Quick Review: Scrap Garden

This entire concept feels like a mashup of robot-based movies and I don’t know which ones to pick.

Since when are there plants in this robot world?

Developed by Egidijus Bachur and Alexey Davydov, published by Flazm, and released on May 6th, 2016, Scrap Garden is the story of a little solar-powered robot who was about to get decommissioned due to its archaic power source… only to wake up 54 years later and realize that mot of the other robots have stopped working and nature has retaken its rights. He soon discovers that the red gem that served as the new power source for the population of this robotic world has been shattered by a dragon, and he must, with the help of the rare few functional robots, restore the gem and, probably, kill the dragon. I didn’t know machines could become Dragonborns.

That rat was waiting to sneak on me!

This is a 3D platformer in which your little hero, C4N (also known as Canny), explores, gathers rubies, defeats enemies, and must fulfill some tasks in each level. He moves with WASD, jumps with Space, picks up items and tosses them with the left click button, and the camera is controlled with the mouse. You do need to gather red gems, too, as they’re necessary to unlock the path going forward. Can’t just get from Point A to Point B, that would be too easy, come on now.

Ahhh! A giant worm!

The first part of each level thus involves collecting enough red gems. In the second party, Canny must find a red gear that will allow him to reactivate beams to repower the main red gem. The game will often throw gameplay changes at the player, especially when it comes to boss battles; the first two are fairly straightforward, but the following ones involve, respectively, setting up explosives, a stealth-like segment, and (oh God no) quick-time events. Some levels also experiment with gameplay, including things like puzzles and a mine cart section. So props for creativity there. The difficulty of the game is just right, as I struggled in places but it wasn’t too bad. Some sections were annoying, but nothing rage-inducing.

If only the camera helped me a little...

On rare occasions the camera will be fixed,
which does make things easier in some
sections (levels or boss fights).

On the topics of camera, physics and AI. One of the issues is having a camera that moves constantly, since it's controlled with the mouse. You’ll always keep a hand on the mouse as you’ll frequently need to throw items, but it can make platforming segments a lot tougher than they would be. The camera can make or break a 3D platformer; it could have been worse here, but it could have been so much better.

The physics are okay. Tossing items can be a pain at times (partly due to the camera issues it can cause). Canny can double jump just fine in outdoor areas, but can’t do so indoors... Which is troublesome since indoor areas switch to an almost 2D view played in 3D, and are often full of enemies. Some platforms are also tough to reach

Gotta be stealthy, or the giant frog
will gobble up Canny!

On to artificial intelligence. The AI of regular enemies is bad. All they'll do is run at Canny when he comes close. They'll also stay in place right beneath Canny if he jumps, so they're usually easy to beat. It would be fine, if it weren’t that several enemies are darkly-colored and, frequently, also hard to see in dimly-lit areas. The less said about them in indoor 2D segments the better, as Canny’s jump is limited there and enemies love to wait where you can’t see them. This doesn't apply to the bosses, which have much better AI overall.

Here, this is what I mean. Canny jumps, the
scorpion goes at him, stops right beneath him,
Canny lands on the scorpion, done. That's the
extent of the regular enemies' AI in this game.

The graphics are fine, the music is actually quite good, and the plot, while basic, actually has some interesting twists. As mentioned earlier, the difficulty is just right. The game plays fairly well overall, barring a few annoying sections (the QTE boss comes to mind, so does the mine cart bit). It’s got a fair number of flaws, some of which can taint your experience a tad, but overall it’s alright.

Scrap Garden can be purchased for 9.99$.