As Educational as it gets!
This seemingly pretty looking game hides its ugly educational nature. Its mechanics are knee deep. It is barely runs. It is missing basic functions which you would expect from every game like fullscreen. This is a product which reeks of a minimum viable product mentality where a contractor got a job and he did as much as he had to fulfil that contract.
Gameplay
Game is simple and there is little to talk about it. This is often a bad sign when reviewing a game, because a game which can be completed so quickly rarely has anything worthwhile about it.
Click mode and Strategy mode
- Game has two modes. One which runs in real time and you have to click on parts of a plant. Other one is supposedly harder, strategy mode which is measured in turns. The truth is that strategy mode is easier. In real time you lose resources if you do not click fast enough on a leaf or a root. In addition, since clicking on leafs takes away resources, you can easily play sub-optimally. In addition, you have to deal with various effects like frostbites and insects. It is a cool feature, but it makes game into two separate mini-games.
Upgrades
- This game has several upgrades to unlock. They are helpful, but it makes already easy game even easier. It also just outright removes various in-game mechanics in a game which severely lacks content as it is. It is literally upgrade to play less of this game.
Lack of Content
- The biggest issue this game has that it severely lacks content. Both in terms of gameplay and educational. I would be fine with gameplay being as simple as it is. However, there is just next to none information on plants. I learned next to nothing, I had only refreshed what I already knew. I understand that original audience for this game is supposed to be kids. However, since when you can say that you literally know all the facts in school’s textbooks? This lack of educational content, lack of interesting information makes this game truly a disappointment.
From gameplay side, I was missing more and more meaningful mechanics. Frostbites are random. Why there isn’t any draughts? Why you do not have varying season lengths? Why temperature does not go lower or higher with accompanying bonuses? There is ton of real life effects on plants which this game misses and it just shows how little effort developer had put into making this a good product to play.
- Last, but not least are game’s technical problems. This game does not have something as simple as full screen view. Game lacks animations or slows to the crawl in certain places. When I played this title, I felt exactly why it has mixed ratings on Steam. I thought that it was merely because people purchased a simple game and they were disappointed by a simple game. However, that is not the case. Game looks great only in screenshots while in reality it just barely works on computers.
A Game good only for kids at school
This game is so basic that it has content only for an hour or two of play. It is good game for children to play throughout a lesson in school. However, it fails as a proper game due to lack of gameplay mechanics. It also fails as an educational game, because all educational content is basic and sparse. It is not a game to play if you wish to learn more about plants. A product fails on both accounts and has no use outside of very limited scenarios. You will learn more from watching a documentary on plants.Calicifer’s Reviews
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