May 25th, 2010 | By Ashley King
Andy M: 8
Puzzle Bloom caught me off guard. First, it took over a minute to load, so all I had to stare at was the strange treatment of the title, which looks like something off of a self-published fantasy novel. Then, the start screen comes up, this glowing upside down green carrot is hovering in front of paper-style graphics. So already they’ve made three separate design choices that don’t seem to mesh. And what’s this? More loading bars?! Finally, though, I got into the game, and though I had little idea why my little Glomer was mind-melding with the electronically-enslaved walking sloths to get to the magic eco-friendly portals instead of just flying to them itself, I realized that I was in a classic escape puzzle game, which I happen to enjoy (younguns, think Exit; or maybe Kingdom of Kroz for those of you who’ve been around for a while). So I threw it into fullscreen mode, sat back, and enjoyed the few minutes it took me to get through the demo levels. The last puzzle actually took me a few times to get through (and I’m pretty sure my solution was more of a work-around than what the designer intended). So it caught me off guard because the hardest part to get right—the gameplay—actually worked. Design, story—those can be botched, but if the gameplay works it works.
Ashley: 8
Puzzle Bloom is like the 2008 release of Prince of Persia remade for the Unity browser plugin. No, really! It lacks the Prince and Elika, but you explore a 3D world helping to restore greenery to the land with the assistance of a tree spirit named Canotila. It’s got fairly simplistic gameplay but it is wonderfully relaxing despite some of the puzzles being downright devious. If you love puzzle platformers and you want to help restore more fertile grounds.. er.. then you should definitely give Puzzle Bloom a look.
Andrew: 9
In an over-industrialized world, one little green… thing has decided to take it upon itself to bring nature back. To do this, it will have to hop from menial laborer to menial laborer, guiding them to push boxes and press buttons as you dodge annoying robotic supervisors and the usual assortment of deadly traps. Done in impressive 3D and played from an isometric perspective, Puzzle Bloom is a delightful gem of a game. The controls are smooth and intuitive, the world is well defined and the puzzles are challenging without being overly frustrating. In short, this game oozes personality and is a delight to play.
Ashley King (3 posts)
I’m a freelance writer with a gaming passion for many years now. My freelance writing career kicked off in September of '08 and since then I've been providing webmasters and businesses with cutting edge content which draws a crowd. In addition to my freelance writing career, I also write for two game enthusiast websites, Gamer Limit and Game A Day. Aside from my writing work, I have appeared as a guest in several episodes of the KritzKast podcast, which is a fan-made podcast dedicated to the game Team Fortress 2. I also host the 2 Girls 1 Game podcast, which is dedicated to covering indie games and their developers.