I AM B.U.D!
It seems the vast majority of games that I enjoy revolve around stress. Tension, fear and dread are all synonymous with the ‘stress’ to which I am referring. Whether I’m playing a Souls game in a slight (intense) state of panic, or sweating with trepidation before a risky move in XCOM; I’m in a state of stress. This in itself is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it is usually what motivates me to progress through a game.
Grow Home, a game by Ubisoft Reflections, separates itself from that trend. A game centered around a robot named B.U.D *(Botanical Utility Droid) growing an enormous plant into space and climbing it in order to board a spaceship and return home.
Scared? Nope.
One could argue that hanging precariously, hundreds of meters above sea level with the threat of a gruesome death is ‘stressful’. It isn’t. Well, at least not after your initial fall. A few seconds of terror and regret as you realize that you’ve made a terrible misjudgment and fall to your doom, then a cringeworthy death of dismemberment-by-water, finally concluding with an encouraging message from the ever positive ‘M.O.M’ and your adventure continues as a new body for your consciousness is constructed and sent to the last teleporter which double as a checkpoint.
This perhaps seems an anticlimactic and light penalty to a failure of fairly monumental proportions. Especially when, as stated previously, my enjoyment of games usually stems from risk and tension arising from fear of death or loss. Yet, somehow Grow Home replaces this with a feeling of fulfillment without risk. Perhaps it is the tangible progression as your Star Plant climbs higher, ever closer to your objective and ultimate completion of the mission.
But then, Grow Home isn’t about winning. At least, for me it wasn’t. (cliche incoming) Grow Home isn’t about the goal or the destination, it is about the journey.
Nothing is safe.
Little in my gaming life has been as satisfying as gliding downwards around my gloriously haphazard and chaotic creation. Descending down through the twisting vines, hanging rocks and falling water is an incredibly peaceful experience. Conversely, climbing upwards up rock faces, jumping from leaf to vine and straddling a shoot of your world tree as you steer it on it’s capricious and determined journey toward a distant energy rock can be incredibly satisfying. Just as the act of reaching that remote crystal glimpsed from hundreds of meters below and yanking it free is a uniquely positive feeling. Especially when that crystal is the one needed to bump up your jet-pack to the next level.
The most challenging aspect of Grow Home is filling out your ‘data bank’. An encyclopedia of all the flora and fauna encountered on your journey, one makes entries by grabbing and unceremoniously dragging said flora and fauna to the closest teleporter in order to scan it. Seemingly simple, this can prove to be much harder in practice.
Holding a somewhat unenthusiastic sheep in one or both hands while simultaneously trying to scale even a slight slope can prove too much for B.U.D. The solution is often simple, yet just as regularly, one must be creative in order to reach the goal. One of the most fulfilling moments in Grow Home is finally bundling the unique Artic Meep into a teleporter alive and well (intact).
All in all, Grow Home is a singularly satisfying game. Whether one is elegantly gliding beneath a giant leaf, gracelessly falling off a giant vine, or forcing a golden dodo against it’s will into a teleporter. Whatever the scenario, Grow Home is a pleasure.
As an afterthought, if you haven’t played Grow Home, you might need some context for this line:
“straddling a shoot of your world tree as you steer it on it’s capricious and determined journey toward a distant energy rock can be incredibly satisfying.”
Here it is:
Satisfying. Yes.
Images source: https://www.ubisoft.com/en-GB/game/grow-home/
grudgingly optimistic 