Botanicula

Botanicula follows the journey of five insects to save their tree habitat from being overran by spider-like parasites. There are no cohesive written or spoken words to progress the story or describe what your task is. Instead, the game relies on animations, pictures, and arrows to give hints.

At first, it may seem baffling, but once you understand how the game works, you will make progress, partly by using a bit of logic, and a bit of trial-and-error. The puzzles are quite like 'Swords & Sworcery' where you have to click sets of objects multiple times, or in some specified order, but it's more obvious, charming and fun. The game is split into several chapters and in each one you have a main task of acquiring a set number of items such as 3 feathers, 5 keys, 3 babies etc.

On each screen, there will be many obvious objects to click and experiment with, and some not so obvious objects which may require pixel-hunting to find the interactive objects. Some objects require more than a click, so you may need to drag or shake them instead. Sometimes, it may be more like a point-and-click adventure where you need to get one item, and give it to another character to progress.

There's plenty to discover in the game's world. As you interact with plants and animals, it may trigger reactions, and a card may get added to your collection. As a sub task, it can be your aim to fill your encyclopedia of the games ecosystem. A lot of the creatures are down-right bizarre and there are a lot of surreal moments during the game, especially since it gets progressively weird as you reach the game's climax.

The world produces a lot of sound when interacted with as well as its own ambient noise, which is a bit of a mix of 'Swords & Sworcery' and 'Proteus', but again, Botanicula seems to have the upper hand.

There's plenty of indie games that barely have any game-play and may rely on other ways of entertainment such as sound. Games like 'Swords & Sworcery' and 'Proteus' seemed to rely too much on sound, but Botanicula has a more balanced system between great sound, visual charm, and game-play elements, meaning it can just about pass itself off as a game as well as an intriguing and charming experience.

its a point and click adventure game, which uses the sort of quirky humour found in Double Fine games (from the visual style, to the lack of dialogue).

I think its time for me to admit that i cant get much out of this genre. The times when i like the game its usually because of the story (Gemini Rue!), i simply tolerate at most the game mechanics. Unfortunatly, for all its cute style is worth, Botanicula doesnt really have strong story. So all its got is lots of trial and error puzzles, and lots of frustration. Its dull and quickly tedious to play. Its design is very similar to other games by Amanita design.

Its a solid game for people who enjoy the genre definitly, but not for me.

Well, this is a problematic case.

I have had bit mixed experiences with Amanita games, they are visually very fascinating and it's nice to see point-and-click get some serious love, but sometimes the gameplay gets a tad too obscure for me.

Botanicula is the best of the bunch, a charming game which holds up also in the exploration and story department, the individual areas actually make a whole.
But about 2/3 through the game (based on the walkthrough I looked at), the game throws in a ridiculous bottleneck section, where it is perfectly obvious what one must do but to actually perform the thing needed requires a series of actions with careful timing performed with little to no margin for error, and not passing that section brings the game to a halt. And I loathe bottlenecks like that.

But despite that (and me never getting through the game), this still has much to recommend itself.