Eufloria Review.

        Eufloria, where shall I begin? I've seen it described in a number of places as "your standard RTS"; yet I fail to see anything standard about it, as it is quite distantly removed from Star Craft and the number of other games we have come to associate with the genre. Don't let that dissuade you from giving this one a go though, they have taken RTS by the wheel and gone in an interesting direction.

The mechanics are essentially the same as you may expect of an RTS, the developers choosing to stick to the going formula apart from some interesting stylistic choices ; and things are kept pretty simple, so interacting with the game is reasonably intuitive. You've got your minions, a role which is played by seedlings in this incarnation, and you move from one asteroid belt to the next colonizing the otherwise barren rocks and growing trees on them. Trees with which you spawn more seedlings and thus the cycle goes on. Though in many cases these asteroids are already host to your enemy and the right to colonize them yourself is a hard earned reward. Early on in my play through I made the mistake of underestimating the opponent and was overwhelmed rather quickly. I learned a few good lessons, that I won't spoil for you, as I progressed through larger and more challenging maps; and I must say I never knew intergalactic gardening could be quite this treacherous.

The visuals in Eufloria are very dynamic and at first glance are quite breathtaking. No effort was spared into making the game look wonderful start to finish; and it's very nice to see such crisp and colorful imagery in Indie Games. It shows that someone took a lot of time and quite a bit of pride in their work, so well done. Another interesting thing that the visuals brought to light is some pretty stellar programming. Understand that I was playing Eufloria on a rather old laptop, and running it on moderate graphic settings never caused any sort of distortion or FPS drop. For those of you who know all too well what I am talking about, this is certainly a positive thing to understate it a bit.


In my experience, I really only ever notice music in a game if it is quite good or quite bad. Otherwise it just fits in and passes by as ambiance, going largely unnoticed. I am glad to say that in the case of Eufloria, I noticed some very very good music. I was a little iffy when I saw that there a bundle offering the game + soundtrack, which is pretty bold move and show confidence in the game's music. However, once I got into the game, all doubts were stilled by a delightfully trippy groove underlit by a hip hop beat that just didn't stop. I know music like this isn't everyone's cup of tea, but it struck a chord with me (no pun intended). In my opinion it is definitely worth the additional five bucks to enjoy the soundtrack with your purchase.

Finally a word on a subject I normally like to discuss up front. The storytelling is perhaps the factor in this game that surprised me the most. The story itself is original enough, rife with nebulous enemies about whom I was learning more little by little; but the delivery was sublime. Just enough new information at any one time to keep me playing to learn more. I can't say it is in the ring with James Joyce's Ulysses, but it was devilishly compelling all the same; enough to keep me playing for quite a while on any given evening.


I suppose it's just about time I put some kind of score on this one and wrapped things up. Problem is, I don't really see much good in numerical scores; but if you must have something, go with this: Outstanding recommendation and Gold Star/10. I had a ton of fun and feel it was more than worth the investment, so give it a go!


http://omnisystems.itch.io/eufloria-hd