Janine "Iris Ophelia" Hawkins' ongoing review of gaming and virtual world style
It's safe to say that Reach for the Sun is unlike anything else on Steam, and it some ways it's a surprise that it's even there. Though it sticks out like a sore thumb from Steam's new releases, this beautiful, educational, and unconventional indie simulation/strategy game doesn't appear to have been through Greenlight, Steam's somewhat flawed community gatekeeping process for games that aren't attached to a big (or big enough) publisher. Given that it won Best Gameplay at Games for Change 2013 it certainly deserves to be on Steam, and it's not unheard of for promising games to get a pass, but... An educational plant sim?
I'm not complaining, though. Even if I don't understand entirely how Reach for the Sun made it on to Steam, I'm very glad that it did... And even more glad that I talked myself into picking it up. Here's why:
The goal is pretty simple: You're managing a plant, a single modest sprout in the ground, and you have to get it to produce as many seeds as possible before time runs out and winter takes your leafy little life away. You add more complicated root systems to extract more nutrients from the soil, leaves to convert all that into energy, stems so you can store both, and of course flowers to pollinate and bear fruit. That fruit contains seeds, the game's currency, which you can use to buy different plant types as well as upgrades for your garden. A praying mantis purchased with those seeds will help keep the bugs away, fertilizer will maker the soil richer, and so on.
Reach for the Sun is like a chapter from a grade school biology book come to life, but about a million times prettier than any school book I've seen. It certainly feels like the team spared no expense when it came to art, and a few of the game's trading cards even discuss the art process and the changes that the game underwent visually during development. The world has its fair share of ugly educational games, but this absolutely is not one of them.
One player on the game's community page on Steam suggests that Reach for the Sun is a "clickfest", and while I don't disagree, I also don't think that that is inherently a bad thing. Yes, much of the gameplay boils down to the kind of click-as-many-things-as-you-can-as-fast-as-you-can style of interaction you might expect more from an iOS game -- click the leaves to photosynthesize, click the roots to draw in water and food, click the flowers to create pollen, click the bugs to keep them away... This kind of gameplay isn't everyone's cup of tea, but given what this game is, clicking is the most natural and straightforward way approaching these interactions. It's a very intuitive control method that ensures players of all ages will know how to play almost immediately. It's also a rather organic (hah) way of scaling the difficulty on the fly for confident players: the more ambitious you are, the faster and more precise you'll need to be to reap the rewards.
If you're looking to use Reach for the Sun for its intended purpose as a teaching aide, you may want to visit the game's website for different pricing/licensing options as well as information about how to fit it in to your curriculum. If, like me, you're just looking for something lovely to wind down with at night, you can pick it up on Steam for 50% off until noon tomorrow.
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