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Game Review: Eufloria HD
My achievements tell me I've beaten this game before, when it was the SD version, but I didn't have any memory of it so I decided to play it again.
Eufloria was the first Art Game I ever bought, back when I lived in Japan, Wrath of the Lich King was getting long in the tooth, and I was looking for something else to occupy my time other than playing World of Warcraft exclusively as my computer entertainment. Eufloria was calm, and relaxing, with a space ambient soundtrack, gameplay that gave you plenty of time to react to what was going on, simple principles, and plenty to do. My achievements tell me that I started playing some time in 2010 but I didn't beat it until 2013, which isn't the longest I've ever gone between starting and finishing a game, but it's in the top 10, I think. Not too long after I finished it, they released an HD version and I always thought that I'd get around to play it.
Well...six years later, I have.
Look at my garden grow.
At its heart, Eufloria is a strategy game. Each level has a procedurally-generated set of asteroids on which to plant your seeds. Different asteroids produce seeds strong with different strengths in Energy (capturing asteroids), Strength (fighting ability), and Speed (self-explanatory). By spending ten seeds, you can plant a dyson tree on an asteroid to produce more seeds at set time intervals. Each asteroid can send seeds to other asteroids in a specific radius, so the game is about the flow of seeds from asteroid to asteroid as you conquer each level for the glory of the Growers.
There's a few additional elements that complicate this, but not by much. In addition to dyson trees, there are defense trees, which shoot at opposing seeds and make asteroids harder to capture. Occasionally dyson trees produce a flower, which can be used to enhance the functions of either type of tree, and defense trees produce a laser pod, which acts as a mobile turret and explodes like a bomb when it dies. Each asteroid can devour seeds to improve its rating in one of the three categories by up to 100 seeds' worth (about two-thirds of a bar). It's possible to filter seedlings and only send energetic, strong, or fast seedlings to another asteroid. In practice, though, I almost never used any of that other than implanting flowers in dyson trees to produce enhanced seeds. I always found that more seeds solved any problem that came my way, and any strategy that led to having more seeds beat everything else I could try.
In a couple levels I did try alternate strategies, but I never had much success with them. Building defense trees slowed down my production of seeds and didn't seem to have a measurable effect on how long it took the enemy to conquer my asteroids. What mattered was sheer numbers and, to a lesser extent, the stats of the seedlings. Anything else I did made it just a little bit harder for me to win, and eventually I gave up. I never built a defense tree or planted a flower in one. I rarely spent seedlings on asteroid improvement. I just churned out a huge fleet of seedlings and they hurled themselves into the void of space with no fear.
The time-honored tactic of "outnumbering them 7-to-1".
That's the main problem with Eufloria, even the HD version--it's a strategy game where there's not much strategy required.
There's a problem in a lot of 4X games where at a certain point it's a foregone conclusion who the victor will be, but the rest of the game still has to be played. Modern games tend to find other ways around this, such as allowing diplomatic or cultural victory, or making a military victory only require the attainment of overwhelming force rather than literally crushing every single independent polity in the world, but older games often require the slow death march to paint the entire map your color. Unfortunately, Eufloria often falls into that category. Although some levels have alternate goals like keep a certain population of Grey seedlings alive for study, or conquer four specific giant asteroids, by far the most common goal is to annihilate all opposition. That means building up a giant force of seedlings, flowing from asteroid to asteroid in wave, and periods waiting for more seedlings to appear so that I'd have overwhelming numerical superiority.
The last was helped by the greatest addition to Eufloria HD: time acceleration. There's an option for double or triple speed at any time. If you think that this ruins the slow-paced, contemplative mood of the original Eufloria, you're honestly correct, but on the other hand on some of those levels I spent 5-10 minutes at accelerated time waiting for my seeds to build up before I launched my final assault. When I played the original Eufloria, a lot of my game time was tabbed out, waiting for seedlings to spawn, occasionally checking back when I heard the sound of battle or just to see how many seedlings were on whatever asteroid I had set as the launching point for my invasion. Triple speed makes it a game of quick reactions, but it also means that's it playable on a reasonable timescale.
There were some missions where I had to restart them a few times to get my initial approach correct, and if I had to do that on 1-for-1 time, it would have eaten up a couple hours right there. No wonder the original took three years for me to beat.
I'm not sure I'm comfortable with this rhetoric.
Eufloria certainly is pretty, in a kind of spacey New Age sort of way. And the basic concepts are interesting. It's possible that if I delved further into the game, tried the Dark Matter mode where the enemy is quote "empowered by Darkness" and stronger, that I might need to use more complicated strategies and exercise my brain more. But I just spent seven hours repeatedly building my numbers up to be large enough that I could overwhelm the enemy no matter how strong they are--I think in the last level, my final assault was 1400 seedlings vs. 200 enhanced defenders--and I don't want to keep going just on the off-chance that I only played the baby levels and the real Eufloria HD begins now.
When Eufloria first came out in 2009, the gaming landscape was totally different. The indie renaissance was just beginning and it wasn't too long after some people had declared PC gaming dead. But it's a decade later, and indie games are some of the best games out there. The effusive praise Eufloria got was a product of its time, and while deserved at the time, it's as much an element of the past as this game is.
