Could this be a possible future direction for video games to go in? If we're lucky, yes.

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Blueberry Garden

What a uniquely pleasant experience we have here! Blueberry Garden is the brainchild of Erik Svedäng, and pits players in the role of a bowler-wearing birdman that has discovered that someone has left the water running from the gigantic faucet that happens to be hovering over the garden in which he lives. Now it is up to players to find a way to turn the thing off before the whole garden is flooded by collecting objects from all around, and building a massive tower out of them so to reach the faucet.

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While there is a time limit to get this done, the feel of the game gives the sense that there isn’t any rush to get down to this. In fact, players are encouraged to explore the garden, and see what’s going on in there. What they’ll find is a lush, living, breathing ecosystem. The world looks as though it was hand drawn, like something out of an old animator’s

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studio before everyone hopped on the computer-generated bandwagon. The little critters running around are odd, yet cute, looking like happy rocks with legs, and wearing party hats. Blueberry Garden is another fine example that shows games don’t need to be running on multi-million dollar graphic engines to look good. This game looks fabulous, and it was made by one person.

As you explore the game, you’ll notice that the world grows and changes over time. The party hat people seem to be breeding like rabbits, and fruit is growing all over the place. Even better, you can eat the fruit, and each time of food has a different impact on your character. Part of completing the game is figuring out what each type of food does, and eating them at the right time to gain access to different areas of the garden where an item may lie that needs to be tossed on the stack, as you get ever closer to the faucet.

Even the music is great in Blueberry Garden, and does a very good job of giving a relaxed, exploratory feel to the whole experience with its soft, melodic pianos (the music is by Daduk by the way).

This game is only $5 on Steam. If you want to try something that is different from a lot of the other games out there, this is one to look at. No space marines, no trite, poorly replicated LotR fantasy, just a delightful romp through a garden with a birdman and a bunch of blueberries.

Mr. Nash

October 18, 2009