a different part of a tree that the characters travel on. Every new scene that the player encounters is pleasantly surprising and always something new. The color schemes of each scene range from bright, vibrant colors, to harsh black and white to depict the corruption your character is fighting.
In addition to the art style, the interface you have with the game is equally compelling. It is not just a point and click game, but rather there are a range of functions your mouse can serve. There are moments in which the game requires you to click and drag objects around the screen, or just move your mouse into certain positions to interact with the world.
Another fun addition to this game is the vast amount of “easter eggs” you can find. Botanicula rewards you for exploring its world and detouring away from the main story line. While exploring, the player will run into many different characters. Clicking around the game and locating these extra characters grants the player collectibles in the form of cards. These cards contain moving pictures of the characters and can be viewed any time at the player's leisure. Depending on the difficulty of finding the easter egg, you may receive a Steam achievement as well.
What's good about this game?
-
Graphics and art style.
-
Original soundtrack and SFX.
-
Appropriately priced.
-
Entertaining gameplay.
The first thing on the list of good qualities for Botanicula is the amount of time and dedication the developers put into it. More specifically, the soundtrack and sound effects within the game were amazingly put together and always a point of speculation with indie point-and-click games. The voices and sounds from the characters as well as the soundtrack were originally composed for this game by the Czech group DVA. The graphics and art style of Botanicula is another solid, positive aspect of the game. This cute, adorable story-driven game looks great, both on mobile platforms and PCs. The price of the game seems fair on both platforms ranging at $9.99 on Steam for PC and $4.99 on mobile devices in the app store.
The interesting thing about Botanicula, when compared to the developers' (Amanita Design) other puzzle game Machinarium, is that it was fairly easy. Although it's also a puzzle game, it's not a challenging one. The aim of this game instead is to entertain and tell a story. The game feels very much like a storybook and is meant to be played quite casually. Machinarium, on the other hand, was the opposite and paralleled other puzzle games more with its difficulty.
What's bad about this game?
-
Lack of re-playability.
-
Mindless clicking.
It's fair to mention that Botanicula scored a 10/10 on the Steam Marketplace and a 4.5/5 on the mobile version. It's going to be somewhat difficult pointing out anything negative about this game.This game deserved the ratings it received. There were no bugs during my play through. I was constantly amused throughout my time with this game. The story line was unpredictable and amusing. The characters were creatively designed and never got boring to look at. The more that I go on about the aspects of this adventure game, the more I realize that I enjoyed it immensely.
There were some complaints by fans stating that this game lacked “re-playability”. Although this is something that may be true about Botanicula, it simply doesn't matter. Playing this game is like watching a movie, and if a movie's good enough, you'll watch it twice.
If I had to pick one thing that I wish the game might have had a little more of, it would be puzzles that involved requiring certain items and logical thought patterns to complete. I felt that at times, this game rewarded the player for simply clicking all around the screen until they found the solution, rather than requiring them to think it through logically.
In Conclusion
It doesn't surprise me that the same set of developers that were responsible for Machinarium are also responsible for a game of this caliber. Botanicula is a well-polished, adorable little puzzle game and if you enjoy puzzle games that are a bit more casual, you must play this one.
