Heliotropism

Quite a fun game, you can dump many hours into trying to succeed at reaching the final season. The narrator is really fun, and can annoy you into submission at times, but in a good way. Really helps break the potential monotony, though after many playthroughs one can tire of the repetition. Great promise, hoping for some new additions to keep the replayability fresh. Would recommend.

[h1][b][i]With effort and time the shrub will grow. Take it through different seasons – it is up to you to grant the tree’s safety![/i][/b][/h1] [h1]An unusual approach:[/h1] Once you run the game you get unexpectedly greeted by a very loud yet playful voice acting of the narrator himself. While I personally did read some complaints about the mentioned, I did find it nice enough considering it is a simple casual game yet you get this adventurous voice talking to you when you proceed with growing your tree. The curious part is while the voice will help you understanding what should you do with new features once presented (such as the upcoming penalties once wind is displayed or how to upgrade your bonuses at the end of the spring) it will still manage to recount you its random adventures during gameplay that are completely unrelated to what you are doing. This can result either funny or annoying, I suppose. To me, it is a nice feature that keeps you entertained yet absorbed in the laid-back gameplay. [h1]Design:[/h1] While browsing the little menu you can configure the volume levels and other settings in [i]configure[/i] section. You do find two available modes to play; [b]survival[/b] and [b]creative[/b] mode. At first however you are allowed to play survival mode only, in order to unlock the second mode you have to clear the game from what I personally understood. The menu is designed matching to the game’s graphics, in fact all the buttons are displayed on equal tiles to the ones you will find in-game. The mentioned pieces are placed on tree branches and decorated by flowers. As you can notice from the displayed menu already, the graphic design is stylized very simply, yet everything is very colourful and pleasing to see. The tiny details such as flowers and leaf patterns on the tree are a very cute detail overall creating a simple, yet enjoyable design for a casual little game. [h1]Gameplay:[/h1] Once you start the actual gameplay the narrator will be there to help (…or rather distract?) you with his storytelling. At the beginning you have the option of choosing what type of tree you will be growing (the tiles are displayed on the right side of screen), each of them will give different advantages during the game. The details will be explained when clicking on the various tiles. Once you select a tree of your choice the game begins. Your comfy experience starts with the view of a planted root tile as well as one stem tile of your tree. This is a turn-based game, therefore you will have a limited number of moves during each turn. After using all the moves you have to let the time pass in order to possibly collect the energy (moves value) once again as well as needed resources for your tree’s growth and decay prevention. The core of what the game demands from you is to manage properly the resources your tree needs while balancing them all among each other in order to overcome the seasons (winter in particular). If you fail at doing so, you will lose and will be forced to restart your playthrough. [h1]Controls:[/h1] In order to keep a better track of what is going on you can navigate with arrows in order to explore a bit the view and zoom in / out by using the mouse wheel to let you view properly where water sources are located under the soil (you may have to bring the tree roots towards the water sources in order to survive). [h1]Featurings:[/h1] The game consists of balancing the tiles of possible moves to take (aka energy value that permits to add pieces to your tree) and needed resources. The tiles are displayed at the center of screen above your tree, while the stats displaying values are to be found on the upper left corner of the screen. The in-game management works very well thanks to the stats display that will show you in a very simple manner what resources are being consumed as well as the number of received means. We do also have here the date, the flower counter and a simple pattern made of tiles to keep track of the featured season during the gameplay (which will advance at each turn, making gradually the things more complicated for the player). At each turn a little animation will be played to simply portray via images the same information you can acquire by viewing your stats – such as the water being generated and/or used, the produced/used energy, and so on. The game does present occasional malus effects as well as bonuses to collect after completing the first spring. [h1]Difficulties:[/h1] You have to try the game a couple of times in order to get a hold of what you have to do and how to balance the stat values, however given we have all the information displayed on the upper left corner it won’t be that difficult to comprehend. The most difficult season to go through is winter, and while at first try it is difficult, you will have to survive all the seasons again and again in order to finish the game – which implies an increase of difficulty while advancing once the four seasons make the rounds. [h1]A little bug:[/h1] The Hall of Fame’s gallery after the first playthrough of mine was not being displayed and generated an error code, subsequently making the game crash. After few more playthroughs it did work fine, however once I finished viewing all the planted trees, at the moment I clicked on “next” command arrow the error came up again – assuming this happens when there is no more images to view. [h1]Overall:[/h1] A very simply stylized game I honestly enjoyed. While finding the difficulty a tad tricky to me, I still recognize it is not that complicated to figure out. Overcoming the second winter was a big satisfaction and nonetheless it was also saddening losing my tree during third winter after all of the work done and collecting the pretty flowers, I still definitely want to play this game. Very relaxing experience. [quote]Discover interesting visual novels, indie games and more on my Curator Page! 　　　　　　　　　　　　　🪴 [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/46144642/][b]Gyepi Nook[/b][/url] 🪴[/quote]

It's a tree simulator with actual gameplay.

an interesting concept for a game. ive played through the tutorial. and played one mission. is that enough to write a review. i dont know but "first" i guess. i bought this game as it had no reviews and wanted to see what it was all about. i can say play it. play it now. its interesting even if the narraration is a bit, cheesy. its relaxing and slow. but can be played as fast as you want to play it. if i where to give it a rating it would be 6/7-10 because of the incredibly simple art style and sub par voice acting (no offense to the developer) Edit. after playing another playthrough the game crashed and would not let me reopen it. the game is in early access.

In Heliotropism you play as a tree trying to survive 4 years (you can keep on going longer by entering free play). You start out as a sprout and from there you can grow roots, stems and/or leaves. Collecting mutations on the way allows you to survive the seasons and random disasters. The game is easy and simple enough to quickly understand. And there lies this game's problem. If you build your tree a little bit efficient and do not waste all your resourches you can survive everything. The game becomes rather repetitive after that with little challenge. At least the narator is funny and keeps things interesting. In the end I do not want to call this tree-simulator a bad game. It is fun, but only for a short bit. But not for long enough for me to recommend the game. Perhaps in a sale.

This is an interesting rougelike tile building resource management game. I wish there were a few more options of tiles to build and resources, but at it's current price point it is good for a few playthroughs. If the creator could expand on this concept it could be an excellent game.

great game, reminds me of a lot of the old survival/evolution flash games. i think it could do a better job explaining winter, however after your first winter you should understand it. the game has crashed once or twice but it autosaves enough that i've only lost a minute or two of progress. and one thing i'd like to be able to do is buy the refill energy mutation mid winter.

Love this game its great but who the ♥♥♥♥ got the "Purist Botanist" achievement

muito promissor

Plays a bit like a single-player board game in some respects; delightful overall, and well-crafted.