With the game launching later today on PSN, it’s time for us to tell you how this quirky experience works and why we’re so excited to bring it to the PS3. As mentioned in previous articles, The UnderGarden is not a typical game. If you’ve been following some of the screenshots and trailers, you may be wondering exactly how The UnderGarden works. “There’s this little guy floating around, flowers are growing all around him, and he seems obsessed with glowing fruits … oh look, a giant wheel!”… Yes, it wouldn’t make much sense to us either! Let me try to explain.

The UnderGarden is about exploration. When you first jump in, the world is dark and there doesn’t seem too much in the way of life, but you can change this! The first thing you will want to do is grow some flowers, and for that you’ll need to collect pollen. There are pollen sacks scattered about the caves, and by bumping into them you can collect their pollen particles. The amount of pollen you have is shown at the bottom of the screen.

Now it’s time to start adding color to the world. As you float near the edges of the caverns, plants will sprout up around you, each adding color and different musical melodies. The plants aren’t just for looks — some of them can grow fruit. You’ll want to harvest these, and to do so, you need to get close and pull them off. To grab fruit, just hold down the “grab” button (square), which causes a bubble to form around you, and anything inside the bubble gets tethered to your character. To release fruit, you simply tap the same button. Aside from grabbing and releasing, there is also a light boost to help you pull things along, and a warp to bring you back to the last checkpoint or exit an area.

Back to our level. One of the first areas is blocked by a large stone gate, and there’s a small switch nearby that needs to be pushed down. Your character is too small, but this is where those orange fruit come in. If you gather up enough and release it on top of the switch, this will cause the gate to open and get you to the next section. There are several different types of fruit that do different things, and more appear in the later levels.

The puzzles also get a little more involved than the simple example above. In later levels, wind or fog present challenges, and some of the plants and creatures take on a more active role in your journey. There are other things to do as well: special crystals and bonus flowers are hidden throughout the world, and different hats and costumes will be unlocked as you play, allowing you to change how your little guy looks. Taking a break from playing a shooter? You might feel at home in a flak helmet, although we left out the M-16…or did we? Make flowers, not war…

Then there are the musicians, who are scattered about the levels and play different instruments. As you fly near them, you’ll hear the music change. Try taking some of them along for the ride! As you do this, you’ll add different layers to the music, and even see flowers start to change as you progress.

Now that we’ve talked about how the game works, you may be wondering “But what is the Undergarden really about“? For that, you will need to use your imagination. Are you underwater, or somewhere else? What happens when I bring everything to life? What does this all mean? We hint at something by the end, but we expect you to come to your own conclusion. We’re eager to hear what you come up with!

So how can you get the most of this game? Turn out the lights, get comfortable, turn up the sound and just start playing. Have a significant other join in for some co-op, and decorate the world as you solve the puzzles. Hey, even if you don’t quite figure it all out, we hope you’ll at least say “I don’t know what this place is, but I’m pretty sure I want to go back!”

We hope you enjoy what we’ve tried to do with The UnderGarden. We had fun making it for you! Give it a shot, and enjoy the sights and sounds as you travel around exploring everything in the world. Don’t forget to write… !

The UnderGarden started its life as a simple physics-based platform puzzle game. Using the term “game” perhaps was a bit of a stretch: it was really just a bit of a physics playground. Back in those early first prototypes, there was no real goal or purpose, and the game was really just about knocking things around and seeing what happened. As is sometimes the case, the fun comes out in ways you never really planned on, and that’s what started to occur in the early days of The UnderGarden.

The more the team played those early demos, the more we realized how satisfying it was just to move things around and hear them make different sounds as they collapsed or bounced off each other. As we added more colorful graphics and sounds,one thing we noticed right away is that people would often get “zoned” while playing. They kind of got absorbed in watching the little things sparkle and make sounds as they flew through them, and after a few minutes just got lost in the whole experience. When someone described it as “popping bubble wrap,” we knew we were onto something.

