Mr Viral
Game Reviews
Cozy, puzzle game full of flowers.
Visual clues to show you what you score
Multiple ways to play
I have played a lot of different Sudoku-style puzzlers, and Primrows reminds me of a take on that concept, but with beautiful flowers and lots of ways to actually score. In each level, you get a grid that you can grow flowers in. This grid is divided into a few boxes, which can be manipulated by you.
The grid in Primrows is your flower garden. You can water it to watch flowers grow in any blank spot. Watering once causes all of the flowers that can grow to do so, then you can prune away any flowers you don’t want to have, and water again, until you run out of water turns.
Your goals when it comes to flowers change depending on what you want to do. There is a journal of goals, like getting specific rows of different flowers or making a number of flowers happy (determined by their place in your garden), which can score you points. This mode lasts several rounds, accumulating points as you decide how to bank whatever you’ve just grown. There is also a Quick Play mode, which gives you one round to score as many points as you want. If you want something new, each week there are Weekly Challenges to take on as well.
With so many ways to win points in Primrows, I do quite enjoy the tiny symbols that let you know what you’ve accomplished. There is a sort of equals sign that tells you when a row has all different flowers in it, and a box symbol that shows when a box contains all different flowers. These can help you decide what to prune and how to gain your points.
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The flower’s happiness is more of a mystery to me, as they can smile and then start frowning when you prune a flower they might like. This is something you have to sort of work out for each flower, bringing additional challenge as you try to gain more points.
Primrows review – “Sudoku with Flowers”
Visually, Primrows is so much better to look at than a bunch of numbers on the grid. I do like the journal and the way that every single match can be turned into points in some way. It feels delightful, slow, and fun.
Jupiter Hadley
Jupiter is a prolific indie game journalist with a focus on smaller indie gems. She covers thousands of game jams and indie games on her YouTube channel, letting every game have a moment in the spotlight. She runs indiegamejams.com, a calendar of all of the game jams going on in the world, and judges many jams and events. You can find her on Twitter as @Jupiter_Hadley
