The Impact Factor

M.O.M. Would Be Proud
Review

Grow Home, Ubisoft Reflections

Abstract: Grow Home is an unmissable experience in gaming. My time with the game was awe-inspiring and meditative. A beautiful world complements your simple objective—to fill a planet with life. Climbing your way through a growing world creates a tremendous sense of player impact. Unusual physics and controls set the foundation for creating a compelling bond between the player and the game’s robot avatar, B.U.D., the more you play. Grow Home is a game that understands what it wants to be and shows players total respect. Grow Home is a perfect, compact experience deserving of your time.

Let me take you back to an anecdote I described on The Impact Factor podcast. I stood on the precipice of floating cliff face. The ground was lightly peppered with white, as the cool air of my current altitude created a light misting of snow. I looked out into the empty and expansive night sky, its royal blues and cosmic purples giving way to orange and yellow and red. The night was coming to an end. I could see the morning sun begin to peek over the curved horizon. In an instant I leapt from my location, free falling past rocks and floating waterfalls as I made my descent to sea level. A last moment release of my flower petal parachute let me touch gently onto to wave-whipped sands. I made my descent for a reason. I guide my gaze directly upwards—I wanted to see my work. Above me was an elegant tapestry of my own creation. Star stalks carved lines into the sky, interlocking and weaving to form an elaborate web. A space that was once empty is now a visual history of my actions. This moment, among many others, made me realize that Grow Home is phenomenal.

I was not exaggerating. Grow Home is gorgeous.

Poetic introductions aside, Grow Home is a game that took me completely by surprise. It took me on a journey. The game came out of Ubisoft Reflections, a small development studio within the larger Ubisoft umbrella. Grow Home came out early 2015 on the PC and just made its way to PS4 this month. I had been wanting to give the game a go since its initial release, but once it became clear that Grow Home would win the PlayStation Plus vote I knew the first game I would play in September.

In Grow Home you play as B.U.D., short for botanical utility droid. B.U.D. is a clumsy little robot, moving in awkward sputters and with slow, short jumps. At the start of the game your spaceship’s AI, M.O.M., informs you that you have one task—oxygenate your world. This is accomplished by growing a giant Star Plant you find at the start of the game. Growing the central stalk is simple. B.U.D. must ascend the Star Plant to look for blooms. Grabbing onto those with your little robot causes them to explode with movement and life. Sprouts shoot from the blooms, working their way into the empty sky. You need to corral the outgrowths towards fluorescently illuminated floating geography and embed them deep into the rock face. Each connection you make causes the central stalk to rise, creating new blooms and spring board-like leaves along the way. Once the plant grows to a height of 2000m a flower will bloom, allowing you to harvest the ever-crucial Star Seeds and complete the game.

Growing your Star Plant is a refreshing, meditative experience. Each new bloom is story: the one that just fell short of your intended location, the one with the mind of its own that forced its way downward towards the ocean, and the one that formed a perfect corkscrew. The further you get into the game, the more you can see the impact of your actions. The entire world is rendered at all times, so each new sprout adds to the growing latticework that cuts its way into the sky.

That's a whole lot of stories. With many more to come as you get higher and higher up.

The gameplay in Grow Home can be divided into two main mechanics: platforming and climbing. B.U.D.’s mobility starts simple, limited to jumping and climbing. Working your way up the Star Plant and towards blooms is a waltz of climbing and jumping, to and around leaves and trees and cliffs. A lot of your gameplay revolves around B.U.D.’s grasping mechanic. Each hand can grab onto objects separately. Alternating hand holds allows your robot to climb, which is central in your lengthy ascent. Falling is frequent, at first, as you like B.U.D. work to understand the world you’ve been dropped into. To mitigate frustrations, not only are teleporters scattered throughout the map, but small flowers can be collected and deployed as a  parachute slash glider. Everything synergizes to create a compelling gameplay package that easily carries you throughout the roughly 3-hour completion time.

Climbing will get you where you need to go.

Grow Home is a ferry, escorting the player into a new reality. You are an explorer, the first explorer, of an untouched planet. The world feels hollow, initially, a wide open playground in which B.U.D. will explore. The minimal geology, flora and fauna all have a sense of purpose, though. Everything fits. And the work done by the Ubisoft Reflections team to create a world you want to spend your time in is incredible. Grow Home’s planet is filled with wonderful ambient noises, melodic whistles of winds and the quiet hum of space. The emptiness of the world helps to bolster the resonance of all player actions. Every jump, plant growth, or B.U.D’s little bleeps or bloops echoes loudly—reinforcing once again that you have full ownership of your surroundings. The blankness of your surroundings acts as the perfect canvas. Your exploration is complemented by a soothing soundtrack that was so good I went out and bought it. It creates a perfect background for just about anything.

The empty space is yours to control. 

When I first started my time with Grow Home I really expected to dislike the controls. Aside from the (preposterous) critique that the game was too short, control wonkiness was the second most common complaint among reviewers. For the first 10-15 minutes or so, I thought the reviews were right on the money. Controlling B.U.D. was awkward. He felt slow and floaty, would slip around when trying to run, and often had trouble grasping onto surfaces. As I spent just a bit more time with the game, however, I developed a growing (sorry for the pun) sense of familiarity with the goofy little robot. It clicked. I began to understand his limits, his jump height, how to position his hands to climb lighting fast, how far his jet propulsion could take me, how to counter his momentum when landing after a rapid descent. It worked to create a sense of connection with B.U.D. As he grew in confidence, growing the Star Plant closer to space, so too did I grow in my mastery of his controls. I went from barely being able to jump from platform to platform, to catching and collecting a falling leaf while free falling, only to deploy it to glide comfortably to safety. My growth was exhilarating. Using a unique control scheme do create a bond with your protagonist is a powerful tool unique to games, and on that is painfully underutilized. I’m amazed at how expertly Grow Home executes its inclusion in game.

Video evidence of my skills. I'm basically a secret agent.

Above all, I really enjoyed how much Grow Home respects the player. Grow Home is perfectly simple. A straightforward control scheme embodies the notion of “easy to learn, difficult to master,” one of the best principles in game design. Grow Home’s sandbox gives the players the ability to do whatever they want. Exploration is rewarded, but it's totally optional. The games quiet and contemplative tone can appeal to anyone looking to have an immersive experience into a beautiful world. Small collection quests, like the shimmering crystals or teleporter scans of wildlife, offer completionist gamers an avenue for a more content dense experience. Grow Home can be completed in roughly 3 hours on your first run which, to me, shows a deep respect for the player’s time and attention. It is a perfect, compact experience. Grow Home brings you into a new and interesting world, shows you astounding sights, develops a bond between you and B.U.D., and then leaves you satisfied. Overstay its welcome, Grow Home does not.

Blooming the Star Plant is the end. Or maybe just a new beginning?

Grow Home is a remarkable success, exuding confidence and competence in all aspects. Grow Home is perhaps the biggest surprise of the year in that it delivered something I never knew how much I needed. I still find myself hopping into the game every once in a while, just to be brought back to my first time exploring and filling out it’s great world. Grow Home is a must play, a game I cannot recommend highly enough. Home is where the heart is.

Grow Home

5/5