Developer: Ice Water Games
Publisher: Ice Water Games
Release Date: Aug. 19, 2015
I have no idea why in the world I kept seeing articles pop up for this game, but it seemed for awhile they were literally everywhere. I think that we even joked about it during one of our meetings. Viridi is a much more an experience than a game, in my opinion. However, I remembered seeing it and it is free, so I downloaded it and ‘played’ for a few days.
You nurture a pot of succulents (plants).
You can load up the game and you get to pick your first planting experience. You pick your pot. I picked the concrete colored one with the crosses around the border. I was prompted to pick a grouping of plants and I picked the most colorful group, with the Agave ‘Blue Glow’ in the center. I was brought to a screen where I was able to pull the weeds from my plant (which is a bit confusing for an indoor plant) and watered my growing plants. I named the snail that moves around the lip of my pot Bubba, after my dog, and I have fun spraying him with water. I have no idea why. You can pull plants out and plant new ones. I obtained my ‘weekly free seed’ of Senecio roweyanus, which I promptly planted at the edge, because it looked cool.
Upon returning to the game, you can pull more weeds and water your plants. They grow; faster than a normal plant, but still fairly slowly. So I checked out the nursery, which is just their ‘Main Menu’. You can purchase (with real money) a number of different types of seeds (at least .09 cents, at most .39 each) that you can add to your pot. Dig up any plants you don’t want and purchase more locations to place more pots. For $3 you can purchase the key to the Cat House (another pot location) and $5 gets you The Key to the Apartment (another pot location) thus giving you 3 pots of plants to look after.
It is very much a meditative experience. It is beautifully designed and the music is soothing. I do love that each plant is explained. It’s official name, common name, native location and subtle details of each plant are listed. It’s adorable and probably amazing for someone who knows far more about plants than I do. I sat down fairly stressed today as I was looking back in on my plants and do find myself much calmer and more relaxed. If you want to relax and love plants or pretty things, this is the game for you.
You can find it here.
Grim Fandango received universal acclaim and was praised by many critics. The artistic design and overall direction of the game allowed for it to be selected for several gaming awards in the late ’90s. Unfortunately, the game was a commercial failure, which ultimately lead to LucasArts to discontinue their adventure game development.
