Review: Blueberry Garden

Blueberry Garden breaks free from a mold I’m used to playing from and proves refreshing in doing so. It shrugs off things commonly thought of as essential, such as a HUD of any sort, some elaborate description of the goals you’re setting out to accomplish and an explanation of what powers the fruits strewn about the game imbue the player with. While avoiding these tried and true methods it also manages to pull the player in far more deeply than you would have ever thought when selecting New Game from the innocent menu.

Blueberry Garden hit the market by way of Sweden. The game is the product of instructor of game design, Erik Svedäng, out of the University of Skövd. Someone you’ll want to keep tabs on after playing the game, if you hadn’t been already. Directly after starting a new game the player is thrown into a world that at first resembled a clean sharpie drawing across a sturdy sheet of bond paper. Growing off of the various trees that compose the local flora is a multitude of fruits that hang heavy from the limbs, these also maintaining the hand drawn look. All of this can be more than a little confusing to take in at first, especially to someone who hasn’t been overly familiar with platformers in the last ten years, like myself.

The aforementioned visuals I accuse of being my initial pull into the game. After spending so many hours a week staring at heavily bump mapped character models, detailed in the extreme, everything starts to take on a look reminiscent of everything else, and the brain just stops being wowed by what had previously been the coolest thing ever. Blueberry Garden exists on the opposite end of this spectrum, nothing in the graphical catalog the game provides reminded me directly of anything else, nor caused a sense of déjà vu that so many other games tend to. Around the monitor, from the menu to the end of the game, was a border that functioned to make me forget that I was, in fact, staring into a monitor. My perspective became that of someone looking at some bizarre creation through an aged photograph. Simply put, the game takes a visually refreshing approach to displaying the world from the creators mind. Musically the game has found a perfect companion to the visuals, pretty much all the music and included sound match up perfectly to what you’re seeing on screen and adds just as much to the game as the graphics.

Once you get past the wrapper of appealing visuals there is an expected amount of complexity and depth to any game, this is yet another area Blueberry Garden was able to surprise me. It’s very easy to think at first glance that all there is to do in this minimalist world is jump, maybe jump and kick around the blueberries you stumble upon early in the experience. Alternatively, you could carry a rock from one end of an area to another, what fun! A hint alerts you to the fact that you’re able to consume the widely available fruits growing from the trees; the knowledge of this uncovers the aspect of the game I took the most joy with. Every fruit you consume grants your character with a new ability, consume a blueberry and all of a sudden you’ve got the power to fly. All of these powers will aid you in stacking the various items you find throughout the level. I don’t want to reveal the effect of all the fruits for fear of ruining the greatest surprises in the game. Needless to say, they should all provide a smile to anyone partaking.

When all was said and done my played time reported to me I had only spent an hour and ten minutes with the game. I didn’t really know how long I expected the journey through the world of Blueberry Garden to last but I definitely felt as if it should have been longer. There’s so much potential for further levels and I would have loved solving more fruit consumption driven puzzles. In the end, because it isn’t purely art, and it is a game after all, the length is a shortcoming. As fun as the game is, it would have been more enjoyable had there simply been additional content. Once you get a firm grip on playing you can fly through the game in far shorter than the hour and change it took me to play through it.

All the fruit eaten and all your items all stacked, in the end, this game does provide an experience that is both enjoyable and unique. Feelings inspired by the game range from childlike delight when realizing the powers that lay within a previously undiscovered fruit all the way to an uneasy tension when flying through the solid white sky, not knowing what lies beneath. The game is capable of pulling you back to that first time you had a controller in your hands, staring in wonder at everything occurring on the screen. While the game isn’t without flaws, primarily length, I feel confident in recommending it to anyone with even the slightest hint of curiosity over it.

Doin’ It RIGHT:- Fantastic art style. - The music could be enjoyed outside of the game. - Bonus upon completion.	Doin’ It RONG:- One level, really? The concept provides room for more. - Lack of direction could prove to be confusing.
FINAL SCORE: 8 / 10