Storm – Review
If you have ever wondered how a tree is made, Storm, a puzzle game by Indiepub, might be something for you: “Storm is a physics-based puzzle platform game where players use natural phenomena to guide a simple seed to fertile soil so it can take root and spring to life. Use logic and the power of wind, rain, lightning, snow, tornadoes, ice and even bubbles to solve environmental puzzles while guiding a seed to fertile ground. (description from XBLA)”.
Story
You play as a god who has limited control over the elements and with your powers you must guide a seed to fertile soil. You can use the power of wind, lightning, rain and… bubbles? Apparently floating bubbles are very common in nature. Since i’m not a nature geek, I’ll take Indiegame’s word for it.
Graphics
The graphics aren’t great but the game has a certain ‘painterly’ charm and the nature effects you have at your disposal are well animated. Okay, at first glance the game seems a bit boring but since it’s a puzzler it’s not about the amount of polygons, pixels and framerates but about how attractive the puzzles are.
Sound
I can say about the sound the same thing as i did about the graphics, it isn’t great but it has a certain charm. It complements the graphics well. It’s soothing but sometimes maybe a bit too soothing for me. The sound effects are mainly limited to the sound of wind, thunder, rain and so on. You get the idea.
Gameplay
As mentioned above, with the help of nature you have to get a seed that falls from a tree to a patch of fertile soil at the other side of a level. There are about 50 levels, divided over the four seasons. It starts out easy during spring, where you only have wind at your disposal but after a few levels it gets harder and you’ll have to use different elements to reach the goal.
With wind you can move the seed into your desired direction, lightning can make the seed “hop” over holes and break rocks, and rain can fill gaps with water or make wood float. The controls are responsive but they take some time to get used to, especially wind. Part of the difficulty isn’t figuring out what you have to do or what element you need to use but being able to control your elements so they do what needs to be done. This can get a bit frustrating at times but nothing gamebreaking.
There is no time limit and you can reset your seed (it gets transported back to the tree) when it gets stuck or when you destroy something by accident with your lightning that you still need afterwards.
The puzzles are clever and original but once you have finished a level, there’s no real reason to replay it unless you want to improve your score.
Besides the ‘story’ mode there is also a spirit mode where you need to pick up as much floating spirits as possible with your seed while you advance through the level.
Conclusion
Storm is an original puzzler with creative, sometimes slightly frustrating gameplay but once you have finished the last level there’s no real reason to start over.
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