Evergarden

I am 32 years old.

My ex-wife and I have a daughter together, and we adopted our son together. Both are now 4 years old.

When we were going through our separation, I felt lost and unhappy. I was self-destructive. One day, I was so angry with everything spiraling out of control that I punched a concrete wall in a moment of overwhelming emotion. This resulted in breaking my fifth metacarpal in my right hand—the hand I worked with, played games with, and used to carry my children to bed—the hand I desperately needed to ensure I could continue providing.

Upon learning the severity of the self-inflicted damage, I became almost suicidal. Keep in mind that just a few months before this, I was the happiest man, with no history of depression or anxiety. I had never experienced anger outbursts, nor was I the type to break down and cry, but I was in a tough situation that truly prevented me from seeing the light on the other side.

With nothing better to do, I looked for a game I could play WITH ONE HAND while recovering. Somehow, I stumbled upon this game and read some of the comments. I decided it was worth a try... I must admit I didn't beat the game, nor did I play as much as some of you. In fact, I may have played this game for only a day or two. That being said, after doing so, I had a new joy and hope for life. I managed to leave behind the pain and suffering that had been thrust upon me. I could experience the joy and happiness of other people. I relaxed for 5 ♥♥♥♥ minutes listening to this music, long enough to realize that I would be okay.

After realizing this, I turned off the game and went back to work. My hand hurt a lot, but I was motivated. I stopped feeling so sorry for myself and became the father I needed to be at that moment, not the weak boy I was behaving like.

Today, I am close friends with the mother of my children. We don't fight, argue, or say hurtful things to each other. We are parents and friends.

Now I have 3 children. My third child is, wait, ALSO 4 YEARS OLD. The woman I am with was going through a very similar situation at the time of my separation, and we just unexpectedly stumbled into each other's lives. We have been dating for a year and are very happy together.

Moral of the story: you never know what life has in store for you, and if I had given up when all odds were against me, I wouldn't be where I am today. This silly little game helped me realize that.

Thank you.

A deceptively simple puzzle game with an excellent soundtrack and cute graphics!

I am more than 2 hours in and I don't have the urge to play more. I feel like I have seen all it has to offer. Progression is so slow. The only new mechanics seem to be the records (=special moves) you unlock and animals that annoy you. There is also no story. I really don't know who I should recommend this to. Maybe if you like doing the same puzzle over and over (like sudoku for instance) then you might like this.

Puzzle games, what would life be without them? I mean, there are people who aren't very interested in this genre, and there's no problem with that. But for all the others who enjoy them, it's always exciting to discover new ideas and possibilities

In "Evergarden," the main objective is to restore life to the forest by solving puzzles encountered along the way. And how do you solve these challenges? Players must use logic to combine small plants, transforming them into larger ones to score as many points as possible. Sounds simple, right? However, there are random events that can easily disrupt any carefully laid plans throughout the adventure

To minimize these issues, as players progress through new levels of difficulty, they are gradually introduced to tools that can greatly assist in strategy composition. However, these assets are limited and must be used wisely to make the most of them

In terms of the story mode, let's say it's present but has minimal influence on gameplay. The graphics, sound effects, and soundtrack are satisfactory

Furthermore, the game also offers collectible cards and achievements that, while not exactly a walk in the park, are not impossible to obtain; it just requires patience and perseverance

Overall, it's a rather uplifting and enjoyable experience. The only recommendation is to try to keep your cool as best as possible whenever a random event pops up to disrupt your progress (which, by the way, happens quite frequently)

Very nice and relaxing puzzle game with good graphics and music. It becomes interesting when you discover more possibilities, such as using a monolith as a wildcard in the patterns that you make.

I am very sorry, but things will be very confusing for you… This was the very first line of text I read in this game. It sums up the game quite well.

When starting Evergarden you teleport to a strange little world. You know nothing. You don’t know why you are here, or where “here” even is. You fall back to your base instincts. And just like a toddler who got his first box of blocks you start stacking stuff. Flowers in this case. You stack some flowers and you get new flowers, so you keep op stacking. Eventually flowers turn into monolith.

