
Explore a retro 3D fantasy world in Essence Of The Tjikko.Wake up as a plant child at the bottom of a fantasy botanical lab. Eat seasonal fruits to unlock abilities, solve puzzles, and climb to the top in this Retro 3D zelda-like adventure.
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About
🌟 REMASTERED EDITION - FEBRUARY 2026
After 4 years of development, Essence Of The Tjikko returns completely rebuilt in Unreal Engine 5.
What's new in the remaster:
- Enhanced graphics - Improved lighting, textures and post-processing
- New UI system - Better readability and visual feedback
- Extended seasonal fruit system - New visual effects and refined mechanics
- 50+ bug fixes and improvements
- Performance optimization
Released on February 22nd, the day after Zelda's 40th anniversary - a tribute to the 3D dungeons that inspired this botanical adventure.
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Discover mysteries in an old-school 3D Zelda-like dungeon.
Climb walls, move objects, perceive the invisible with your ether vision. You are a plant-child hybrid with unique abilities.
You're at the bottom of a 7-floor botanical laboratory. To reach daylight, traverse 30+ rooms filled with puzzles, strange mechanisms and botanical secrets.
Transform with seasonal fruits:
- Spring - Water bouncing
- Summer - Blazing speed
- Autumn - Ethereal vision
- Winter - Frosted jump
Each fruit changes your abilities and appearance. Experiment to discover new paths.
This prologue takes 1-2 hours to complete. Self-contained episode, first part of a larger adventure.
Like a sprout, upward is the only way!
🍃 Transform with seasonal fruits
Four fruits change your abilities AND appearance:
- Spring - Water bouncing
- Summer - Blazing speed
- Autumn - Ethereal vision
- Winter - Frosted jump
Follow the hero on their quest to understand their origins and the bonds they share with other plants. They react around them and the hero can sense the ether flowing. Their health is also their stamina, so take care of it like a fragile bud.
🧗 Explore a 7-floor vertical dungeon
This dungeon hides many secrets. Use your abilities to spot them and head for the exit. Climb walls, move objects, use your ether vision to reveal the invisible.
Every path is the right one, and you might find rewards around any corner. 30+ interconnected rooms await you.
🔬 An enigmatic botanical laboratory
Plants can have strange shapes, but this laboratory has very strange ones. Computers, doors, cable cars, bridges, chairs... You'll explore a vast cabinet of curiosities!
Understand how each mechanism works to progress. Technology and botany blend in this abandoned environment.
🎮 A love letter to early 2000s 3D games
With low-fidelity textures and clean 3D models, this game pays homage to early 2000s 3D adventures (PS2, GameCube). Nostalgia doesn't recreate the past, but can enchant the present...
Inspired by Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess, Essence Of The Tjikko captures the essence of those memorable dungeons while bringing a unique botanical twist.
Features:
✓ 7-floor vertical dungeon, 30+ unique rooms
✓ 4 seasonal fruits transforming your abilities and appearance
✓ Climbing, object manipulation, ether vision
✓ Environmental physics puzzles
✓ Retro early 2000s aesthetic (PS2, GameCube)
✓ 11 Steam achievements
✓ Full controller support (recommended)
✓ Available in 10 languages
Music by Philippe Reinhart
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Minimum system requirements:
- OS: Windows 10 (64-bit)
- Processor: Intel Core i3 4000 series
- Memory: 8 GB RAM
- Graphics: Nvidia GTX 1050 Ti
- Storage: 1 GB
Stats
All-time low is the lowest price we've recorded for this game since we started tracking it.
Languages: English, French, Italian, German, Spanish - Spain, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Portuguese - Brazil, Turkish
Engagement
Hours played at review time, across 26 reviews with recorded playtime.
