➤ The tree of Life 🎮

Having risen to the headlines with the beautiful Machinarium, the developers of Amanita Design subsequently confirmed their skills with Botanicula, another graphic adventure released in April 2012 on PC that at the time we had positively reviewed on these pages. Showing off an Olympic calm, the Czech team took it very easy to bring this iPad conversion of its latest effort to the App Store, but it can certainly be said that it was worth it ...

What an effort botany is

The delightful universe of Botanicula is introduced to the player through a sequence that, even without using a single line of text, perfectly understands the simple plot that is the background to the game. The protagonists are five little creatures who find themselves in charge of an important mission: to save the last seed of the tree they live on from the clutches of dark spider-like creatures who want to feed on them. The unusual group will therefore have to start from the branches of their "home" and overcome a series of pitfalls and puzzles to reach the ground where to plant the precious germ, in the context of a very simple graphic adventure in the mechanics but that does not skimp on solutions. originals.

There are no indicators whatsoever on the screen, and the user is left free to find out which elements on the display react to his touch. The nice thing about Botanicula is that not everything that is interactive is necessarily linked to progression in the game: it often happens to tap objects or creatures with the finger whose reaction is purely for entertainment purposes, however, guaranteed by the adorable audiovisual sector. of the product. All this without however taking away space from a gameplay that proves competent in dealing with the genre to which it belongs, even with its very precise rules: it is difficult to apply here the same mental schemes that are used for the more classic graphic adventures, since there is almost never a clear relationship of cause and effect with the interactive elements that meet on one's path. A minimum of initial effort is therefore necessary to enter the particular logic that governs the bizarre puzzles of Botanicula, but once this is done, the enjoyment of the playful experience is guaranteed until the end of the game, with the credits arriving after about five very pleasant hours.

Botanicula brings to iOS all the virtues it had shown on its debut on PC

The developers of Amanita Design have been great at infusing massive doses of creativity into their product, with new and fun solutions that follow each other in each square, except for a slight dip in the final stages of the game. The user will therefore find himself committed to guiding the five protagonists in the most disparate situations, even if all characterized by the same subtext, since the main objective of each chapter will be to collect a number of objects that allow in one way or in the another to continue towards the final goal.

From time to time, it will also be necessary to choose which member of the group to make a particular action, and also in this case the touch of Amanita Design is very personal: if you make the wrong choice there will therefore be a sad game screen. over, but rather a funny skit that will illustrate the character's clumsy failure to complete the assigned task. How easy it is to understand from what has been written so far, a good part of the charm of Botanicula derives from the excellence of its artistic sector, which emerges in an irrepressible way on the iPad. The display of the Apple device highlights the variety of colors used by Czech graphic designers, and allows you to better appreciate the care that has been lavished down to the most microscopic details. Using headphones then becomes almost a moral obligation to be able to perceive the myriad of sounds and voices that animate the game world, as well as the beautiful and evocative music by DVA.

Comment

Version tested: iOS (1.0.2) Terminal used: iPad mini Retina Price: € 4,49 App Store Link Resources4Gaming.com

8.4

Readers (6)

3.7

Your vote

Even if it took two years, being able to enjoy Botanicula on iPad is a privilege that every Apple user who is passionate about graphic adventures should be delighted with: the work of Amanita Design is a riot of colors, sounds and music, all seasoned with an underlying happiness that cannot fail to leave a smile on the face of those who play. Even if you have to come to terms with playful mechanics that often escape conventional logic and therefore can make some puzzles particularly obscure, Botanicula remains a very pleasant experience that fans of Machinarium and not only should take seriously.