Grow Home: Robot Skydive Simulator | Sequel "Grow Up" coming Aug 2016!

vamen

Meet B.U.D., the Botanical Utility Droid. From space!

He's cute.


He's strong.


He's very, very clumsy.


And he likes to innocently ride phallic-shaped plants, but we'll get to that.

What is it?
Only recently revealed and developed by the small 8 person team at Ubisoft Reflections, you play as B.U.D., the adorable little robot who puts any lifelong yoga practitioner to shame. "Beamed down" (i.e., thrown) from your spaceship, you find yourself far below on an unnamed, beautiful island with the daunting chore of growing a giant plant skyward until it finally blooms and allows you access to its highly prized seeds.

Grow Home is primarily a climbing game, but different from the automatic climbing we have become used to with "AAA" titles. Using a controller (because you'd be crazy not to), you control the grip/suction of his right hand with the right trigger, and his left with the left trigger. By alternating between hands, you can climb up any surface you can find. If it sounds clumsy, it's because it is, but clumsy in the most charming of ways.

In addition to climbing, he can uses his metal claws to grab onto boulders that you can drag to under cover secret cave entrances (watch out for the angry bull), fruit that you can toss for no seeming benefit, flowers that you can store in your pack as a makeshift parachute, or golden leaves that you can use for some graceful hang-gliding.
About to fall to your death? Be sure to grab that sheep nearby and take him with you. Maybe he can break your fall...but probably not, if my experience is any guide.

To help you on your quest, you collect crystals scattered throughout the landscape to power up your surprisingly resilient robot body with new upgrades, like a zoom camera and rocket pack. But your most useful skill will always be your Spiderman-like sticky hands. I believe technically he's probably supposed to be gripping with his hands, but the circle indicators make it feel like he has suction cups on them.

Throughout your climb you will come across deployed teleport stations that double as save spots. Once activated, they can be used as a system of waypoints to quickly teleport between locations if by some chance you fall 1000s of feet all the way to the ground below. Which you probably will.

Finally, you will come across your ultimate goal: The Star Seed Plant. Reminiscent of the bean stalk in that one story we all know, it is already stories upon stories high when you first reach it, but your job will be to continue feeding it until it reaches the heavens. Sticking out from the side of the plant are the above mentioned phallic shaped portions that you can grip onto and then make grow. Once you begin the growing process, you can guide the direction of the plants growth (which is limited) skyward. You're trying to grow them into the side of floating islands that are filled with some sort of green goo that is a nutrient for the stalk. Each island you [word that is less gross than "penetrate"] causes the stalk to grow ever higher.

Grow the plant, get those seeds, return to your ship!

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I realize "Ubisoft" is sort of a bad word to many, but if they would keep putting out games like this, I think they could turn that around. Adorable with a lot of heart, Grow Home is one of those rare games that's just pure fun to play. I hope the few of you who may give it a try will love it as much as I did.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=uR-4ZoDo_yg

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Just announced at E3 2016: Grow Home 2! Which is actually called "Grow Up."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEBtCHk8_YA

Release Date: August 16, 2016

Big Classy

WANT. This like so cute and bubbly. I miss these kind of games.

Medium Dave

Looks great.

And at only $8, I grabbed it to play this weekend.

vamen

Big Classy - It reminded me a lot of "Tiny and Big", if you ever played that. If not, you should.

Machwing

If you're on the fence about this game, my sister and I recorded ourselves playing it for about an hour! Seemed like we were over halfway through by the end so it's definitely on the short side, but 8 RealBux is still a pretty good deal for a fun little game. Anyway, maybe you'll like it after watching a video of it~

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSdU8oS-hHY

vamen

@machwing - Awesome! I streamed the whole thing when I played . It took about 2 hours to finish, so certainly short, but there's still crystals to collect and alternate objectives to reach.
After watching your video I want to play again.

FuriousJodo

Been taking it pretty slow and really enjoying it. Simple game but very solid. My daughter isn't really old enough to play it but does enjoy the robot jumping and the sounds that he makes.

Big Classy

vamen wrote: »

Big Classy - It reminded me a lot of "Tiny and Big", if you ever played that. If not, you should.

I gifted out so many copies of Tiny & Big, loved that game even with its quirks! Cannot wait to get started playing this. Thanks again!

Helpless Rock

I love this game. I'm at 97% on the crystal collecting. I just can't find that last (presumably last, anyway) cave and it's driving me crazy. There are also no guides or anything for this game so I'm having to do it the hard way.

vamen

I actually found all the caves but I'm still on the hunt for the crystals.

