Blossom: The Seed Of Life PC Review
Summary: Take on the role of a robot tasked with bringing life to a planet.
3.6
Robotic Revival
Apparently I’m on a bit of a survival crafting kick. Something about the (relatively) low‑stakes, flexible gameplay really appeals to me at the moment. While I wait for Subnautica 2 to be released, I’ve been enjoying some other options. Planet Crafter was a recent exploration, and following that with Blossom: The Seed Of Life feels quite apt.
The core idea of the game is that you are a robot tasked with terraforming a dead planet back to life. As you go about your tasks, you will uncover ruins that contain “memory fragments” that enable you to piece together what happened. The main character feels a bit like a cross between Wall‑E and Big Hero 6… which is not a bad thing at all. There’s a lot of personality to be found in your little robot, and whilst his anthropomorphic form no doubt helps that, as the story unfolds you do find yourself getting more attached to the little unit.
The basic mechanic revolves around setting up a supply of power (you literally start the game on low power and have to “share” some power from the nearby machines… success will depend on creating a more stable source of power and upgrading when you can). Other than providing decent sources of power, you need to provide decent sources of water to progress… all of this will require you to find resources to be able to build bigger and better equipment and machines.
Whilst you initially have to make your way on foot, eventually you gain access to a rover and later variations and finally a hovercraft… all of which make getting from one location to the next a lot easier and a lot more enjoyable.
Visually, the game has a sort of simplified style, colours are typically bold and in blocks with little to no gradation between shades, at least on the structures… the landscapes and your character have a bit more nuance, which helps you stand out from everything else. Once you start adding vegetation and life forms, the world really does start to feel more alive and quite lovely.
The issue I have with the game is in the usability. To start with, the mouse zoom feels inverted (ie, scrolling forward makes the camera pan out rather than in… this can be swapped in the options though). Given how often you find yourself connecting or disconnecting pipes and interacting with fabricators, it is excessively easy to accidentally select the wrong item or to simply not be able to select what you want without a lot of fiddling with the controls. Part of this could be fixed by changing the relevant key to perform a given task (ie, not have the key to connect or disconnect a pipe from something be the same one that can destroy it… albeit one requires you to hold down the button… but a completely different button would seem a better option).
Camera angles/views can be downright infuriating at times (especially near the endgame when you need to make a particular construction that can be outside of your field of view… looking up is very challenging). I think just about every time I wanted to build an item I had to fight with the controls to select where I placed it, as the camera angle would seem to go the opposite way to what I wanted, so I would have to move within the world whilst also moving my view at the same time (not a great explanation… but it was quite annoying).
Final Thoughts:
Despite some issues with controls (and they are pretty massive issues), it’s worth noting that I still felt engaged enough to persist and, in fact, completed the game. It’s also worth noting that it seems the developer is still actively working on improvements (and it’s not a big production house… just one person). With a few tweaks it could be quite polished and would be a lovely “chill” gaming experience. Even with the issues, I still think it is highly worth picking up a copy (it’s quite reasonably priced).
About the Author
Chris O'Connor Father of four, husband of one and all round oddity. Gaming at home since about 1982 with a Sinclair ZX Spectrum. Moving on to the more traditional PC genre in the years that followed with the classic Jump Joe and Alley Cat. CGA, EGA, VGA and beyond PC's have been central to my gaming but I've also enjoyed consoles and hand helds along the way (who remembers the Atari Lynx?). Would have been actor/film maker, jack of many trades master of none.
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