PC Gamer - UK (2022-01)

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FREE GAMES REVIEWS

EXPECT TO PAY
Free

DEVELOPER

CrystalClod

LINK

crystalclod.itch.io

NEED TO KNOW

T

he Florist is a game about

being in a trendy apartment:

a haven of tranquillity in a

busy city. There’s no TV to distract

you, although you can play classical

music, and bury your nose in a

selection of stories from long-dead

authors. If you want, you can try to

keep your grandma’s houseplants

alive, a task she is certain even you

will be able to manage on your own.

To that end, she sends you a parcel

containing fertiliser and a jug –

essential items as you point and click

around the tiny apartment setting.

Its main features are the tap (for

filling the jug), the computer (for

doing research), and the demanding,

diva plants your gran insists on

sharing a flat with.

Each has different needs, of

course. Take the licuala, which fears

the sun and only needs fertiliser once

a month, or the rutaceae, which

wants to be watered, and additionally

sprayed, four times a day. Luckily, you

can open the laptop to view a handy

guide, but the game doesn’t keep

track of which plants you’ve tended

as you advance the clock. You only

know when they begin to grow, or

look a bit peaky.

As the days turn to weeks, your

gran will post ever more fragile plants

for you to look after. You’ll also get

letters, and occasionally books, in the

morning mail. It’s a game that would

play best in quick daily bursts, which

is why it’s disappointing that The

Florist doesn’t include any way to

save your game. But if you can play it

all at once, or leave it running while

you do other stuff, it’s pretty

satisfying trying to keep

the things alive. (That’s

just a little tip for all the

parents out there.)

WATERING CAN’T

Definitely not murdering houseplants in THE FLORIST

BELOW: (^) This is your grandma’s pad. It’s pretty swish.
EXPECT TO PAY
Free
DEVELOPER
Tim Sheinman
LINK
tim-sheinman.itch.io
NEED TO KNOW
BELOW: (^) As in Her Story, the searchable database is limited.

T

im Sheinman makes
beautiful detective games
embedded in fictional music
scenes. Think Her Story, as filtered
through the NME. After Family and
Rivals comes the darker Echo
Beach, set in a future where music
is banned, and where rogue
musicians are hunted down by
undercover agents.

You play as one of these agents, and
your job is to infiltrate an online
community, reading messages and
listening to music for clues to their
identities. Every time you work out a
name, you feed the information back
to your superiors, who will arrest the
musician and give you new targets,
the following day.
I love how Sheinman has
reworked the themes of the previous
games, which celebrated community
and discovery in the world of music.

Here you’re tearing a community

apart, through the same detective

work you learnt in Family – now

complicated by feelings of guilt.

You might not be solving a

murder, but there are few other

games where you feel as much like a

detective, poring over messages and

replaying songs for clever lyrical and

sound-based clues. It feels

appropriate that Echo Beach offers,

essentially, music puzzles. I just wish

I’d been able to solve them.

Perhaps I’m tone-deaf, and unable

to keep time, but I hit a brick wall

when asked to locate a drum tempo,

and chords, by listening to the

playlist. I think that’s 67 BPM, but the

game doesn’t seem to agree. These

are not solutions you can brute-force,

and that’s to Echo Beach’s

credit, but it did feel like

I’d been kicked out of the

party halfway through.

LIFE’S A BEACH

ECHO BEACH imagines afuture without music