Grow Home

Hear me out. Have you played Death Stranding? This is a "Strand" type game.
- You build infrastructure to traverse an expansive landscape.
- There is a focus on picking up and collecting things.
- The body of your protagonist is physics simulated (and controls like on roller skates).
- There is a theme of connection amidst a confusion between technology and nature.
- Even the control scheme is similar, expect to wear down the triggers on your controller.
Silly ideas aside, this is an interesting game with one big level. Once you beat it, it does throw more to do at you. It feels a little fluffed up by the achievements - it feels like those could be the second half of the game (though maybe I'm just bitter because I'm a completionist but I don't want to spend that kind of time on the game). The last thing I'll add is that the game is charming. I really like that the mothership is called M.O.M. and has low res pictures of her son plastered all over. The game's speech is also deliberately filled with typos, because if you were a robot, why would you bother investigating English enough to get all the words right? Robots doing an okay but not perfect job is charming.

For some reason, I never got the impression this was a physics game based on the trailer. That caught me a bit off by surprise. I wouldn't call the controls 'intentionally bad' like Surgeon Simulator and the like but they are awkward and take time getting used to. For the most part I didn't have too many problems with it until the later stages, where I kept sliding off of surfaces despite still hanging on. Sometimes falling through objects completely.
I found it to be another good Podcast game. There's very little ambient music and the tasks are simple enough that it's easy to listen to something else on the side. The game itself is extremely short but getting 100% does take a lot more time. Some of the achievements are a little too tedious though.
The sale price is generally around $2 which is pretty damn good for what it offers.

This game transports you to another world for a while. It's short but I absolutely love this game.

Grow Home gleefully sprouts its physics-based legs and climbs an ever-growing beanstalk to the stars.
WHAT I LIKED:
+ BUD, the central character, was fair to control. Whilst sometimes throws himself off a floating island, the majority of the climbing mechanics were well executed and never felt uncontrollable.
+ 100 crystals to collect, which in turn upgrades BUD's jet-pack and other useful equipment, resulted in exploration being primarily fun and rather relaxing. The data bank also supplied more collecting to perform.
+ Once BUD reaches MOM's spaceship, an additional task of collecting star seeds is thrown into the mix, further extending playtime.
+ Unlockable skins. Ninja BUD is the way to go, trust me!
+ Gliding around the gigantic beanstalk is a soothing endeavour to say the least.
WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE:
- Grabbing hold of flora and fauna with two hands unfairly weighed BUD down, even with unlimited fuel in the jet-pack.
- A few too many teleport devices which makes the game easier if BUD was to accidentally let go when climbing, as it means the player can fast travel to that closest point.
- Short. The game can be 100% completed in approximately 3 hours (if you're speedy at finding the crystals). The extra Steam achievements may add an incentive to come back, however there is nothing to do once all crystals have been found.
VERDICT:
5/10 bioluminescent maggots

Cute game, good for a little bit of fun. 8/10 this game may give you an Oedipus complex.

This game is awesome.

An infinitely charming, glorified tech demo; it’s a little shallow, but smart enough to end before it exhausts the interests of its systems. The emphasis on jetpacking all around a green landscape pleasantly reminded me of puttering around in Tribes 2.