I’m enjoying this small surge of games about restoring planets. Given that Earth is essentially lying in bed with a thermometer in its mouth, it’s nice to play something that’s a bit more upbeat. There’s something inspiring about seeing a barren, or otherwise inhospitable, planet change into a lush, green world full of the sounds of birdsong. I’m currently doing a degree in Environmental Science and so much of it is looking at data that shows a horrible slide down into catastrophe. Every now and then, I need to take a step back, calm down, and look at the bigger picture. These sorts of games can help with that. I’m in two minds about BioEden though.
On the one hand, it nails the whole ‘conversion of the planet’ thing. Planets start off devoid of life, with its waterways choked full of poison. By the end, everything’s green and the water is sparkling. It’s a nice overall goal to hang over everything. On the other hand, the way we restore the planet feels very simplistic. Par for the course, I suppose. Fixing the planet is mind-destroyingly complex. But while BioEden has its moments, I feel like it leans too far into simplicity. It goes for meditative calm, but meditation can be mistook for napping.
Jump-starting A Planet
BioEden opens with a recap of an event called the ‘Great Unravelling’, which is quite a pleasant name for an apocalypse. It appears to be some sort of climate disaster, though, as a decision is made to begin healing and terraforming planets. Five guilds get together and blast a ‘Keeper’ – meaning us – down to a wrecked planet, in order to clean up the land and re-introduce the wildlife. Before we do that though, we pick which guild we want to align with. Some of them are technology focused, others focus on harmony with nature, while others like to babble about giant mystical creatures.
Gameplay-wise, BioEden is a light city-builder, which is split into two sections: within the dome and outside it. Inside the dome is a lush, new biome. To it we introduce animals, who have been resurrected from samples of their DNA. I guess we didn’t learn anything from Jurassic Park after all. Anyway, these animals require the right food, temperature, and humidity in order to thrive. Domes are split into different environments, each with their own animals. Once these animals have become comfortable enough, they can be released into the outside world. There’s something peaceful about seeing the number of animals grow, as they all frolic with each other. It’s like someone stuck a zoo inside a snow globe.
Outside of the dome, everything is a complete mess. The waterways are all poisoned and the land is toxic. We begin by drilling for materials to produce the bits we need for our animals, but move on to more restorative actions later on. Throughout the whole thing, we have to keep tabs on our ‘impact’ on the world. If you expand too much, too quickly then you get punished. Both directly, through the guilds imposing restrictions, and indirectly, through the worsening of natural disasters. As I say, there’s something meditative about seeing a world heal in fast-forward. The world starts off dark and miserable, and slowly gets brighter and cleaner in time as the total pollution goes down.
Putting The Feet Up
BioEden also has a lot to offer aesthetically. The art style is incredibly vivid. The world isn’t just forest green and dirt brown. There are bright purples, yellows and crisp blues. I keep banging on about it, but the visual change when the planet is healing is wonderful. It starts off with dark, traditionally negative colours (like dark purple and red), then changes to bright greens and yellows once healed. It’s lovely. The animal designs are nice too, being essentially remixes of existing animals. Like the Jamba, which appears to be a combination of different animals, most notably a bat.
BioEden does have its issues, however. While its commitment to relaxation is commendable, many of the issues stem from one line in the Steam description: ‘No pressure’. There is indeed no time limit or fail state here. You can recycle structures for 100% of their cost, so you’ll never run out. The world only gets less polluted, not more. I find the end result to lean more towards dull than relaxing though. Most of your time is spent twiddling your thumbs as the resources accumulate. The research points needed to unlock more animals come through excruciatingly slowly at times. What’s more, the only ways to heal the planet are to filter water courses, lakes and rivers; and mine materials, which you need to do anyway.
It’s strangely easy to balance, too. At the start, your impact begins to stack up but as soon as you unlock the water treatment options, it begins to rapidly decline. By the end you can just set everything going and knock off for lunch, while it plays itself. I feel like more gameplay options would’ve enhanced the calm, rather than taken away from it. It would’ve given us something to focus on while our resources tick up. If healing the planet was a multi-step process then there would be more investment. As it is, healing the planet from scratch takes about three hours or so, with two hours being spent waiting for the water filters to be done. BioEden is just a bit too hands-off for me. It’s to the point that I’ve struggled with this review, ’cause I spent so much time not really focusing.
BioEden – Treading Too Lightly
The replay value also takes a dent, because every game plays out in the exact same way. BioEden claims that its guilds all play differently, but they don’t really. They all follow the same pattern. Build water and power, get a few animals going, explore until you find the science buildings, then work your way through the quests. These quests, and the general plot, flow the same for each guild. The actual dialogue changes slightly, but the plot points are the same. We start off building too quickly, so our guild leader apologises and unlocks the water structures. Then we get sabotaged, without a gameplay effect, then we fix the world. Then it turns out it was man all along.
Add the plethora of little bugs into the mix and BioEden becomes a bit of an irritating experience. It felt like it could’ve been something more, if it had really embraced its concept. Instead, it feels like it just skims across the surface, making things too simplistic under the guise of being meditative. It’s hard to recommend it over games like Life Below or The Planet Crafter. I guess the missing ingredient here is investment. Without any capacity for mistakes, there’s no feeling of satisfaction. BioEden feels like it’d rather cut me out and play itself. Ultimately, when dealing with environmental restoration, the last things we need are shortcuts.
