Where does the UnderGarden exist? Why does the UnderGarden Exist?
These are questions posed to the player during a load screen. Like many things in life, sometimes beautiful things just are and that’s okay. What a great lesson to teach your kids – and hey, gamer moms! The UnderGarden illustrates the different parts of music performance and how they come together during gameplay, too. Neat!
First and foremost however, the UnderGarden exists for me to review…so here goes:
Visuals
Oh. Mah. Gah. Sooooo pretty.
We all know that awesome graphics don’t necessarily make a game worth playing, much less buying. The graphics in The UnderGarden are simple and fluid, but it’s the VISUALS that blew me away. Your character, an adorable little…umm, creature floats throughout this world pollinating as he/she/it goes, and brings a breath-taking world of color to life.
(Let’s just say I could feel my eyes dilating and turning super glossy like a Manga. I’m pretty sure hearts and rainbows were floating around my head, too. lol)
Gameplay & Controls
After a short and easy, learn-as-you-go tutorial, players learn how to extract pollen and use it to awaken the garden around them. In doing so, certain plants grow fruit that can help you on your way. For example, there is a fruit that lights up dark places, a fruit that weighs things down and a fruit that blows things up, just to name a few.
Each level contains a crystal and special flowers to find. The goal is to find them all and pollinate all the flowers on the level. This, I found, is easier said than done. You can finish a level only to find out that you missed some flowers, so to achieve a better score you can replay the level as many times as you wish.
Not only is it super relaxing to float around and see this world unravel before your eyes, it’s actually a nice change of pace not to have anything in-game to hurt you. On your quest to find the special flowers and crystals, you will encounter obstacles, but the only thing they do is make you drop whatever you’re carrying; pollen, seeds, etc. You aren’t hurt and you can pick them back up, but they create challenges both simple and intriguing throughout the game.
Sound
The sound design in this game is as simple and beautiful as the graphics. As a gamer who plays a LOT of different genres and listens to game soundtracks when I’m not in the act of holding of a controller, I appreciate a soundtrack that is elegant and well put-together. Thanks to my Spectrum gaming headset from Steel Series (woo hoo), I’m able to critically study every sound effect and melody in a game.
The UnderGarden features musicians throughout your journey. They’re cute little creatures like you (I think they look like teddy bears) and you’ll hear them before you find them. Each musician plays a different instrument and though they’re far apart, they remain in time with one another. As a musician, this is an outstanding way to demonstrate the different melodies and harmonies to kids and adults alike. Well played, Vitamin G!
Carrying these little performers around with you results in a color show from the nearby flora and it doesn’t hurt to fling them around just for fun, he he. I accidentally dropped a bomb on one and got an achievement for it. SCORE! Don’t worry, the little guy was fine. ;-)
Overall
The UnderGarden is just challenging enough to be stimulating for all ages and colorful enough to put you in a state of euphoria. Seriously; light a good-smelling candle, curl up in some PJs and pop this game in for an UBER relaxation session!
