Blueberry Garden

As a bonus to winning this year's IGF, the makers of Blueberry Garden also received a voucher for one free BINGOing. Erik Svedang's mastery of simplicity is such that to write even a few paragraphs about this game will be challenging. Trying to write about Blueberry Garden at length is like trying to write a soliloquy about a rock. Alas, it is my burden and I must deliver.

You wander around, sometimes gliding like Knuckles from Sonic and Knuckles (A great jab at mainstream gaming from Erik!) until you find large objects that automatically teleport to a column in the middle of the world. Sometimes you eat things and sometimes eating things causes things to happen. Your main character is a bird, and he can pick up other birds, or rocks. There's trees and they grow fruit. There's also some water sometimes. My name's Dustin and this was my report on Blueberry Garden. Thank You.

Bibliography:

* Wikipedia
* My mom who's a marine biologist




The Rundown:

* Silly Title: Blueberries do not grow on trees, goodnight.

* Physics-Based: Physics continue to innovate the industry with "pick up and drop" gameplay.

* Indie Trendy: Indie games continue to try and replicate the experience of being blindfolded, driven to an undisclosed location and released to find your way home.

* Gentle Piano Music: Some of the gentlest, pianoest music out there.

* Abstract Graphics: Explore a rich and varied world of black-and-white outlines.

* Atmosphere as Gameplay: Once again, this seems to go hand in hand with gentle piano music. Whether a successful atmosphere was established or not, it is clear an attempt was made.

* Counter-Intuitive: Leave intuitiveness to the mainstream. Someone has to make games that have no clear goal, and who else but the independent?

* Experimental: The experiment of not telling the player any kind of context or goal was a great success. It really goes to show how obsolete the concepts of clarity and conflict are in gaming.