itch.io

The game achieves its vision of a relaxing green thumb adventure fairly well.

The sound design and music are calming and fit the simple but well-lit and appealing art and models perfectly. There's a weird bug that causes the player to start sliding on the ground until they fall off a ledge which threw me off, but everything else visually and audio-wise is excellent.

The gameplay is fairly relaxing, with some irritating portions that can add up, like needing to use bouncy mushrooms to reach higher areas at the right angle and speed (or risk bouncing off a rock and retrying), and having to wait for sunrise to charge batteries. My favorite level is level 3, since I liked that the path upwards wasn't completely clear, but clear enough to where I just had to look around closer to find the walking path. I really liked scouring the levels, solving puzzles, and finding objects.

However, the physics of the mushrooms feel out-of-place, and I would've preferred the bounce angle to be more rigid so the main challenge is just getting to and growing the mushrooms, with the bounce being a nice visual reward.

For the solar panels that only charge batteries in the daytime, I understand the need for realism, but I would've preferred puzzles that requires the player to move or destroy objects that block the sun's rays, rather than just wait for morning again once night hits. I know this means the day/night system would be cut, but if it hampers gameplay then it's not worth it (even if it's very pretty).

This game's best when it prioritizes puzzles and an attentive eye, not when it's asking for precise movement, unnecessarily long waiting, and lengthy walks to complete a single objective (like in level 3 where I needed to bring compost to the tree, and then go back to the start and to the tree again just for water).

Great effort overall, and the message is awesome.