Thanks to the recent rise of popularity for indie games as a group, which brought us the likes of Waking Mars, the idea of a game that combines gardening with space exploration is no longer so novel. But it's still a genre that is far from saturation, and Eufloria HD takes the concept in an interesting direction, mixing it so well with the more mainstream genre of real-time strategy that it's a viable gateway drug.
As with all good introductions, Eufloria has been designed with simplicity in mind. It's an undeniably attractive game, one of those sellable on screenshots alone. And the basic mechanic is universally understandable: send seedlings from one place to flower in another. In this case, you're colonising asteroids with trees that stretch from the ground and spawn more seedlings. The occasional line of text tells you a story about the Growers and the Mother Tree, but that's just background to the pure pleasure of creation taking place in an abstract world of beautiful colours and music.
However, Eufloria embodies yin and yang. Not too long after you learn to zoom out and watch your civilisation spread from sphere to sphere, you zoom in to see that on some of these asteroids destruction – and not creation – is the order of the day. Enemy seedlings, distinguishable from your own only by colour, will wipe out your own wherever they can. Frantic war is conveyed in nothing more than the swirl of the simple seedlings and the laser-like shots fired between them. Overpower the opposing seedlings on an asteroid and plant your own there, and that land is yours, for as long as you can defend it.
At first, this ongoing war is purely a numbers game, where success is a matter of planting more trees to grow more seedlings to conquer more asteroids. Let the cycle run on for long enough and you can end up with hundreds of them orbiting your little worlds, which is an impressive sight only hampered when the game starts to chug at more than 1,000.
Yet while you value these seedlings en masse, they are individuals. Each has its own stats according to the asteroid on which it was born, and so you soon learn that different scenarios call for different strengths. If a heavily defended enemy base lies between your starting point and an asteroid you want to claim, it may be more sensible to send speedy seedlings that can escape the enemy than bet on the strength of your initial group. Throw in the ability to spend seedlings to boost the stats of an asteroid, and within that still simple framework levels of strategy gently unfold.
Even with the more careful thought required in later levels, Eufloria never raises enough frustration to unbalance the enjoyment it offers. Players who are newer to real-time strategy games may choose to check the hints given for each level, and play at the slowest speed so as to have time to plan and to zoom in close to watch that plan unfold on each asteroid in turn. Others may prefer to play at speed, with the map zoomed out so as to monitor several bases at once, taking risks and thinking fast. Eufloria isn't trying to be a hardcore RTS, but some complexity does lie beneath its minimal design for those who want it.
Of course, those who play real-time strategy games on a regular basis may resist one purely controlled by touch, though the interface does its job even without using any of the Vita's physical buttons. Eufloria is kind to players, with the bloody battlefields of your average RTS replaced with beautiful space gardens, and missions short enough to be fought and won in those day-to-day moments that lend themselves so well to handheld gaming. It's meant for those who like games that make them think without leading them to the point of frustration. If that's you, and if you've an eye for aesthetics, then Eufloria HD should be on your list.
9 out of 10
A copy of the game was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.
