GROW (series)

Last updated
GROW
Genre(s) Puzzle
Developer(s) On
Publisher(s) On
Creator(s)On

GROW is a series of Flash or HTML5-based puzzle games created by On Nakayama, a Japanese indie game developer, and posted to his website, eyezmaze.com. The series, which was launched on February 7, 2002, comprises 12 full games, 7 minigames, and 1 canceled game. The most recently released title was published in June 2018. The games all feature a simple click-button interface requiring the player to determine the correct combination of buttons to click to maximize visual reward and ultimately to achieve the good ending. Graphically spare and minimalist, GROW games employ a cute aesthetic and often include creatures and characters taken from On's other games like those in the Tontie Series.

Contents

The games have received largely positive reviews with the main criticisms restricted to a formulaic quality of the main series and a lack of replay value. Positive reviews have emphasized the games' simple whimsy and innocent aesthetics and the creativity of the underlying concept. Although widely recognized as a puzzle game, a paper by the 2008 IGDA noted that "the Grow series is an example of a game that defined a new genre of games." [1]

Gameplay

The player is presented with a number of buttons related to characteristics of the game world. Clicking a button will usually result in a change to the corresponding part of the game world. The puzzle is to determine the order in which to push the buttons to achieve the good ending. The number of buttons in each game varies between 5 and 12. The number of different combinations possible with each additional button, however, increases according to a factorial progression. [2] Thus, a game with 5 buttons will have 120 possible combinations (of which only one leads to the good ending) and a game with 12 buttons will have 479 million possible combinations.

Components of the game world go through a leveling up process after each selection is made. Because previously engaged components of the game world remain on the screen, later button pushes will often allow new areas of the environment to interact with previous areas. These interactions may cause the environmental component to level up, level down, or remain the same. By keeping track of which buttons have which effects on the other parts of the game world, the player can home in on the good ending by maximizing the visual reward. [3] Once all components have been maximized and the world is fully developed, the player wins. [4] [5]

Each game in the main series has a good ending, many bad endings, and often a secret easter egg ending. [6] Titles in the MiniGROW series, however, tend to be much smaller [7] and simpler, [8] [9] ranging from 6 buttons to as few as 3. [2]

History

The first game that was released in the GROW series was GROW ver.3 in February 2002. This was the third version of a single game that On had been developing (the first two versions were substantially identical to ver.3 except that they lacked music and a score) in 2001–2002. [10] Upon release, On decided to retain the "ver.3" part of the title rather than naming the game simply GROW as he had originally intended. On continued to develop other games in the GROW series after this point including GROW Cube and GROW ORNAMENT, and in 2005-2006 his games had become popular enough with gamers that Western gaming press began to cover his work. [11] After receiving numerous questions regarding why the GROW series seemed to begin with "ver.3" instead of "ver.1" and where "ver.1" and "ver.2" could be located, On decided to recreate new reduced versions [10] for ver.2 and ver.1 which he released in that order in June and December 2006 respectively.

With growing English, Spanish, Korean, Chinese, and French interest in the games, On translated the website into the relevant languages in April 2009. [12] A series of GROW comics were also initiated in April 2015 to showcase concept art for the series. [13] [14] [15] [16] [17]

The series was originally released on Adobe Flash, later ported to HTML5 and the Flash version shut down along with Flash.

On March 5, 2020, the server hosting eyezmaze.com crashed. On has stated on Twitter that the last backup made of the website was in 2016, and that the server administrator was too busy to fix the issue. [18] [19] The site has since come back online.

Since 2020, there have been no updates to any of the games and no new games.

Reception

Despite their simplicity, the GROW games have received largely favorable reviews. [20] PC Gamer 's Jaz McDougall described the spare cartoon visuals as productive of a surreal playing experience and suggested that some of the more complex titles in the series could benefit from group playing by multiple players. [4] Rock, Paper, Shotgun's Alec Meer describes the series as "endearing" and "dreamlike", [6] while The Guardian 's Naomi Alderman described them as "enchanting", "whimsical" and child-friendly. [21] Indiegames.com writer Michael Rose noted that GROW games make the player "feel all good inside" and described the experience of playing GROW as akin to "pressing buttons on an exhibit in a museum ... to watch the world evolve." [22] GameSetWatch's Eric Caoili has emphasized On's use of humor to reward players who are making progress even when just exploring. [23] The regularity of On's releases has also drawn praise from reviewers like the New York Times' Charles Herold. [24] Industry insiders including game developers Dave Grossman [25] and Spry Fox have also praised the series. [26]

Criticism has mostly been restricted to the claim that the gameplay is largely formulaic between different titles, though reviewers have noted that games like GROW Cannon [27] and GROW RPG have been able to provide sufficient variation to keep the series interesting. [28] [29] The A.V. Club's Gameological Society has also criticized the games in terms of their replay value, stating "[t]he Grow games weren't much fun to play more than once." [30]

