Botanicula is a downloadable point-and-click adventure game, developed by Amanita Design, the same team behind the ever-popular Machinarium (2009), another point-and-click adventure game or the newer one: Chuchel (2018). Originally released on the 19th April 2012, the game was released on PC, but was later ported to iOS and Android. 5 little tree creatures are out on a journey to save their home tree and protect the last seed, the only beacon of hope left for these small creatures in this cutesy adventure game.
How to Download Botanicula
You can download the game from GOG.com or Steam. To start downloading, hit the link at the bottom of the review page.
The Game Review
With the story, it focuses on five different botanical creatures, although they aren’t played as individuals. They act more of a group, but have their own individual uses in the game. Back to the story, these creatures home tree is under attack from parasites invading the tree and threatening to destroy the entire forest if they’re not careful. The story follows along with their adventure to prevent their own tree from being destroyed, as it will spell the end of the massive forest that they’ve lived in for all of their lives.
Botanicula plays like a typical point-and-click adventure game, where to traverse each stage you have to point and click on points of interest to do something on that part of the screen. To make things easier to navigate, wherever you can go will be highlighted by a directional arrow, explaining to you that you can go in that direction whenever you decide. As you progress throughout the world tree, you’ll come across different puzzles that are going to require using each of your 5 creatures to solve the puzzle that’s come to fruition.
Each of the five Botanicula characters has their own special abilities that are unique to them: Mr. Lantern can absorb seeds and will cause him to glow. Mrs. Mushroom can create identical copies of herself, while being able to shrink as well. Mr. Poppyhead is pretty much just the more tanky character of the bunch.
Mr. Twig has arms that he can expand and can also spurt out flowers as well. Lastly, Mr. Feather is particularly small but is the only one that can fly in the game. With all 5 of these characters having their own unique abilities to them, they each end up having their own different uses for each puzzle that you come across and will end up requiring you to eventually use all of them to complete certain puzzles.
Some of the most apparent comparisons for this title is classic point-and-click adventure games, such as The Secrets of Monkey Island, Sam & Max, and Day of the Tentacle. They’ve also taken a lot of inspiration from their previous game, Machinarium and puts a lot of what they have learned from that game and moved it into this one, all the while creating some unique ideas as well.
