by Kassadee_Marie, HSM team writer

I tried out a new (to me) game recently, and while I was playing, I realized I was not only having a lot of fun, but I was glad to be playing a game again. Not too long before this, I played the second Zuma game (Zuma’s Revenge from PopCap Games) and I felt almost like playing it was a chore, though not a particularly hard one. It didn’t seem to be as fun, challenging or as engaging as the original Zuma. This comparison made The UnderGarden even more enjoyable to play.

The game is played as a likable and un-named tubby little character who either floats — or perhaps  swims — in the air, or waddles along the ground. It’s relaxing to play, as you move about in barren caves, spreading pollen to sprout amazing plants and making enchanting musical notes at the same time. Not being a person who particularly enjoys death and destruction games, it was a thrill to feel like I was actually creating beauty. Although the game is a basically a puzzle game, there is a bit of platforming style gameplay involved. It’s not a very complex game, though some of the puzzles can be a bit of a challenge due to limited resources that must be used effectively.

The game starts very simply, and there are no time limits as you learn the goals, movements and how to get to the warp point(s) of each level. It’s easy to become entranced by the amazingly beautiful colors and lose yourself in the captivating music. Then the play slowly shifts to puzzles, as you move through the fifteen levels of the game. As with almost any game, its complexity evolves as you play through longer and harder levels with more complex puzzles. At times the camera will zoom out, allowing you to preview an upcoming challenge, and you should take advantage of this, since it will help you understand multi-step puzzles better.

Along the way, you also make special plants bloom with fruit that is light, heavy, glows, explodes, or  electrifies, and these fruits are required to used in various clever ways to advance through the levels. Here and there, you will also find musicians playing instruments, such as drums, horns and stringed instruments. You pick up and hold the fruit and the musicians with stretchy tethers connecting them to you. It can sometimes be a challenge to move through a level with these items attached to you, but I think that’s one of the fun aspects of the game. One delightful feature of moving along with a musician attached is that the plants momentarily move and change shape and colors when the player is near them. This is just another small extra in the game for the sake of nothing more – and nothing less – than beauty.

You quickly earn new skin colors and collectibles for your character, such as various horns, hats, and other head items which are just other little extras the developers added into the game for fun, and they are quite amusing to mix and match on your character.

The “completionist” will want to explore every inch of the walls, floors and ceilings, as there as a level accomplishment for blooming 100% of the flowers from un-sprouted seeds embedded there. Two other achievements are finding “special” flowers and gems/jewels in each level. These items are usually hidden away in an area that is unlocked by solving a puzzle. There is a fourth attainment involving the musicians that you meet along the way.

Although I like this game very much, I did not play through the game all at once because it becomes slightly repetitive. I’m actually still playing it at this time. I feel this is a game that is better played in shorter sessions. After playing a few hours and then taking a day’s break, you are very likely to want to return to this magical and relaxing world.

This game has been compared to the game Flower, which I have played extensively and to the game Limbo, which I have not played. I understand why it would be compared to Flower, but I found The UnderGarden to be a much more relaxing and engaging game, with better controls. My research into Limbo, while somewhat limited, as I will not play the game after reading about it, leads me to believe there is not much commonality between the two games. Both are basically side scrolling puzzle games, but Playdead (the developer of Limbo) designed the game with the expectation that the player would fail – and fail gruesomely — before finding the correct solution to advance. There is no death in The UnderGarden, though you may need to re-start a level if you don’t use your limited resources wisely. In addition, Limbo is rendered in monochromatic tones, while the colors in The UnderGarden are truly breathtaking.

The UnderGarden was developed by Artech Studios for Atari, and was released on November 10, 2010 and distributed by Steam, Xbox Live Arcade, and of course, the Playstation Network, for the Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 platforms. There is also a two player co-operative mode included. I downloaded my copy from the PlayStation Store for $2.99.

If you’re interested in a beautiful and relaxing little puzzle game, I highly recommend The UnderGarden to you.

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One Response to “The UnderGarden”

1. Burbie52 says:

   March 30, 2013 at 11:57 am

   Nice review Kass, I might have to look for this one, especially at that price. I have been adding new games to my limited collection very carefully and this one sounds like it might fit the bill. Thanks for the review.

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