I don't recall all of the caves, but there seems to be

one on each main island, if I recall right. Did you find the one with the bull in it and the one with the warble?

Helpless Rock

vamen wrote: »

I actually found all the caves but I'm still on the hunt for the crystals.

I don't recall all of the caves, but there seems to be

one on each main island, if I recall right. Did you find the one with the bull in it and the one with the warble?

Yep to both of those caves in your spoiler. And all the other random paths in and out of of it.

cooljammer00

Hearing good things about this game. Doesn't seem to be getting nearly as much press as Ubi's previous small "indie" titles, like Valiant Hearts and Child of Light

vamen

From what I've read, it sounded like just some sort of experimental throw-away game that Ubi didn't really care much about. If so, I need them to care less about more products. Though I did like Child of Light a lot and am eager to try Valiant Hearts as well.

I was thinking... multiplayer in Grow Home would be sort of silly, but at the same time I wish it had it because it seems like it'd be fun to climb with friends and then push each other off ledges.

vamen

@Helpless Rock - The other I can think of is between the first and second teleporters. When you first start, walk towards the second teleporter. There's the mountain area to the left by the ocean. If you go on the left side of that mountain by the ocean, there's a very tiny cave entrance over there.

5 crystals to go with no idea where they might be!
Nevermind, got em!

Ov3rcharge

You've mistakenly called the game Gone Home in the OP a couple of times.

Big Classy

I wish there was more of an indication of where crystals are. Also, is there any point to the....... stuff in the caves? You know the

bull, reeds and dodo

.

LeumasWhite

Couple achievements linked to them. Crystals do play a bit of a sound when you get close.

vamen

@Ov3rcharge - haha, so I did. Basically any time I type the title I type "Gone Home" on the first attempt. I thought I had fixed those. I have now, thanks for the heads up =p

The last few crystals were rough to find, even at nighttime. I ended up just hanggliding around everywhere until I by random chance saw the last one. Ironically, they would be a lot easier to find if you already had the 100% crystal upgrade =p
It also helped to turn the sound up and the music all the way down so you could hear the crystal sound effect better.

Mr_Grinch

Any word on a console release for this? My pc needs an upgrade.

Dashui

The first thing I did was have BUD aggressively drag a screeching, struggling sheep into the deep blue, causing the poor creature to explode. Then I tried to throw one off a cliff. I may be playing this game wrong.

vamen

@dashui - I'd say you are playing it very right. In fact, a few more drown sheep and you've got yourself an achievement!

@Mr_Grinch - I have not seen anything mentioned about it coming to any consoles.

vamen

It's happening!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEBtCHk8_YA

Excitement levels: Off the charts.

vamen

Release date has been announced: August 16th!

Zilla360

Playing Grow Up on my PS4 right now. The Metroid Prime-style morph-ball mode/ability for BUD is super fun, the world is waaay bigger than it was in Grow Home, but still feels equally lovely/charming as the orginal game.

vamen

And I TOTALLY forgot this was out today. Glad to hear your positive feedback on it. I'll grab it now

vamen

I didn't think they'd manage, but Grow Up is even more charming and fun than the original, I think. I especially like all the mobility options you get early on. I have all but one of the ship parts so far but I've barely dented getting the crystals and I've only done about 6 or 7 challenges.

cooljammer00

So is this just like Grow Home but longer? Cause Grow Home was a game I wish I liked as much as everybody else, but it just felt so slow and unwieldy.

vamen

I don't know if it's "longer" per se, but I imagine it is. The world is a lot bigger, and you have to climb a lot higher this time, and there is just more to do in general.
I won't say you'd like this one more - that would depend on specifically what you didn't like in the last one - but I think it's certainly not as slow. You still have the climbing mechanic, but you use it much less. Very early on (within minutes) you get the ability to grow plants that work as trampolines and catapults and such. Not long after you get gliding/slow fall/etc type abilities. So you might still end up doing a little climbing but it's waaaaay less than before.

LeumasWhite

I'd probably thumbs-up it if you haven't played Grow Home, but thumbs-down if you have; it's like a textbook example of how adding "open-world" to your game's labels doesn't inherently add anything. There's more stuff but none of it is really improved from Home.

Zilla360

Finished! Powered Gilder is civilization, but removes any challenge to finding the ship parts. I didn't even have to really touch the Star Plants.

Probably not going to 100% everything, some of the timed challenges are super hard. I found the squeaky plush Bull but can't find the Sheep (Meep?) or the P block.