While out exploring the galaxy with MOM, BUD’s parental spaceship, she goes to pieces. Like, literally – MOM’s all over the place. The positioning of that moon was terribly inconsiderate. Now her ship parts are scattered far and wide across an entire alien planet so rich in flora and fauna it would make even the most jaded galactic gardener’s head spin. It’s up to BUD to collect all her parts and get them back to the moon.
This is The Mechanic, where Alex Wiltshire invites developers to discuss the inner workings of their games. This time, colourful procedural climbing game Grow Home . Put simply, BUD is a box suspended over legs and is held together by springs. In practice, BUD is an ungainly robot child, staggering and tripping his way around a low-poly world. BUD is the star of Ubisoft Reflections Grow Home and Grow Up, all grinning face-grille and gangly limbs. He s a kind of super-ambulant WALL-E, able to run...
Grow Home was born of an experiment in procedural animation, almost accidentally creating a lovely game to support it. Grow Up was born of a desire to make a sequel to Grow Home. I think this captures the key differences between the two games. Here’s wot I think: …
One of MOM's flibbles was a lot more jellied than we thought, so we made some fixes The shoreline audio will not cause crashes on surround sound systems Reduced likelihood of loud bursts of audio after extended play The flower of the final STARPLANT will not close around BUD once fully grown Youch! achievement is less awkward to unlock Crystals should be less likely to become blocked by nearby branches Snapler floraforms should no longer kill BUD when he’s far away The toy bull will be better be...
One of MOM's flibbles was a lot more jellied than we thought, so we made some fixes The shoreline audio will not cause crashes on surround sound systems Reduced likelihood of loud bursts of audio after extended play The flower of the final STARPLANT will not close around BUD once fully grown Youch! achievement is less awkward to unlock Crystals should be less likely to become blocked by nearby branches Snapler floraforms should no longer kill BUD when he’s far away The toy bull will be better be...
Two words for you, reader, you and your video games: Grow Up . That’s a joke really undone by capitalisation and our standardised linking, isn’t it. Otherwise it’d be hilarious, wouldn’t it. You’d be like “Whaaat! How dare you! And on a video games site!” then I’d reveal that really I was talking about the sequel to Ubisoft’s splendid physics-o-platformer Grow Home and you’d be like “Oh gosh! I thought…!” and we’...
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