Bloom
Bloom is a really special game. With a fully featured demo originally made in 72 hours for Ludum Dare 49 – months before the PlayDate console was even released – it is a real-time social simulation game with gardening elements. That is, the bulk of the game is text messaging, with some rooftop gardening on the side. It’s almost… a visual novel that you can only play a few minutes at a time, once or twice a day? Besides maybe Mystic Messenger, I’ve never really played any game like it.
The entirety of the story is told through your text message exchanges with your friends and family. You, Midori, are an early-20’s college dropout that started your own flower shop. Your parents don’t know this, and they aren’t too happy when you ask them to borrow money once. Your girlfriend Ai is still in college and supports your decision. You text with other friends, and neighbors, and potential business partners, just trying to make it as a new business.
What’s extra unique is the “real-time” nature of these exchanges. The Playdate doubles as a clock, so it always knows what time it is. That means, just like in real life, text messages appear sporadically. Luckily, although it breaks the immersion a little bit, you don’t have to “clock in” at a certain time to get them – when you play is when the messages will appear. You will sometimes have multiple conversations going at once with different people, and other times you’ll turn on your Playdate for just one message. You can choose how to reply, but the most wild time I had was when you just stop writing back. It’s cruel when your girlfriend is wondering how you’re doing when some bad news hits and wants to talk, and you just… don’t. Sometimes she assumes you just fell asleep. But then you don’t write back the next day, either. The game doesn’t give you an either/or response option. You ghost her. You are in your early 20’s. You make bad decisions and are mean to those who care about you sometimes. By snapping away your agency for a minute, the game made a huge impact on me.
You learn that is, let’s say, not the best way to treat people. But I love how a lot of the story is told in the margins, just off-screen. When a friend texts, “i’m omw!” (the text-speak is strong in this game), then you know the texts are done for the day. Turn Bloom back on tomorrow and you might get a “had fun last night!” or a “i’m glad we finally talked, don’t do that again.” Everyone in this game feels so real, including you, the stressed, unreliable narrator just doing your best.
In between all the texting, you are also growing flowers on the roof of your apartment building. These flowers, like everything else, grow in real time, and you can order more valuable seeds that grow into more valuable flowers as the game progresses. At first you only have a small amount of roof space, but in much the same way Tom Nook will upgrade your Animal Crossing house, you are able to “pay your rent” and the landlord will clear more space for you to grow more flowers. The money you make from these roof flowers doesn’t affect the storyline – when I got up to the “ask your parents for money” storyline, I already had all the money I was asking them for – but it does give you a feeling that you’re actually doing better at your new flower shop. I justify that in my head as, that’s work money and you’re asking for personal money. The money you make on flowers is used to buy better seeds to grow and sell better flowers. It’s tough being a young person.
There’s also an Asteroids-like minigame on your phone (how else am I doing all this texting, and who doesn’t have games on their phone?), and doing well at that gets you additional interactions with a guy who’s just sooooo good at it and wants you to try and beat his score. This was the only part of the game where he was like, “want any pro gamer tips?” and I said, “don’t talk to me weirdo.” Since it’s a side quest, it’s great that it gives you that option. I get enough unsolicited texts and calls in my real life; I don’t need them in my games, too.
The only problems I really had with Bloom were the 40-ish seconds it takes to boot up every time (maybe the longest loading screen of any game on the system, and extra annoying in a game that you might only play for five minutes), and the fact that sometimes I’d boot it up for a solid twenty minutes of texting, while other times I’d only get one text that I wasn’t even allowed to reply to. I guess that’s how things are in real life, but sometimes I’m ready for the big talks, and sometimes I just want to check in and plant a new batch of flowers. Was never up to me. I’m living Midori’s story, after all.
I was also unsure for a long time how often I should boot Bloom up. The more expensive flowers take longer to grow, but I was just so compelled by the characters that I wanted more, sooner. An hour or two wait between sessions is just too often to come back to it, but once or maybe twice a day seemed about right. When the biggest problem with a game is that you want more of it, it’s really doing something well.
I loved Bloom and the few weeks I spent with it, every single day. I know the Playdate by its very nature isn’t the most financially viable console to make games for, but I love that games like this exist on it, giving me a chance to try something I’d never really tried before. It’s a really interesting console, and that deserves really interesting games. More please!