Morphopolis

The wonderful adventures of a grub

A visually gorgeous little game with a surprising and original premise, some decent puzzles and above all else, lovely design and soundtrack. It was offered at a tiny fraction of its already low price via a gift coupon from Steam, so I gave it a go.

The developers say it was inspired by games like Machinarium and The Tiny Bang Story, but here the idea is taken to a totally different level. The "protagonist" is a little larva which gradually transforms (hence "Morpho"-polis, also a reference to the iconic film Metropolis by Fritz Lang) into a perfectly grown insect, all the while helping other creatures and plants in its environment find food or complete their own development. The pretty much repetitive process in each part of the story (five in total) is interspersed with full-screen puzzles of varied styles, not too hard to solve once you have got the hang of it, but where what you are supposed to do isn't always obvious or straightforward.

That, and some occasional difficulty in moving the main "character" around and interacting with the surrounding objects could be considered as a very small drawback to an otherwise exceptionally beautiful, relaxing and enjoyable game.