Reviews
Daha iyi bir deneyim için lütfen kontrolcü kullanın yazısı tam bir fiyasko. Kullanırken ekrandaki karakter sürekli sola dönüyor bir türlü durduramıyorum. Oyunda ilerledikçe 3. bir fonksiyon açılıyor onunda klavyede karşılığı 2 ya da konsol tuşu diyor bastığımda hiç bir tepki yok bunu da kontrolcü takarak çözdüm ama tam bir işkence oluyor ne yazık ki. Bir ara joystick ile oynarken bu sıkıntı oluşmamıştı ama ikinciye oyunu açtığımda maalesef bu sorunla karşılaştım. Oyun zaten prologue ve para veriyoruz oyunda kesinlikle bir çok hatalara maruz kalacaksınız. Yine de bir şans vermek istedim bilgisayar hata verdi oyundan çıkmak durumunda kaldım baştan başlattığımda bu 3. olacak oyunun kayıt dosyası ortada yoktu ne yazık ki :) Şaka gibi değil mi? Kesinlikle önermiyorum. Bu sebepten oyunun hikayesini anlatmaya da gerek duymadım.
Playing as a half-human, half-plant, you explore a fantasy world by solving puzzles and avoiding traps. The episode ended very quickly, I'm looking forward to continuing.
I'm more of a casual gamer and I'm attracted to the zelda series and interactive games! Essence of the Tjikko surprised me a lot by its universe that is making me think of a temple inside the kokkiri forest hehe I'm pretty sure that the game designer, developper and creator (because yes I figured it out this game was mainly created by one person) is a huge fan of the license as well!! I really liked all the puzzles that made me think of the ones in zelda. The universe is really interesting and even if the main character seems a bit creepy at the first sight, we can't do nothing else than attaching to her the more we're playing! The art style is unique, we can notice that each elements has been deeply thought in the process. The sound design is also really immersive and helps you from the start to drown into this mysterious and magical atmosphere. There was a few bugs when I started to play and I took some time to figure out the main controls (I'm using my keyboard but I've read it's easier with a controller) but everything has since been fixed thanks to the updates :) To conclude I'ld say that this game made me travel back in time by its universe. I really enjoyed playing it even if I'm not a big gamer! Highly recommended!!
Si les Legends of Zelda d'antan vous manquent, ce petit jeu saura vous satisfaire. Ce sera sans doute les 4.99€ les mieux investis dans ce projet ;) Il mérite d'aller plus loin
La nouvelle mise à jour apporte un vrai plus au jeu!! Si vous aimez les jeux chill lancez vous c‘est une réussite ! Solo dev !!
très bon jeu, musiques incroyables, les images son incroyablement belles, le game play est top! je recommande a 1000 %
Not sure if this game is still being worked on but I enjoyed the prologue. It's a relaxing puzzler that I think will appeal to both casual and frequent gamers; puzzles are not too difficult and they don't slow the game down enough to be frustrating. The camera can be a bit frustrating in tight corridors but aside from that I didn't encounter many problems.
Je vais commencer par féliciter le créateur, l'artiste derrière cette pépite à savoir Maxime Carcaillon. Un grand merci à lui qui à su grâce à Essence Of The Tjikko - Prologue me faire replonger en enfance et à su raviver chez moi le plaisir de la découverte et les souvenirs d'un certain petit garçon vêtu de vert ! Essence Of The Tjikko - Prologue est le résultat d'une passion pour les jeux de cette époque qui est derrière nous et qui finalement après tant d'année est remise à niveau avec ce genre de jeux indés ! Excellent moment à parcourir ce premier donjon initiatique en sa présence, et hâte de découvrir la suite des aventures ! Si vous aimez les jeux à énigmes et les jeux indépendants avec une patte graphique bien définit alors n'hésitez pas et allez découvrir ce début d'aventure !
J'ai adoré jouer à ce jeu indé <3 Le gameplay est super fluide et agréable, et j'ai vraiment ressenti le potentiel énorme du jeu. C'est une excellente découverte, avec un design visuel à couper le souffle. L'univers est vraiment captivant et j'ai hâte de voir comment il va évoluer. Si vous aimez les jeux avec une direction artistique soignée et un gameplay immersif, celui-ci vaut vraiment le détour !
Superb indie game, really love the PSone ambiance with better soundtrack. The gameplay as the puzzles are quite simple but spot on, Will put it in the feel good games ^^
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Trends
Concurrent players on Steam, sampled daily since tracking started.
Audience
Estimated from the language of this game's reviews — a proxy for where players are, not official Steam demographics.
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