The Puzzling (Mis)adventures: Volume 3 - Limbo, Super Scribblenauts UnderGarden page 3

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The UnderGarden

Jack Allin

For most people, the notion of gardening for entertainment is probably among the last things they’d consider, and certainly not one done for serene, peaceful, almost meditative-like relaxation. But that’s because you’re not a bee. Or better yet, a pixie-like creature with magical pollination abilities able to transform subterranean caverns into bold, brilliant canvases of picturesque flora. Such is the premise behind Artech Studios’ The UnderGarden. While the PlayStation 3 already has its Flower, now PC and Xbox 360 owners can also experience for themselves the simple joy of stimulating vibrant plant life with just a touch, even those who have an anti-green thumb that could kill a cactus. It’s not quite the Zen-like experience it’s touted to be, but it’s nevertheless a charming, pleasant change of pace from the usual style of games.

At first it seems like a stretch to call The UnderGarden a “game” at all. It begins with no introduction, no cinematic, no narrative setup of any kind. You’re simply a pixie who finds itself in a hub-like underwater world and tasked with warping through various portals to bring 15 different levels to life. The basic gameplay mechanics are equally simple. To collect pollen, you simply touch scattered pods lying around to fill up a small, depletable gauge, then float past dormant plants and cause them to bloom on your way to the end-level warp point back to the hub. After that, it’s lather, rinse, repeat. Deadly dull-sounding, right? Well, not so fast.

Indeed, “not so fast” could well be The UnderGarden’s unspoken mantra. Unlike most games, this title isn’t something to beat. There are no enemies, there’s no timer, no death, or any conditions at all. If you want, you could largely breeze all the way to the end and be done, but that would be missing the point. More than anything, this “puzzle exploration experience” is about the joy of the journey, not a race to the end. It’s a simple but undeniable pleasure to transform a lifeless rock into a thriving sea of bold, vividly coloured flowers, deep grass, blossoming trees and swaying tendrils. It’s as if you’ve been given the ability to create a living, breathing coral reef (minus the fish) that snorkellers could only dream of glimpsing. Better yet, it’s all accompanied by a mellow soundtrack that supplements the soothing, gentle atmosphere. If you pick up various fellow-pixie musicians spread around the levels and carry them with you, their own music will make the garden bloom yet again, virtually dancing to the melody’s allure.

However appealing the thrill of creation might be, of course, if that’s all there was to it the experience would get old fast, so The UnderGarden does begin introducing more “gamey” challenges along the way. These come in the form of mild physics-based environmental puzzles. Passages are blocked by debris, air currents will blow you away from your target, and territorial jellyfish-like blobs refuse to let you by. Overcoming these obstacles requires such tasks as weighing down pressure platforms, blowing up rock columns, and manipulating giant cogs. There isn’t much you can do directly, however, as your only inherent ability is to create a small sphere around you that will grab any interactive object within its radius, then tow it along as you go. Fortunately, there are different “fruits” with convenient qualities: some float, which push against movable barriers above you, while others explode or provide light for otherwise-impenetrable murkiness, and still others can be charged with natural electricity.

For the first half of the game, new challenges and abilities are doled out rather sparingly, maintaining the initial sense of easygoing exploration perhaps a little too long. The farther you get, however, the more obstacles you encounter, and more complex ones at that. Columns rise and fall along your path, forcing you to dart between cubbyholes, rotating rings must be powered up and aligned, and passages are peppered with floating balls that cause you to drop all your pollen and any fruit you’re carrying. Many of the puzzles are fairly straightforward once you’ve grasped each new fruit-based gimmick, and the variety isn’t extensive enough to keep you perplexed for long, but the added focus does give The UnderGarden some much-needed purpose to sustain interest. Towards the end, the game does a nice job of utilizing all the tricks you’ve learned in cooperation, forcing you to plan several steps together a little more strategically. The only downside is that some of the later challenges feel less organic and more contrived as a result, which may mess up your early (personal) chi.

With so few actual commands at your disposal, you’ll be up and gardening in no time, and the first level includes a series of pop-up tutorial messages to familiarize you with the basics. Navigating your pixie through this “underwater oasis” is as simple as you’d expect using any of the available control options. The relaxed nature of the game is well suited to kicking back with a gamepad in hand, but the click-and-hold mouse-only option also works well, or you can use the arrow keys to maneuver instead. A second local player can join in for some co-operative gameplay, though the camera only follows the first player, so if your partner wanders off screen, they’ll instantly be transported back to your side. This won’t matter in many of the wide-open areas, but often the camera will zoom in a little too tightly, drastically reducing the amount of visible real estate, with no manual option to adjust.

Left unexplained in-game are the two ever-visible progress bars, as these are only described in the “how to play” menu option. Neither is particularly relevant, though; one shows how far you’ve gone in the current level, while the other informs you how much of the level’s flora has bloomed. Not described anywhere is the function of the musicians. While they visibly impact the plants with their music as you carry them, it’s not at all clear what their actual purpose is. Initially I thought the idea was to save them by dragging as many of them as I could to the end (an incredible nuisance given their tendency to get wedged in narrow crevices), and that may indeed be the case, though you seem to drop them as you warp, and they don’t emerge with you when you reappear. They must have some tangible value, however, as the hub world includes a statistics screen for such things as blooming success and a music achievement for each level. My best guess after the fact is that the latter is granted for having a musician affect a certain amount of the plant life, though what percentage is certainly never specified, and I could be wrong entirely. Shouldn’t that be noted somewhere? You’ll also acquire new costumes and skins for your smirking little pixie, though the conditions for unlocking these is also anyone’s guess.

In your travels, there are special flowers to activate and one unique crystal to discover per level, both tucked away in less obvious, hard-to-reach areas. Neither is at all necessary to complete the game, but it does provide added incentive to explore, which is the main point of the game anyway. If you do make the effort to be thorough, each level should take you about 15-20 minutes, though you can certainly do it faster if you wanted, and you may find that you lose interest in pollinating over time. Once the novelty wears off, the exercise starts to lose its lustre, mainly because it often involves meticulously tracing the outline of every cavern wall and ceiling, often tracing the branches of trees to their tips in pursuit of the 100% objective. As visually and aurally rewarding as it is, at times it starts to feel like busywork. Hey, it’s bees that are supposed to stay busy, not magic pollen-wielding pixies!

A little tedium and rather lightweight challenge aside, The UnderGarden is still a unique, relaxing journey through an engaging underwater world that anyone can enjoy, but beware false expectations. There’s no story at all, and there very few traditional game-like requirements to meet, so check your usual assumptions at the shore, throttle back the adrenaline and prepare yourself for a calming, whimsical experience whose main goal is simply to enjoy the trip. Don’t ease off too much, mind you, as there are more than enough obstacles by the end to remind you that you’re playing a game, not having a trippy hallucination or a transcendental vision in a meditative state. But why not just play the demo first and see for yourselves? This definitely won’t be a game for everyone, but for those who enjoy what they see, don’t be afraid to jump in feet first.