Undying Flower

Have you ever regretted your final moments with someone? Most of us don't know when those final moments are, and when the time comes, it's too late. The story of Undying Flower takes things a bit further and asks, Would you ever forgive yourself for killing someone you love? That's the first question asked when starting the game. We are talking to a girl's head with two flowers on the sides. She asks us questions that we don't have answers to. In fact, we don't even know this person. Who are we even? Without spoiling the story, we are a scientist who is experimenting on this little girl. Or at least that's what it seems. I'll leave you with this: The story is pretty good, and the ending was great and satisfying. Most of these short indie games usually falter quite a bit on the story, but this one was well done. There are enough twists here that in the 2-3 hours, you will be hooked. There's not too much gameplay here either, but that's par for the course for most indie adventure titles. While not quite visual novels, they feel more like interactive stories than games, and that's fine, but these are difficult games to get right. The story, setting, atmosphere, and characters need to hook you right away. While there are only two characters in the story, don't let this perturb you. This means the short story can laser focus on just these two characters. The girl and her grandpa. What unfolds gameplay-wise is walking around a room and interacting with highlighted objects. We zoom to the two faces. We can hear Her Story or His Story. They are really short. Just a few sentences to give you the context of this object. This really helps build this moment in these lives that we are witnessing. The writing is really well done and strays away from the abstract poetry that most indie adventures tend to lean towards. Each face will show different animations of emotion based on how you answer them, but the answers don't really change the story. There are a few rooms with objects you interact with. This takes up around the first half of the game. The second half involves a puzzle in which you select mementos to create a memory based on the statement the girl is telling you. I found this too abstract and nigh impossible to get the combos right. Thankfully, after one minute the help kicks in, and if you get objects right, they will turn green. You're not just selecting the memories you went over but creating new ones with these, and then these get added to the pool of selections, making it a convoluted mess. Thankfully this section is short, but afterwards most of the gameplay is done, and the final 20-30 minutes are just narrative. The visuals are great, with a lot of abstracting black and white with splashes of color. While the female scientist model doesn't look great, the rest of everything does. The art style is superb, with some amazing orchestral melodies and harmonies playing to tug at your heartstrings at the right moment. What helps is that this story is very relatable. Anyone as a teen can relate to what the girl is going through with her grandpa; we have all been there. We have also all beat ourselves up over something we blamed ourselves for that was out of our control. This can really hit home for those that have experienced anything similar to the story. What's here is a short narrative piece with relatable subject matter. With fantastic music, great visuals, solid writing, and a laser focus on just two characters, we go through a roller coaster of human emotion. Don't come in expecting a ton of gameplay, and give the matching puzzle at the end some grace, and you might just wipe away some tears at the end.

A beautiful story with unique visuals. Perfect for a comfy, heartfelt evening.

This is top 3 games of my life. Nothing more to say other than I cried 2 times while playing.