Ubisoft is lately giving us some small flirtatious and remarkable jewels. Child of Light or Valiant Hearts: The Great War surprised last year, and this 2015 also starts very well with Grow Home , a project or idea that was circulated internally between the company’s studios,
but finally reached the hands of the timely managers and took the necessary momentum to become full commercial game and really closed. Reflections , the study linked traditionally to
the Driver series, has been in charge of telling us this tale of a gardener robot who must return home taking advantage of the environment he knows best, that of botany. Initially it is exclusive of Steam ( PC ), at a price of 7.99 euros .
Grow Home is a product that is not too long lasting – 2 or 3 hours are enough to reach the end – nor those that inspire an experience that is stored in the memory forever. On the other hand, it is a small delight, self-absorbed and coquettish, a very particular chocolate within the alternative proposals and totally carefree of the graphic power or useful lives that justify the price.
His approach is simple, take the little robot BUD (Botanical Utility Droid) home, the Star Plant , on top of a small green planet full of floating islands, caves and waterfalls, and a large vine plant in its center whose Stem we must make grow and grow taking its branches to the food islets.
This idea was exposed at the time in a polygonal world and triangles in sight. And so it has come, achieving a very minimalist aesthetic but with enough
strength and identity that also has good animations for the robot, some color effects and remarkable brightness or drawing distances and satisfactory screen elements. But without more, we do not find here an audiovisual portent
that makes us talk about something really inspiring and memorable. The same thing happens with the sound, very pleasant in music and little sounds that our red botanic unit emits, but nothing that makes it stand out among the best audio sections of the indie scene.
It is appreciated that audiovisually it is not very treated, that it was a prototype of game for internal use taken quickly to the massification of Steam.
BUD can jump and glide between surfaces, sticks to any wall with its metallic hands, which the player manages by holding down and interspersing the
control triggers (or keyboard keys), a management idea that makes it intuitive and fun, although also presents some annoying imprecision in certain situations, diagonal grabs, at high speed, etc. But that feeling of never being completely
safe in the heights is part of the enchantment of the gameplay of Grow Home, which goes from the ground to the sky, allowing our character in his way to search for gems that increase the player’s possibilities with commands like move and move the cameras, have a propeller, increase the jump, etc.
In Grow Home, the road to home is marked by the player climbing the huge vine, reminiscent of the fable of the Beanstalk Magical or the classic plants up to the clouds of Super Mario Bros. BUD will only have to reach the r amas floweringto mount on its tip and let it lengthen by guiding them like a rocket to any of the nearby islets so that they begin to feed the large
plant from which they start. This creates different paths depending on the twists and turns we make with these branches that stretch, which can generate really convoluted and very funny pictures to explore and travel. Environments always shaped
by our movement and different from those of another player. Of course, it does not matter too much how we trace it, it is very easy to get to connect the branches and islets and that does not affect too much progress or difficulties encountered.
With the progress in the small adventure, we will be accessing new movements and abilities, like a daisy that serves as a parachute or protractor of the jump,
leaves that let us bounce and climb faster than climbing, a natural hang glider for long distances, portals of reappearance when we suffer fatal falls, etc. In any case, however, we must speak of a powerful variety between zones or situations.
Nor is there time to feel like the game is repetitive, which makes the sum of ideas and approaches really formidable and suitable for all types of audiences, regular
players or not. The difficulty is adequate and is going to crescendo in its proper measure. There are unlimited lives and the only penalty for dying is having to go back up the stretch of the fall.
