Growbot APK

Growbot is a point and click adventure game. Players take on the role of apprentice captain Nara and resist crystal invasion at Kew, a plant driven space garden station. There are various puzzles: finding props, mazes, sliders, and matching music and art; All key items are available nearby without any misleading information. Hand drawn illustrations and original music create a fairy tale and sci-fi atmosphere. The process takes 3-4 hours, with no battles and can be played offline, suitable for all ages.

Gameplay:

Growbot is a point-and-click adventure game set on Kew – a lavish, garden-filled space station (the game describes itself as ‘biopunk’). Players are put in the shoes of growbot-and-captain-in-training Nara, who has to help save the station when it is attacked by a mysterious, crystalline force.

In terms of gameplay, Growbot has quite a wide variety of puzzles and games. While some puzzles revolve around the standard point-and-click fair of finding the right tool or missing piece to enable you to activate machinery, this is mixed up with mazes, sliding-block puzzles, and pattern matching (both visual and auditory), to name a few. This gives the game a pleasing variety of activities, and you never know just what to expect. Also, where Growbot uses more traditional point-and-click style puzzles, it departs from the standard approach by keeping nearly all the required components close at hand, and with no red herrings or illogical solutions.

While this does technically make it easier than many other games in this genre, I actually found it to be an improvement, as most of the difficulty in the other games comes from having an obvious solution, and then adding confusion or hiding necessary components all over the place – leading to frustration, and bewilderment (often capped off with an eye-rolling ‘so that’s how it’s supposed to be solved’). The experience of Growbot is actually one of clarity of thought and focus and is quite enjoyable for it.

But what really sells Growbot is its setting and visual delivery. A space-station powered by plants. Singing flowers. A living coral reef whose colours can take fright and run away. An energy core which is a huge space-yeti with a belly full of stars... It’s strange, foreign, and doesn’t try to explain itself. It’s ultimately something you simply have to accept at face value. Combined with the brilliant, illustration-style visuals, you’ll find yourself simply enjoying looking at the characters and environments.

In terms of story, most of Growbot revolves around exploring the station and learning about it, and the who and why of the crystalline threat, would be at home in a picture-book. While the game does feel that it finishes a bit abruptly, the overall impression is one that is rich and satisfying and actually leaves you wanting more.

Features:

Explore a beautiful space station and repair its strange machinery.

Interact with fantastic plants and aliens.

Use your Brain(apilla) to solve puzzles.

Collect the sounds of flowers and combine them to create powerful shields.

Meet a fluffy white hologram called Star Belly with a galaxy inside.

Unearth a tale of flower power with twisted roots.

Art by award winning illustrator Lisa Evans.

Beautiful music by musician Jessica Fichot.

highlights:

Growbot utilises simple mouse-only controls requiring players to click to move, interact or explore the inventory that is divided into keepable and consumable items, the latter of which can be combined with each other. As such, the game features classic inventory-based puzzles, while these can be a little predictable Growbot does it well and in moderation.

The inventory style puzzling is interspersed with sound-based puzzles that tie into the game’s storyline a bit more directly. Throughout the game players encounter shield obstacles, often preventing access to required items or areas. However, different flowers have different musical notes associated with them. By collecting these players can solve sound-based puzzles and use a flower arranger to correctly place the notes to create a shield key. This is a fun addition and provides an aspect of originality to the mechanics.

Growbot features gentle twinkling music made up of chimes and soft vocals, it is magical but with a melancholy undertone. The soundtrack ranges from ethereal and relaxing to upbeat and even becoming quite dramatic in places.

The fantastical 2D art style is made up of hand-drawn illustrations in muted colours with pops of vibrancy from brother shades. The overall aesthetic includes a somewhat granulated effect and is reminiscent of old cartoons and Amanita Games’ titles.

conclusion:

Growbot is, without question, one of the prettiest and visually compelling games around, and an extremely pleasant way to pass the time. I can happily recommend it to gamers of any age, and while it is perhaps the perfect introduction to point-and-click adventures, it also makes a very pleasant diversion for seasoned gamers. Highly, highly recommended.