DPrime Review: Blueberry Garden

Writing a review for Blueberry Garden, or even thinking about what to put into my Blueberry Garden review is a lot like thinking of my review for Noby Noby Boy – It’s a pain in the ass. It’s that kind of game that is not really a game, but more of an experience – an experience that is unique, and is guaranteed to be like nothing that you’ve ever played before. Blueberry garden has won [insert award here], and you can pick the game if you’re interested on steam for only $4.99, and trust me, it’s worth the cash.
If you wanna read the full review and trust me, you will: click over but be warned, there may be a little bit of spoiler content and shit like that in there.

Let’s start with the art style and graphical implementations that were made in the game. The game is very graphically compelling, but within a very minimalistic setting. The game looks hand-drawn, and while being very minimalistic and simple, the characters in the items in the game feel very inviting. The whole area in which you play is very gray and dark. Not a whole hell of a lot going on, but at the same time, the environment is ever-changing……sort of.

You as the player are controlling a toucan-esque animal, which you can walk and fly to various locations on that HUGE (sarcasm here) map. You control your character using the arrow buttons. You can then jump with the space-bar, but what’s this? Hit the space bar two times after each-other and the toucan suddenly FLYS! The whole world is on a two-dimensional plane, so you can fly left and right, and walk left-to-right, and that’s about it.
So about the story – or lack thereof. While walking around and flying across the world, you will encounter many very large objects that may resemble some of the following: a block of cheese, a camera, a big berry that is red, and a salt-shaker. Random? You betcha! So what do these items do, and what are their purpose in the game? Well, as you can see by the below picture, there is a door, and when standing in front of that door and pressing up, you will get on top of something to stand on. When you approach these large items that are scattered throughout the game, the closer you get, the screens starts almost disintegrating, and bam! As soon as you know it, you are in front of the door, and that item that you were by is now on that platform, and when you press up in front of the door, you will be on top of that new item. So when you fly off of these items that accumulate on this platform, you will be able to go farther.

I’m not going to spoil the whole game for you and tell you what happens when you accumulate enough of these items and you can fly far enough, because that would be a dick move on my part, but would be funny at the same time. Even so, I won’t do it.
I guess from what I experienced, there are essentially two ways to play through the game and beat it. You could stack enough items up on top of that initial platform that you get on via the door, or you could not do that take too much time (let’s say 10-15 minutes), and water will start spontaneously rising from the bottom of the screen, and sooner or later you better find something to stand on because if not, you’ll sink. The water in the game will take the relaxing feeling and shove it right up your ass, because once the water starts rising, you will be racing around, flying, and trying to stack things, and find some possible way to stop the water. The game, if you play through it in a sort of linear, or quasi-linear style, will probably last you 30 to 45 minutes depending on what you do. You can’t save your game, you will always start over, but the game doesn’t take long to play or beat, so it’s not something that I’m going to knock the game for.

As you can see in some of the images, there are various trees that spawn certain berries, fruits, or items that you can use in the game. These berries will give you different abilities and “power-ups” so to speak. For example, if you eat a star, that some fucking way comes from a tree, you will get a bubble around you where you can walk in the water without drowning thus expanding the areas you can access throughout the game, along with the “large items” that you will find.

All-in-all the game is freaking great, and is unlike anything you will have ever played before (unless you played Super Mario Bros. on acid). Anybody can enjoy it and after a few times playing the game you will get through and see truly how magical an experience such as this can be. You can pick it up on Steam for $4.99, and like I said before, it’s well worth the money spent.

What I liked:

Graphics – The graphics are very minimalistic and simplistic. They are hand-drawn, and the game can show how a very simple side-scrolling game can be just as fun as that of a full three-dimensional, high-profile game like Killzone 2 or LittleBigPlanet.
Story – There isn’t really a storyline in the game, or one set way to play the game. It is very quasi-linear, with things that you essentially “have” to do, and things that you should do to stay alive. All in all though, it is really up to you.
Water has never been so scary – The concept of the water coming up out of the ground is kind of adding a “rush” feeling to the game, but also adds some more options on things that you should do before the water covers-up everything and you drown. It really makes you think about what you should do to make it through the game.

What I didn’t like:

I can’t say that I didn’t really like anything in the game. The game is independently-developed, and was made to be an experimental game, but more than that, to be an experience unlike any other found in video games.