GROW Series

Main Series

MiniGROW Series

Related Research Articles

<i>King of Dragon Pass</i> 1999 video game

King of Dragon Pass is a 1999 strategy simulation fantasy video game published by A Sharp. Set in the fictional world of Glorantha, the player controls the fate of a barbarian clan settling in the dangerous frontier region of Dragon Pass.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adventure Game Studio</span>

Adventure Game Studio (AGS) is an open source development tool primarily used to create graphic adventure games. It is aimed at intermediate-level game designers, and combines an integrated development environment (IDE) with a scripting language based on the C programming language to process game logic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dolphin (emulator)</span> Nintendo GameCube and Wii emulation software

Dolphin is a free and open-source video game console emulator for GameCube and Wii that runs on Windows, Linux, macOS, Android, Xbox One, Xbox Series X and Series S.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Krome Studios</span> Australian video game company

Krome Studios Pty Ltd. is an Australian video game company. Its headquarters were in Brisbane and it previously had offices in Adelaide and Melbourne. Krome Studios is best known for their Ty the Tasmanian Tiger games and for their reboot of the Spyro the Dragon series. Krome has created games for the Xbox, GameCube, Wii, Game Boy Advance, Dreamcast, PlayStation, PlayStation 2, Macintosh and PC. Krome has also developed for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Portable, Windows Phone 7 and iOS.

Super Monkey Ball is a series of arcade platform video games initially developed by Amusement Vision and published by Sega. The series debuted in 2001 with the arcade game Monkey Ball, which was ported to GameCube as Super Monkey Ball later that year. Several sequels and ports have been released.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nitrome</span> English video game developer

Nitrome Games Limited is a British independent video game developer based in London. The company formerly developed Unity-based games for Web browsers, but now publishes and develops games across multiple platforms including mobile, Nintendo Switch, and PS4, with a few releases on Steam.

GamersGate AB is a Sweden-based online video game store offering electronic strategy guides and games for Windows, macOS, and Linux via direct download. It is a competitor to online video game services such as Steam, GOG.com, and Direct2Drive.

<i>Rock Paper Shotgun</i> Video game website and blog

Rock Paper Shotgun is a British video game journalism website. It was launched in July 2007 to focus on PC games and was acquired by Gamer Network, a network of sites led by Eurogamer, in May 2017.

<i>Canabalt</i> 2009 video game

Canabalt is a one-button endless runner designed by Adam Saltsman for the Experimental Gameplay Project in 2009. The 2D side-scrolling video game was originally written as a Flash game, then ported to iOS, Android, PlayStation Portable, Ouya, and HTML5. An authorized version for the Commodore 64 was released on cartridge. Canabalt has been credited with popularizing the endless runner subgenre.

<i>Happy Wheels</i> 2010 video game

Happy Wheels is a side-scrolling ragdoll physics-based platform browser game developed and published by Fancy Force. Created in 2010 by video game designer Jim Bonacci, the game features several player characters using various and often atypical vehicles to traverse the game's many user-generated levels. The game is best known for its graphic violence and the amount of user-generated content its players produce on a regular basis, with game maps shared on a public server. According to Bonacci, a sequel, which he has been working on since at least 2013, is still in development as of December 2020.

<i>Mini Metro</i> (video game) 2015 puzzle strategy video game

Mini Metro is a puzzle strategy video game developed by New Zealand indie development team Dinosaur Polo Club. Players are tasked with constructing an efficient rail transit network for a rapidly growing city. The game's visual style makes use of bold colours and simple geometry to replicate the appearance of modern transit maps. The game uses a procedural audio system to generate sounds based on the player actions and transit network, with inspiration from works of minimal music.

<i>Microsoft Solitaire Collection</i> 2012 video game

Microsoft Solitaire Collection is a video game developed by Microsoft Casual Games and published by Xbox Game Studios for Microsoft Windows. It combines the Solitaire, FreeCell and Spider Solitaire titles that were included with previous versions of Windows. It also introduces Pyramid and TriPeaks to Windows for the first time, as well as new daily challenges and themes. Unlike the games included in Windows 7 and earlier versions, Microsoft Solitaire Collection is freemium adware with Xbox Live integration.

<i>I Get This Call Every Day</i> 2012 video game

I Get This Call Every Day is a 2012 point-and-click video game developed and published by Toronto-based developer David S Gallant. It was released for Microsoft Windows and OS X on December 21, 2012. It focuses on a call received by an employee of a customer service call centre; the player must navigate through the call without irritating the caller or breaking confidentiality laws. Gallant was fired from his job at a call centre as a direct result of publishing the game.

