After reading a post on Kotaku about Grow Games, I was intrigued by the cute animation and simplicity. If a game had only six or eight items, and the game was in finding the correct order, how hard could it be?
I love puzzles and quickly found myself immersed in a Grow Game. The simple animations were a fun reward for trying new combinations, and they conveyed information in a simple, accessible way. However, these animations could also become lengthy, and soon two hours of my day had gone by. My untouched homework loomed in the back of my mind, and I began to get upset.
I brought in a friend to help me discover the solution to my Grow Game. After writing down several previously attempted combinations, I was getting closer, but not close enough. My friend gave me a few suggestions, but we were still stumped.
Half an hour later, I decided that I had had enough. The cute little animations seemed to mock me and I had no time left to waste on this seemingly simple puzzle. My friend looked up the answer online and then gave me some hints. I soon found the answer, but I can’t say whether I truly felt satisfied.
I had spent nearly three hours puzzling away, since the clues could be misleading. In puzzles, I prefer to use logic or skill, but after an hour or so, my grow game turned into a game of chance. The animation at the end wasn’t even that interesting, and I felt that I had learned little. However, the intense focus I had on my game was a fun escape. Two weeks later, I found myself tackling a grow game again, but after an hour, I gave up. Perhaps my mind is not suited to these types of puzzles, or it could be that I just don’t have three hours of my day to devote to a chance-based puzzle game.