Adding the plants and flowers that you grow was something we had experimented with in the past (there are screenshots of something called “Eden” on our site). We’re not sure whether the flowers came before or after the environments, but definitely adding color to an otherwise dark world as you play, and having them all make different musical tones, seems like a pretty natural effect that definitely enhanced the overall experience. People really liked the way the world seemed to come alive the more you played.

The UnderGarden was designed around the idea that a game does not have to be overly difficult or tense, but can also be a relaxing experience. We’re fans of all kinds of games, but certainly some of the exclusive PSN titles like Flower, flOw and some of the PixelJunk games played a role. There is a nice simplicity to these titles, and playing a game to relax can be a much different and very fulfilling experience in itself. Of course we all love our shooters too, but sometimes you just don’t want the tension. Sometimes you just need to unwind.

Co-op play is also worth mentioning again. The inspiration for this was simple: how many times do you wish you could play a game with a friend, family or significant other, but they aren’t at the same skill level as you? A lot of coop games assume both players have the same skillset, but we’ve found this often is not the case. Nothing beats sitting with someone in the same room and being able to enjoy a game together, so we purposely made the coop play the kind of thing that a second player could have fun with even if they don’t usually play games.

For the environments, there are some obvious influences from nature in coral reefs and exotic plants, for example, but there also some artistic influences that have come into play. Once you have grown alot of flowers, levels they tend to take on a bit of a 1960′s counterculture feel to them. It is definitely not as trippy as some of the works of the period, but the whole idea of growing plants, adding vibrant colours, generating different sounds and becoming more and more relaxed as you play certainly lends itself to some obvious comparisons with that era. These are of course mostly coincidental. And then there’s the character itself…he’s a little harder to explain!

As for the music, our music director has created different tracks that not only work on their own, but can be layered together with each other as you go near the different musicians in the levels. His thoughts and inspirations for the music will follow in another article.

Overall, while we’ve drawn inspiration from a number of sources, we’ve also tried to create something unique that stands on its own. We hope you will enjoy the experience we have tried to deliver on PSN.

We at Vitamin G Studios are excited to introduce you to our new game, coming to PSN this winter. The UnderGarden is about exploration. It’s part game and part experience, with a little bit of puzzle solving mixed in. The game takes place across different worlds of windy tunnels, dark places filled with fog, and areas where electricity turns large rock gears endlessly. As the player, you float through these dark caverns, and fill them with color and music. You’ll need to collect pollen to grow beautiful flowers and exotic plants. Some of these plants bear fruit, used to manipulate doors, levers, gears, and other contraptions you find along the way. There are also special items to collect, and new flora and fruit to discover, and as they bloom the lighting and animations make the entire environment spring to life. Music also plays a huge part in the game, and almost everything you touch makes different musical tones. As you fill the world with music, you’ll run into the musicians, who play different instruments and will keep you company on your journey.

The game supports drop-in/drop-out co-op play, so a second player can join in and play along for the whole game, or just a level or two. We wanted to make it fun for two people to play together, even if they aren’t both at the same skill level. In co-op, the second player is there to help the first gather pollen and solve puzzles. So you don’t have to worry about getting lost or left behind: they always get pulled along and you’ll always be close together. The second player can even just float around making everything colourful and musical while the first player does the heavy lifting: it’s up to you. We think it is a great way to get a friend or significant other into the game, especially if they don’t usually play games.

Many games are really fast-paced and full of tension. The UnderGarden is pretty much the polar opposite of that. It is about creating rather than destroying: you can’t die, you can’t really fail, and you play at your own pace. In the right state of mind, it is a nice relaxing experience. You can pour yourself a beverage, shut off the lights, and just float around the world. If you are a fan of games like Flower, or flOw, then you’ll be right at home here. Even if you spend more time playing shooters, The UnderGarden is a great change of pace to help you unwind afterwards.

So who are you and why are you here? Your name’s Ludwig and you’ve been described as everything from a floating baby to a space monkey. But who you really are, and what this place is, are things you’ll have to figure out on your own, so you’ll have to use your imagination there!

Over the next few weeks, we’ll talk about some of the ideas behind the game, and the music as we get closer to release. We hope to see you in The UnderGarden in a few weeks!