Evergarden (Puzzle)
Options include separate sliders for Music and SFX, Full-screen and Quality.
If you cannot interact with the game (clicking does nothing), make sure that there isn't anything pushing on your controller, and the problem should be fixed.
Story:
There is an understated story that ties everything loosely together, but I can't tell you much about it without giving things away. We will find a couple of notes that help, including this one from the very beginning of the game:
We are accompanied on our journey by Fen, who will also "request" patterns during the base puzzle game.
Gameplay:
Evergarden has the same core puzzle mechanic as games like
FaeVerse Alchemy and
Triple Town, but rather than lines or box-grids, we're working with hexagons. The premise is simple: Combine flowers of the same type to create higher-tier flowers, and match patterns to earn bonuses.
A handy visual for you:
There is a
reward for matching Fen's requested pattern -- a random flower that you can pick up and use (assuming that there is room in your inventory).
Monoliths:
- Matching two tier 6 flowers will result in the formation of a monolith, which works as a wild card until you match with it, whereupon it will light up and no longer work for patterns
- Creating a monolith will earn you extra turns
- At then end of the round, monoliths will reward you with a red puzzle piece
- If you can light up a triangle of monoliths, they will disappear and a tier two (mega) monolith will take its place. In return you will get your puzzle pieces early, and the mega monolith will reward you with a single-use "song" (explained down below)
Puzzles:
New locations will open up, which contain diamond-hex puzzles. These
story-related puzzles were difficult for me. I'm usually pretty good at spacial visualization, but for reason the diamond-hex makeup of the puzzles confused me. There is a refilling hint (?) that will show up in the bottom right corner, but I still had trouble. Solution? Create a
Puzzle Solution Guide!
If there is an exclamation point (!) on an arrow, then there is something for you to find and/or complete in that direction.
Once you get to a certain point in the story, you'll unlock the
Daily Puzzles, which can be found to the left of the base game area. When you solve the daily, you'll earn a "more beautiful" garden, meaning that you'll start out with higher-tier flowers until the day resets. Not a lot of help for story mode, but really nice once you're playing endlessly.
Songs:
Our friend Fen may remember songs when you solve one of the diamond-hex puzzles, and these songs work as bonuses for you to use during the base game. The down side is that there are a total of 8 songs that you can unlock, and only three
inventory spaces! If your inventory is full of songs, then you can't pick up your reward flowers and use them, so you have to decide what's most important to you. (Ahh, strategy) XD
Verdict:
Evergarden is an addictive puzzle game with a loose but somehow-profound story. Daily challenges and a leaderboard ensure that the game remains fun even after the story has been completed, and the completionist in me was very happy to see that the game has Steam achievements that are challenging, but not impossible to obtain. Recommended!