Introduction
Yoohooooo! ...Uwaaaahh!! Let's Play Botanicula!
Alternate Titles:
...And then the very hungry caterpillar dropped a shit ton of acid. Let's Play Botanicula!
Let's all make noises with our mouths in Botanicula! [VLP]
The hell is this?
Botanicula is the most recent adventure game from Czech developer Amanita Design. In it, we play as a group of tree-dwelling creatures attempting to save their home from an evil band of spiders that suck the life force out of everything they touch. This is a point-and-click game in the purest sense, with very little direction of what the player needs to do. In order to solve puzzles you typically interact with the multitudes of plants and plant creatures you come across, observing their reactions, and using those results to figure out how to advance in the game. Being a traditional adventure game there's a lot of key collection, but this doesn't really bog the game down because the exploration of this world is probably the game's strongest point. We can also collect optional cards depicting the many, many NPC's we can find throughout our travels, most of which are hidden and can be found by just messing around with various creatures and objects. The lack of direction can be somewhat confusing for players at first, but I feel the gameplay can be summed up as such: You don't know why you're doing it, until you do it. And then you're glad you did it because everything in this game is so goddamn charming.
It looks pretty.
It's more than that, really. The hand drawn visuals are absolutely wonderful and the diverse set of creatures and locations makes this world feel huge, but the thing that ties it all together is the sound design. The soundtrack, by Czech electro-alternative-I-don't-even-know group DVA provides appropriate backing for our adventure. The sound effects contribute a large part to the production as well, most of which are made with electronic instruments or just the human voice. Overall it feels very organic, no pun intended, and really requires this to be a VLP so as to properly show it all off.
What are those five things?
As previously explained, our main character is actually five main characters that move together as a group and combine their abilities to move throughout this strange world. At times the player is required to choose one of the characters to accomplish a certain task, but it's usually pretty funny to see the other characters fall short of the mark. I'll try to show off as many of these events as possible. Let's take a look at our lineup.
From left to right....
Mr. Lantern
The closest we have to a main character, Mr. Lantern is carrying the all-important seed needed to grow a new tree. It seems to have given him a sort of glow, as well as some useful (but very limited) psychic powers.
Mrs. Mushroom
Not the poisonous type. Mrs. Mushroom can shrink herself down to fit in tight spaces or use spores to multiply and grow new Mrs. Mushrooms.
Mr. Poppyhead
Not to be confused with Mr. Lantern, this lantern-looking guy is a bit bigger and stronger than the rest of the group. He can run pretty fast too.
Mr. Feather
The group's flier, Mr. Feather is the go-to guy for grabbing things in hard to reach places or flying over troublesome creatures.
Mr. Twig
Is a twig.
...okay actually he's quite useful, his branches are all extendable which is great for grabbing things just out of reach or reaching into tight spots.
Videos
This will be done with sparse voice commentary.
Bonus