$14.99Botanicula
No text, no timers, just a strange and gentle world to wander through.
Is Botanicula worth it?
Botanicula is worth it if…
- you like games you can finish in a few relaxed evenings
- you enjoy poking at every clickable thing just to see what it does
- you want something to play with a partner, kids or grandparents around
- you love hand-drawn worlds and music that does half the storytelling
- you have patience for a few puzzles that only make sense in hindsight
Screenshots
A tree that is alive down to the last sprout
Your home is one enormous tree, and the game gives you more than 150 locations to wander through on the way down it. Every screen is packed with things to poke: sprouts, leaves, odd little animals, each with its own animation and sound. Click a creature and something happens, often something silly, sometimes a hidden bonus.
It is the kind of place where the shortest route between two points does not exist, because everything on the way is worth a click. The world is hand-drawn and colorful, more like a picture book than a game level, and it rewards the sort of player who cannot walk past a wiggling mushroom without pressing it.
Five heroes, one seed
The story is simple and told without a single line of text: parasites have taken over the home tree, and five little tree creatures set out to save its last seed. No lengthy dialogs to sit through, the characters and animations carry it all.
You do not control one hero but five, each with their own skills and personality. A puzzle might need the one who can do what the others cannot, so part of the game is figuring out which of your odd little friends to send in. The puzzles themselves are mostly gentle, solved by trying things and watching what the world does, and the whole trip has the feel of a kind, slightly absurd cartoon.
Nothing here is in a hurry
There are no timers, no failure screens, no way to lose. You click, something charming happens, you move on when you feel like it. The music and sound effects by DVA do a lot of the work: soft, playful, often made from sounds that seem to come from the creatures themselves.
A lot of the pleasure is simply listening. Tap a plant and it makes a noise; tap its neighbor and the noise is different. The game is happy to let you stop and do nothing but that. It is a good game to unwind with, short enough to finish in a few evenings and calm enough that finishing is not really the point.
Questions you might have?
Can you play it solo?
Yes, it is a singleplayer game from start to finish. It also works well as a couch game: since nothing is text-based and there is no way to lose, it is easy to play together with someone, taking turns pointing at the screen and arguing about which creature to click next.
Do you need to understand the story to enjoy it?
There is no text or dialog at all, and none is needed. The story of the five friends and the last seed is told entirely through animation, sound and the world itself. If you can follow a silent cartoon, you can follow this.
How hard are the puzzles?
Most are gentle and solved by experimenting with the things on screen. A few later ones lean on trial and error and can feel a bit opaque, so expect to click around and retrace your steps occasionally. Getting stuck rarely lasts long, and nothing punishes you for it.
Is there anything to do besides the main story?
Plenty. The game hides a large number of bonuses across its locations, and many of them come from interacting with creatures and objects that have nothing to do with the plot. Vigilant players get extra rewards at the end, so curiosity pays off beyond the final scene.