<i>Convoy</i> (video game) 2015 video game

Convoy is a video game released on April 21, 2015 for Microsoft Windows, OS X, and Linux, and as Convoy: A Tactical Roguelike on April 8, 2020 for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One under a revised format. The game features pixel art graphics and roguelike squad based tactical combat. In Convoy, the player must scour the wastelands of a desert planet in a defensively outfitted semi-trailer truck for parts to a crashed spaceship. The plot is experienced through interactive text based dialogue, where the player picks responses to written scenarios. The outcome of these scenarios sometimes turns in to tactical combat.

<i>Project Highrise</i> 2016 video game

Project Highrise is a 2D tower-building simulation game, developed by SomaSim and published by Kasedo Games. It is considered by many to be the spiritual successor to SimTower. In the game, players take on the role of a high-rise manager who is responsible for building and maintaining a tower block, filling it with offices, apartments, shops and restaurants, which they support with utilities, while providing specialized services and fulfilling certain conditions in order to keep the residents and tenants of the building satisfied.

<i>My Friend Pedro</i> 2019 video game

My Friend Pedro is a shoot 'em up video game developed by Swedish developer DeadToast Entertainment and published by Devolver Digital. The game was released for Nintendo Switch and Windows on 20 June 2019 and for Xbox One on 5 December 2019. A PlayStation 4 port of the game was released on 2 April 2020. My Friend Pedro is based on an Adobe Flash game named MFP: My Friend Pedro that was released by Adult Swim Games in 2014.

<i>Coil</i> (video game) Autobiographical video game

Coil is an autobiographical Flash game developed by Edmund McMillen and Florian Himsl, released in 2008. It was nominated for the Innovation Award at the 2009 Independent Games Festival and is considered an example of an artgame. The game was sponsored by Armor Games.

