After dropping Mutropolis last month, Application Systems Heidelberg has released another mobile game, Growbot, today. It’s a short, charming, and visually striking point-and-click adventure with a gentle heart.
The game is developed in Unity by Wabisabi Play. It’s a studio founded in 2018 by illustrator Lisa Evans with support from the UK Games Fund. Apparently, Growbot began as a passion project to bring her whimsical art to life.
The game is gentle and strange
Step into a biopunk universe where robots tend flowers and melodies form shields. You play as Nara, a dome-headed growbot training to become a captain aboard the Ventral space station.
Her peaceful life takes a sharp turn when she wakes up to a mysteriously empty station, overrun by fast-spreading crystalline growths. The other inhabitants go missing, and alien crystals start sprouting from the walls.
So, Nara has to restore the station, find her missing crew, and unlock her full potential. Her mission unfolds across Kew, an asteroid where growbots live in harmony with nature. They drew energy from plants to power their technology before the disaster struck.
As Nara explores, she collects sound samples from twelve different flowers. You arrange the notes to form melodies that become keys or shields, allowing her to bypass obstacles. The game also includes an easy mode without the notes and simply displaying the flower names, making it more accessible.
The charm in Growbot Mobile comes from the unusual yet inviting world design
The game’s art has been created by Lisa Evans herself. The visuals are like a surreal diorama, while its mechanical puzzles and environmental storytelling are reminiscent of Machinarium. Watch the launch trailer below.
In fact, the devs have taken a lot of inspiration from Machinarium in how it structures its levels, and also from classic point-and-click games like Loom. You can grab Growbot Mobile from the Google Play Store for $3.99.
From one charming game to another! Read our next scoop on Snufkin: Melody of with its Cosy Quests and Visuals.