Eufloria was the first Art Game I ever bought, back when I lived in Japan, Wrath of the Lich King was getting long in the tooth, and I was looking for something else to occupy my time other than playing World of Warcraft exclusively as my computer entertainment. Eufloria was calm, and relaxing, with a space ambient soundtrack, gameplay that gave you plenty of time to react to what was going on, simple principles, and plenty to do. My achievements tell me that I started playing some time in 2010 but I didn't beat it until 2013, which isn't the longest I've ever gone between starting and finishing a game, but it's in the top 10, I think. Not too long after I finished it, they released an HD version and I always thought that I'd get around to play it.
Well...six years later, I have.
Look at my garden grow.
At its heart, Eufloria is a strategy game. Each level has a procedurally-generated set of asteroids on which to plant your seeds. Different asteroids produce seeds strong with different strengths in Energy (capturing asteroids), Strength (fighting ability), and Speed (self-explanatory). By spending ten seeds, you can plant a dyson tree on an asteroid to produce more seeds at set time intervals. Each asteroid can send seeds to other asteroids in a specific radius, so the game is about the flow of seeds from asteroid to asteroid as you conquer each level for the glory of the Growers.
There's a few additional elements that complicate this, but not by much. In addition to dyson trees, there are defense trees, which shoot at opposing seeds and make asteroids harder to capture. Occasionally dyson trees produce a flower, which can be used to enhance the functions of either type of tree, and defense trees produce a laser pod, which acts as a mobile turret and explodes like a bomb when it dies. Each asteroid can devour seeds to improve its rating in one of the three categories by up to 100 seeds' worth (about two-thirds of a bar). It's possible to filter seedlings and only send energetic, strong, or fast seedlings to another asteroid. In practice, though, I almost never used any of that other than implanting flowers in dyson trees to produce enhanced seeds. I always found that more seeds solved any problem that came my way, and any strategy that led to having more seeds beat everything else I could try.
In a couple levels I did try alternate strategies, but I never had much success with them. Building defense trees slowed down my production of seeds and didn't seem to have a measurable effect on how long it took the enemy to conquer my asteroids. What mattered was sheer numbers and, to a lesser extent, the stats of the seedlings. Anything else I did made it just a little bit harder for me to win, and eventually I gave up. I never built a defense tree or planted a flower in one. I rarely spent seedlings on asteroid improvement. I just churned out a huge fleet of seedlings and they hurled themselves into the void of space with no fear.
The time-honored tactic of "outnumbering them 7-to-1".
That's the main problem with Eufloria, even the HD version--it's a strategy game where there's not much strategy required.
There's a problem in a lot of 4X games where at a certain point it's a foregone conclusion who the victor will be, but the rest of the game still has to be played. Modern games tend to find other ways around this, such as allowing diplomatic or cultural victory, or making a military victory only require the attainment of overwhelming force rather than literally crushing every single independent polity in the world, but older games often require the slow death march to paint the entire map your color. Unfortunately, Eufloria often falls into that category. Although some levels have alternate goals like keep a certain population of Grey seedlings alive for study, or conquer four specific giant asteroids, by far the most common goal is to annihilate all opposition. That means building up a giant force of seedlings, flowing from asteroid to asteroid in wave, and periods waiting for more seedlings to appear so that I'd have overwhelming numerical superiority.
The last was helped by the greatest addition to Eufloria HD: time acceleration. There's an option for double or triple speed at any time. If you think that this ruins the slow-paced, contemplative mood of the original Eufloria, you're honestly correct, but on the other hand on some of those levels I spent 5-10 minutes at accelerated time waiting for my seeds to build up before I launched my final assault. When I played the original Eufloria, a lot of my game time was tabbed out, waiting for seedlings to spawn, occasionally checking back when I heard the sound of battle or just to see how many seedlings were on whatever asteroid I had set as the launching point for my invasion. Triple speed makes it a game of quick reactions, but it also means that's it playable on a reasonable timescale.
There were some missions where I had to restart them a few times to get my initial approach correct, and if I had to do that on 1-for-1 time, it would have eaten up a couple hours right there. No wonder the original took three years for me to beat.
I'm not sure I'm comfortable with this rhetoric.
Eufloria certainly is pretty, in a kind of spacey New Age sort of way. And the basic concepts are interesting. It's possible that if I delved further into the game, tried the Dark Matter mode where the enemy is quote "empowered by Darkness" and stronger, that I might need to use more complicated strategies and exercise my brain more. But I just spent seven hours repeatedly building my numbers up to be large enough that I could overwhelm the enemy no matter how strong they are--I think in the last level, my final assault was 1400 seedlings vs. 200 enhanced defenders--and I don't want to keep going just on the off-chance that I only played the baby levels and the real Eufloria HD begins now.
When Eufloria first came out in 2009, the gaming landscape was totally different. The indie renaissance was just beginning and it wasn't too long after some people had declared PC gaming dead. But it's a decade later, and indie games are some of the best games out there. The effusive praise Eufloria got was a product of its time, and while deserved at the time, it's as much an element of the past as this game is.
no subject
I have mixed thoughts on it. It's beautiful and the concept was fun. But in the end it didn't quite grab me gameplay wise. I think I had more fun with Osmos.
I've also tried Galcon Fusion which was ok.
I had an idea for a similar game with music being a part of it (unit generation is based upon pulses and beats/sequences) similar to the NodeBeat app:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.AffinityBlue.NodeBeat&hl=en_US
(with some more in depth resource collection and unit building like a more typical RTS).
no subject
If nothing else, Galcon Fusion certainly looks like Eufloria.
I feel like I might have liked it if there was more of a tower defense feel, like Creeper World (which I need to get back to).