Alien Flora games: Prune

[su_animate type=“fadeInUp” delay=“1”]From the 12th to the 14th May (i.e. this Thursday to Saturday) I am putting on a small exhibition of art games at the Buzz gallery in Rotherham for three days. It’s an informal little event that I’m doing thanks to Rotherham Open Arts Renaissance, which has made some town-centre space available to members for short residency-like activities. One of the games I’m showing is Prune by Joel McDonald. [/su_animate][su_animate type=“fadeIn” delay=“1”]

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[su_animate type=“fadeInDown”] Prune was a major indie hit of 2015 that gained a lot of attention in the mainstream press because of its universal charm, clean visual style and accessible controls. The controls are in fact almost identical to Fruit Ninja, another highly successful game for touch screen with perhaps a less refined aesthetic sensibility. Prune is not simply about growing trees – the growing happens regardless of the player’s actions – it is about shaping their growth to best suit the conditions.

Although the main motifs suggest some fairly blatant influence from traditional Japanese art, the trees of Prune are alien, operating under an otherworldly set of physics whereby celestial bodies can harm or help the ever-spreading branches of the plant. Objects that resemble a rising sun or moon turn out to have different effects to what we would expect here on earth. Plants do not adapt to their conditions autonomously in Prune’s world as they do here; they require the player’s intervention in order to thrive. I like to think that the player is some sort of tree sprite, but I suppose it’s more likely that we are astronaut bonsai artists.

While some of the other games I’ll be showing have an enduring state, like little virtual gardens that will survive the passage of time, Prune is taken one tree at a time; each play loop is a passing moment spent guiding a single plant to blossom, only to move on and most likely never see the tree again. There is no sense of time here in the same sense, which is part of why the game can be so addictive. Who knows how much time has passed when you take every moment as it comes, with no before or after? [/su_animate]

[su_button url=“http://www.prunegame.com/” target=“blank” background="#478589" center=“yes” icon=“icon: ticket” desc=“For iOS, Android and Windows”]Get Prune now[/su_button]