You have been playing the game for a while now. You still don’t know why you are stacking flowers. You don’t know what monolith do. And what is up with the cat that keeps following you. You are confused, just like the letter in the beginning said.

You keep on playing…

You start to figure most of it out. You find some notes. You progress to some new areas. You now understand the “how?”, all that is left is the “why?”. And then you make it to the last area. You get it now. It hurts.

It's a neat little puzzle game, but some aspects are really under-explained and feel random. It's frustrating when your elaborate plan gets disrupted because of a surprise rule. If there's a how-to / manual somewhere, I missed it.

This game is a very nice example of "less is more".
It's quite relaxing but also a bit addictive, at least to get the achievements.

Between levels, you have to do a mini puzzle. You get a hint each time when you wait a little.

I read someone didn't like the fact the board is always the same but that counts for chess and tons of other games too.
It didn't bother me at all.

An extremely well made puzzle game, sorta. The story behind is not much to be honest but a well made one. Takes around 10-12 hours of playtime to complete all of the achievements. However you can continue playing if you'd like to make it to the leader boards. Overall a game worth your time.

Clever merging puzzle game with a fantastic soundtrack and cute origami art style. The ending was a punch in the gut.

This is a nice and relaxing game to play during a break, but I got bored of it quickly. The game design feels clanky and my eyes don't like it, but maybe that's just me.
If you find it in sale, it's a cool purchase.

I was never really invested in the story and early on I was worried the gameplay loop revolving around the same board would become too repetitive, and it's understandable if it does for some, but in the end it kept me interested far longer than I thought it would.

I think that was down to the challenge of getting Master Gardener achievement, it's a good target. It took a few hours to beat the main story and pick up all achievements except that Master Gardener one. It probably took the same amount of time again for me just to get that, but overall the visuals are nice, it's a calm atmosphere and it was a good way to spend a little time each day to relax.

There's a little bit of RNG with the animals, I only realised during my very last round, that you can get rid of two armadillos by leading them to each other, also I never considered leading armadillos to intentionally block the rabbits. Probably missed some good gameplay options in runs where the rabbit ruined some good pieces.

Worth your time if you like puzzle games.

It is a beautiful, stylistic, taxing puzzle game in the style of Merge! or Threes. And I hate it. There is no reason for me to hate it, and I know a few people, I will recommend it to. But cute animals and compelling exploration of the minimalistic but gripping story aside, I hate it. See for yourself. As I said, I should like this game, and you should, too.

For more indepth reviews of other games, Follow my curator at https://store.steampowered.com/curator/28337205-Fair-Minded-Witness/

Very pretty puzzle game with merge mechanics. Recommended for a relaxing game session. Unlocking everything can be done in 6 hours, but there's good replay value if you enjoy the core mechanic.

It's a beautiful and cute puzzle game. It doesn't have that much depth to it so you basically master it after around 4-5 hours at which point any more playing probably won't be that engaging. The whole core game takes around 6 hours to beat so if you don't finish it I don't blame you. But it's cute and interesting regardless. I am tentatively recommending this game to people who like triple town and similar puzzle games.

Little gem, nice story, nice mechanics, nice achievements.

You won't be disappointed for the about a week of two needed to complete it.

A fun little combination of matcher, puzzler and (some) exploration with a deep, warm heart at it's core, thoroughly enjoyed.

I am skeptical as to why a game, that is basically a neat twist on 2048, needs to collect my personal data. Very, very skeptical.

Evergarden

Update April 5, 2019: I initially gave this game a negative review, because of its desperate need of an Undo button, and a way to end the game early and collect your earned pieces once you know you're done...and lo and behold, they added both features! So I'm crossing out those complaints. The game is still overly simplistic and too heavily impacted by randomness for my tastes, but I'm flipping my review to positive - because the fact that Flippfly listened to the community to add those features is enough to outweigh those last complaints.

