The music in the game is minimal, usually playing after the characters have solved a puzzle. There are wingless woodpeckers with insect like legs, creatures that look like garlic bulbs with eyes and teeth that bark like dogs, and strange entities that resemble large black lollipops balanced on the end of their sticks. Many strange organisms populate the world-some are vaguely familiar, while others seem completely alien. There is movement on nearly every screen: pollen like specks floating in the air, mossy tendrils swaying in the breeze, and tiny particles moving through the transparent limbs of the tree. The locations vary from the glowing, ghostly branches of the tree to the murky gloom of an underground lake. The surreal, otherworldly look of Botanicula ranges from dreamy and whimsical to dark and ominous. Often, clicking on some of the creatures in the game will reward you with a "creature card": a card with the likeness of the creature depicted on it. There are some additional puzzles in the game which are not essential to completing it, but if you solve these puzzles, you will gain additional points. Depending on your score at the end of the game, you can view a number of bonus animations depending on how many points you earned. Often, you will have to locate a certain number of objects in order to progress in the game, and a number of puzzles must be solved in order to locate all of these objects.īotanicula has a point system. Another puzzle requires you to make a group of little creatures sing simultaneously by clicking on each creature in turn.
Botanicula birds series#
For example, a particular puzzle involves strategically nudging a spherical object out a series of holes in a large, hollow chamber in order to gradually move an unreachable key on top of the chamber towards the protagonists. Once a puzzle has been discovered, though, the method to solving it usually becomes apparent. The difficulty of the puzzles in Botanicula often lies in trying to discover the puzzles themselves. Often, however, there is no real rhyme or reason to which character is best suited to which task, and you may have to select several characters before the correct character to solve the task at hand is found. Each character has a certain skill-the character that resembles a tiny feather can fly, the character that looks like an almond is very strong, and the character that is as thin as a twig can reach into tiny spaces. Sometimes, they encounter an obstacle that only a particular character in the group can overcome. The game features 5 main characters who travel together on a quest to save their home. However, since nearly every screen is interactive, at times it is hard to tell which elements of the screen are actual puzzles and which elements are merely there for decoration. Sometimes it all boils down to repeatedly clicking on every object on the screen in the hopes that some action will happen. Progressing in the game is also made difficult since the solutions to some puzzles may not always be obvious. Expressions or thoughts made by the characters appear in the form of images, which may take a bit of thinking on your part to interpret what is being said. The creature picks up the seed, and with the help of his friends, it begins a journey down the great tree to find a place where the seed can be planted.Īs with Amanita Design's previous games, Botanicula has a very minimal interface, with virtually no instructions or directions and almost no text or dialog. A large, spider like parasite starts to drain the life from the tree, and a seed from the tree lands near one of the game's protagonists-a tiny creature resembling a nut with eyes and legs.
The game begins in a strange, ethereal world where a translucent, luminous tree grows. This is because Botanicula is truly a visual and aural marvel, replete with the same mysterious and surreal feel that is the trademark of the developer's work. While some critics may argue that computer games do not qualify as art, to claim that Amanita Design's Botanicula is not a work of art is in many respects an insult to the game's creator.
0 kommentar(er)
