The Undergarden Review (PC)

The Undergarden is a cutesy and absorbing single player puzzler for the PC. This one definitely fits into the casual gamer area. Imagine if you will a garden underneath the earth and you are a creature that looks somewhat like a tiny version of Shrek. Floating in a cave, you control this creature with the goal of causing the plants to flower, finding the way to the end of the maze and hopefully pick up some gems on the way. There’s no killing, no blowing things up (well, not much…), no fast pace, pulse raising action. Instead it’s all rather surreal and calming…

You are eased gently into the game play, learning how to navigate around the caves and what you need to do. Starting off you need to bounce off green pouch looking plants, gathering pollen to enable you to pollinate the nearby plants. This causes the flowers themselves to grow, lightening up the caves in different ways. Some of these will also bear fruit, allow you to interact with the environment.

The fruits do all sorts of things; there are purple bubbly type ones which are lighter, hence they float. The yellow fruit are heavy and sink to the floor. Red and yellow ones are explosive (but don’t worry you can’t kill your companions … I tried in the names of science and investigative journalism). These are all used to solve puzzles – like lifting rocks while weighing down levers. Where it does get interesting is how to use these. This may sound trivial, but even in the earlier stages some of the puzzles can be subtly complex. The game readily gives you what you require, but how you use them to solve the puzzles can take a fair amount of thought.

There are other twists, wind tunnels being one of them.

Trying to track down all the gems or special flowers, while being blown around by wind is not the easiest thing in the world. Many levels seem easy to complete, but hard to get to 100%. There’s always some little thing missing, and you’ll end up going round and round trying to track it down. My current highest score is 98% and I’m still not sure what I’ve missed on that level.

Visually, the game is well constructed and pretty nice to look at. The muted colours of the caves last only momentarily and soon rampant colour covers your screen. The plants are amazing to look at; they burst into life as you float past. There’re also great unlockable costumes, allowing you to change your skin colour, add some hats and change your horns. All of this is done just by floating into the item you wish to change.

Sound is more limited, but blends in very well with the game play. You’ll find tiny creatures around the environment playing musical instruments. You can pick them up and while they are with you they will alter the musical soundtrack as well as the plants reactions. This was perhaps the only bit of the game I felt was weak, and perhaps even a bit repetitive. I’ll freely admit, this is practically because hauling the musicians around adds yet another level of complexity to the levels. It’s quite possible to have them in your way, and hence you need to drop them, move, and pick them up again.

Initially I was not sure if I’d recommend this game. It certainly is not for everyone. The concept is simple and some might say too simple. That was true until I sat down again and played further. Then I was led down the “just another go” route, and suddenly it was 1am and I was still playing. If you are on the fence, there’s even a demo so you can try it out yourself. Now, I have to go, I’m stuck trying to go against a wind tunnel…

The Undergarden is out now on PC for £6.99 and Xbox Live for 800 MS points.