***

Like many of the other reviews here, I learned about Evergarden through my love of another Flippfly game, Race the Sun. As a casual puzzle enthusiast, seeing that team bring a similar aesthetic to this pocket garden world definitely piqued my interest. And makes me sad to have to give it a thumbs down.

As suggested, the key thing this game gets right is style and mood. With a carefully chosen colour palette, angular and yet still flowing simplistic animation, and gentle but complex music, everything visually and audibly meshes together to create a unique and pleasant environment. The Evergarden is certainly a welcoming and relaxing environment…at least at first.

But what's abundant in style is missing in substance. 95% of the game is spent playing the same puzzle game over and over and over and over and over and over to earn mosaic pieces to progress the story, and that puzzle gets real old, real fast, for two primary reasons. The first is that the interface is quite clunky and visually bare, making it really easy to accidentally make unintended moves, and there’s no undo, so you get stuck with having your whole 6-turn plan you have laid out in your head screwed up because the first time you thought you clicked on a plant it didn’t register and the seeds moved in the wrong way as a result. Worse, the puzzle is far too heavily impacted by randomization, to the point that it grossly outweighs player skill. The order in which you are assigned pattern targets has huge impact on both how quickly you can get through the early game, and how many mosaic pieces you can manage to collect in the late game. As well, the Rabbit – a pest that appears randomly to sabotage your work – is far too powerful, able to destroy in two turns what it takes you several to try to build, effectively destroying any chance you have of finishing a pattern, if it happens to pick the wrong path. And there is very little you can realistically or consistently do to prevent that from happening.

While I concede randomization is necessary, it is only because otherwise a puzzle this simplistic in design would become solved and stale very quickly, and I don’t see that as an excuse for the overly powerful and punishing randomness of this game. Rather, it shows that the base puzzle game itself is weak, and the fact that the store page only shows one screenshot, and less than 10 seconds of trailer time, of the mode where you’ll spend almost all of your gameplay, only emphasizes that point. Combine that with the other puzzles and gameplay being overly simplistic, a desperate need for both an undo button and a “give up” option – because in all seriousness, sometimes you have no chance of possibly finishing a pattern, earning another mosaic piece, or even getting a new high score with 6 or more turns remaining, that you then need to manually blow through – and the overly clunky interface of moving around the garden to do things, and I just can’t can just barely give this a thumbs up. No matter how pretty it is.

Evergarden is a neat little puzzler from the folks that brought us Race the Sun. I do have a few complaints, though. First and foremost, it's not really at all an original experience. The core puzzle mechanic has been done before, and in arguably better titles. Triple Town would be the most notable title I can think of. Not exactly the same, but uncomfortably close. This brings us to my next issue - which is that the price point is a bit high. The artwork is okay, but really any style would work.

The final issue I have is that while there are global leaderboards, you gain buffs as you progress through the game - which sort of muddies the ranks until you have everything unlocked. The playing field is uneven and so there is a false sense of rank. Sort of a questionable design decision. Maybe the leaderboards should only unlock when you complete the game? I don't know.

Okay, so I just dumped all over the game. But it's still quite fun and I'm enjoying digging through it. Now I've played dozens of hours of this type of puzzle game before, and I've learned one thing - the learning curve is such that there are diminishing returns with more and more hours put in. I never *quite* master it, but I guess that's kind of the point. But it is a bit unsatisfying in my humble opinion.

Pros:
+It's certainly fun, and even more so if this is the first time you are playing this type of puzzle game

Cons:
-Eh, too expensive
-Progressive unlocks, yet everyone is still compared on the same leaderboard
-The core puzzle mechanic has been done before
-Both of us thought the controls felt 'sticky' when clicking; several several times moves were made incorrectly (this could be fixed with either an undo function or right-click to unhighlight)
-The fairly generic setting did little for me personally

Yeah, Evergarden is a good enough time.