I’m going to concede that I set out looking for this sort of thing. You see, after gorging myself on so many well crafted and adored titles, there came a point where my brain started to call out for something a little more... Abstract. A title that was way off everyone’s radar, carrying with it a sense of mystery and the surreal, and having as good a chance of being a hidden masterpiece as it did of being a flaming pile of garbage. From these thoughts and a browse of my games library, my discovery of Blueberry Garden was made. And I’ll give it this – it certainly is a peculiar one.
Its core concept is actually really interesting. You’re a strange looking bird-man in the titular garden, which is slowly but surely being flooded by a tap located way up in the sky, and your sole purpose in life is to find a way to turn it off. This is achieved by jumping and flying about the world, discovering oversized items, and using them to start building a tower to the heavens. Find enough, and you’ll finally have the height needed to successfully make the flight to your goal. It’s a fun idea – not only is it entertaining to just watch the tower get bigger and bigger, but as it grows your ability to get to the furthest reaches of the map also opens up, giving you a nice little sense of progression. It’s unfortunate, then, that there’s nothing else in this game that’s able to actually back this sense of enjoyment up.
[h1]Feeling blue[/h1]
For one, the controls are extremely fiddly. Any actual platforming you need to do just ends up feeling cumbersome; flights are cut short if you dare to brush against absolutely anything, navigation in some narrower areas feels clumsy and awkward, and there’s a whole list of items that seem to only exist to get in your way. Additionally, whilst the world itself might look artistically distinct, that doesn’t actually mean it’s interesting to explore. A lot of areas feel empty and pointless to visit, and even in the ones where something is actually happening it never proves to be intriguing or exciting. There’s either an item you need, a bunch of animals blocking your path, or fruits you can eat that each have their own obscure effects on your character. That’s pretty much your lot.
Given these problems, it’s especially ironic that the game tries to laud the concepts of curiosity and exploration as its unique selling points. Freely exploring got tiring very quickly, and the solution to getting some items was so abstract I was forced to look up the solutions online. Safe to say, ‘curiosity’ was not high on my list of feelings. That space was more reserved for ‘boredom’.
If anything, the fact the game tries to push ideas such as this in an attempt to give itself artistic merit only work to its detriment. There’s no “ever-changing ecosystem” or “living world” as its description might declare. It’s a smattering of cartoon trees moving about a bit and a few animals which wander around aimlessly, and selling it as anything more than that is simply foolish. The obligatory piano music that plays over time and slowly begins to grate simply adds to the overall feeling that this is all a little bit... Well, pretentious.
It’s baffling to me, then, how Blueberry Garden not only won some prestigious awards, but also has certain reputable outlets singing its praises online. It also sort of pains me to critique it so much; your reward for completing the game is access to a extensive list of concept art, all of which goes to show how much this seemed to be a passion project to the developer. Part of me feels like I missed something – maybe I entered into the whole affair with the wrong mindset? I really don’t think this is the case, though. This just feels like a very basic title that has misplaced beliefs that it’s bigger than it actually is, and ends up sadly being something that isn’t worth the brief amount of time it asks from you.
