The Undergarden Review

Bob, that is what I call my creature of unknown species. The developers, Vitamin G Studios, left it up to the players imagination to name it. Bob is a blue alien fairy from my best guess, fairies like to live in gardens and The Undergarden is full of flowers, so why not?

The Undergarden is set in the depths of a mysterious world and to be honest I have no idea what the plot is as the developers forgot to include one. You start your adventure in a central hub with nine connecting levels and a further eleven once you complete those. The aim is to make it to the end of the level by completing some very simple puzzles, and along the way to grow flowers. Bob can float around the maze like levels and by hitting sacks to release pollen he can collect these and use them to pollinate flowers. Some flowers grow into trees which contain fruit that will help you solve a nearby puzzle in order to progress. A heavy fruit is used to weigh down switches, a lighter fruit floats upwards and can be used to raise objects, an exploding fruit can be used to break loose stones and finally a light switch can be used to clear fog. Friendly musicians of the same species populate the world and serve little purpose other than to alter the games music and the flowers design.

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The puzzles, and I use this term very loosely, are incredibly easy. The flowers required to complete the puzzles such as activating a switch or clearing otherwise impassible fog are usually in the immediate area, very little thought is required to solve them. Death is non existent, there are some opposing forces in the later levels but touching them will either take away your carried pollen or push you back. If you do manage to get stuck at any point, you can hold a button to restart at the last checkpoint. I am not the greatest at multitasking and I managed to complete the first 9 levels in party chat – chatting with the rest of the party while they shouted orders and complained about lag on Call of Duty: Black Ops. This is something I can rarely do while playing a game, but the simplistic nature of The Undergarden allowed me to do this.

Graphically the game is average with occasional signs of good. The levels start off dreary but as you pollinate the flowers things start to brighten up in a technicolor neon glow. There are a few areas in the game where you pollinate a large mass of flowers and it looks great to watch, especially if you are accompanied by a musician which alters their growth. As you complete each level, a new costume is unlocked which allows you to alter your characters looks ranging from devils horns, daisy heads and top hats through to skin colourations. The sound is an ambient very chill out theme which dynamically changes if you are nearby to a musician, it sounds fine but I felt like it was only added in to fit in with the arty theme of the game.

Personally, I like to play a game with an aim and The Undergarden does not seem to have one. To me it felt like I was wandering through a repeating series of mazes just to get to the end and see what happens. The lack of challenging puzzles, which there was plenty of scope for, was a let down. There is some replayability in growing 100% of the flowers on each level, as well as collecting a number of special flowers and finding all the musicians. You may find this a nice distraction from the high action games recently released or maybe a game to introduce a non gamer or younger child to with the co-op mode, but the very casual nature of the game may leave many wanting for more.

The Undergarden is available on Xbox 360 for 800 :MSPoints: and PlayStation 3 and PC for $9.99. This review is based on the Xbox 360 version.

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