References

  1. ↑ Lee, Michelle. 2008-2009 Casual Games White Paper - Ad Supported Web Games: Art History . 2008 IGDA. November 2008.
  2. 1 2 Fronczak, Tom. Monday Mind Teasers: GROW Games . Destructoid. 10 August 2009.
  3. ↑ Meer, Alec. Eight-Step Plan . Rock, Paper, Shotgun. 15 September 2007.
  4. 1 2 McDougall, Jaz. "'Cultivate surreal stories in the Grow series". PC Gamer . 31 August 2010.
  5. ↑ DeMarco, F. Flash Game To Suck Your Soul: Grow Cube Archived 2012-10-22 at the Wayback Machine . Kotaku. 18 November 2006.
  6. 1 2 Meer, Alec. All Grown Up: New Eyemaze Game . Rock, Paper, Shotgun. 30 August 2010.
  7. ↑ Sjoberg, Lore. "GROW nano vol.2". Wired . 21 February 2007.
  8. ↑ Meer, Alec. Sickly Thing . Rock, Paper, Shotgun. 20 February 2008.
  9. ↑ Khaw, Casandra. Browser Game Pick: Grow Nano 4 (EyeMaze) . Archived 2019-01-13 at the Wayback Machine . Indiegames.com. 2 May 2011.
  10. 1 2 3 On. GROW ver.2(GAME) . Eyezmaze.com. 12 June 2006.
  11. ↑ On. The article of GROW appeared in "Superjuegos Xtreme". . Eyezmaze.com. 30 September 2006.
  12. ↑ On. Multilingualization in EYEZMAZE. . Eyezmaze.com. 19 April 2009.
  13. ↑ On. GROW COMIC #1 . Eyezmaze.com. 19 April 2015.
  14. ↑ On. GROW COMIC #2 . Eyezmaze.com. 17 July 2015.
  15. ↑ On. GROW COMIC #3 . Eyezmaze.com. 24 July 2015.
  16. ↑ On. GROW COMIC #4 . Eyezmaze.com. 31 July 2015.
  17. ↑ On. GROW COMIC #5 . Eyezmaze.com. 23 October 2015.
  18. ↑ On. . 20 March 2020.
  19. ↑ On. . 5 March 2020.
  20. ↑ W., Tim. Best of Indie Games: Zero Point Cubes! . Gamasutra. 27 June 2008.
  21. ↑ Alderman, Naomi. If we deny children access to all computer games, we deprive them of a rich and magical experience . The Guardian . 9 April 2008.
  22. ↑ Rose, Michael. Browser Game Pick: GROW Valley (Eyezmaze) . Archived 2019-01-28 at the Wayback Machine . Indiegames.com. 27 August 2010.
  23. ↑ Caoili, Eric. Eyezmaze Releases Grow Cannon . Archived 2019-01-13 at the Wayback Machine . GameSetWatch. 1 February 2011.
  24. ↑ Herold, Charles. "Personal Tech: Game Theory - Politics, Spreadsheets and More Are All Grist for the (Free) Game Mill". New York Times . 3 January 2008.
  25. ↑ Wallis, Alistair. Media Consumption: Telltale Games' Dave Grossman . Gamasutra. 5 December 2006.
  26. ↑ Cook, Daniel. Triple Town released for the Amazon Kindle . LostGarden. 15 October 2010.
  27. ↑ Rose, Michael. Browser Game Pick: Grow Cannon (Eyezmaze) . Archived 2019-01-13 at the Wayback Machine . Indiegames.com. 1 February 2011.
  28. ↑ Meer, Alec. Life-Gun: GROW Cannon . Rock, Paper, Shotgun. 1 February 2011.
  29. ↑ Meer, Alec. Tower Of Grow . Rock, Paper, Shotgun. 28 January 2009.
  30. ↑ Agnello, Anthony John, et al. Sawbuck Gamer - February 21, 2011: Grow Cannon . The A.V. Club - Gameological Society. 21 February 2011.
  31. ↑ On. GROW ver.3(GAME) . Eyezmaze.com. 7 February 2002.
  32. ↑ On. The remake of GROW ver.3 . Eyezmaze.com. 23 August 2010.
  33. ↑ On. GROW RPG . Eyezmaze.com. 22 July 2005.
  34. ↑ On. GROW RPG Σ（for iPhone & Android） . Eyezmaze.com. 28 April 2015.
  35. ↑ On. GROW CUBE(GAME) . Eyezmaze.com. 15 September 2005.
  36. ↑ On. GROW キューブΩ（for iPhone & Android） . Eyezmaze.com. 9 September 2014.
  37. ↑ On. 『GROW キューブΩ』 iPhone版リリース . Eyezmaze.com. 20 October 2014.
  38. ↑ On. GROW JUNGLE (for Android） . Facebook. 13 April 2015.
  39. ↑ On. GROW JUNGLE ( iOS ) . Eyezmaze.com. 2 August 2015.
  40. ↑ On. GROW ver.1(GAME) . Eyezmaze.com. 10 December 2006.
  41. ↑ On. GROW ver.1 Added a fork in the road . Eyezmaze.com. 8 May 2008.
  42. ↑ On. GROW ver.1 Added a fork in the road . Eyezmaze.com. 12 June 2008.
  43. ↑ On. GROW ver.1 Added a fork in the road . Eyezmaze.com. 5 July 2008.
  44. ↑ On. GROW ISLAND (GAME) . Eyezmaze.com. 13 September 2007.
  45. ↑ On. GROW TOWER(GAME) . Eyezmaze.com. 21 January 2009.
  46. ↑ On. GROW Valley (GAME) . Eyezmaze.com. 23 August 2010.
  47. ↑ On. GROW CANNON (GAME) . Eyezmaze.com. 31 January 2011.
  48. ↑ On. For now, I gave up... . Eyezmaze.com. 30 December 2012.
  49. ↑ On. GROW Maze (GAME) . Eyezmaze.com. 13 March 2013.
  50. ↑ On. GROW CLAY (GAME) . Eyezmaze.com. 10 February 2014.
  51. ↑ On. GROW PARK(for Android) . Facebook. 2 July 2015.
  52. ↑ On. GROW PARK(for iOS) . Facebook. 11 August 2015.
  53. ↑ On. GROW PARK(Flash Game) . Eyezmaze.com. 12 August 2015.
  54. ↑ On. GROW ORNAMENT(GAME) . Eyezmaze.com. 17 December 2005.
  55. ↑ On. GROW ORNAMENT(Android & iOS) . Eyezmaze.com. 7 December 2015.
  56. ↑ On. GROW nano ver.0(GAME) . Eyezmaze.com. 17 July 2006.
  57. ↑ On. GROW nano vol.1(GAME) . Eyezmaze.com. 5 August 2006.
  58. ↑ On. GROW nano vol.2(GAME) . Eyezmaze.com. 21 February 2007.
  59. ↑ On. GROW nano vol.3(GAME) . Eyezmaze.com. 20 February 2008.
  60. ↑ On. GROW RECOVERY（for Android） . Facebook. 9 April 2015.
  61. ↑ On. GROW RECOVERY (iOS) . Eyezmaze.com. 18 July 2015.
  62. ↑ On. GROW nano4 (GAME) . Eyezmaze.com. 2 May 2011.
  63. ↑ On. GROW CINDERELLA (Flash Game) . Eyezmaze.com. 22 October 2016.
  64. ↑ On. GROW Comeback (BrowserGame) Archived 2019-12-01 at the Wayback Machine . Eyezmaze.com. 20 June 2018.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.