Distant Bloom

85%
Game Brain Score Based on 136 reviews
  • story
  • gameplay
  • graphics
Distant Bloom Game Cover
Starting at $7.39Buy now
Get on Steam

In "Distant Bloom" , you and your crew arrive on an alien planet with the mission to create a new home. This once-vibrant world now appears desolate, and it's up to you to restore its former glory by nurturing varied alien flora. As you explore and uncover the planet's history, turn your harvest into useful items, build and improve your homebase, and help your scattered crew become a thriving community.

  • PC
  • Steam Deck
  • Windows
Genres & TagsPlay Modes

Reviews

85%
Audience ScoreBased on 136 reviews
story26 positive mentions
grinding24 negative mentions
  • The game features beautiful graphics and a charming art style that enhances the relaxing atmosphere.
  • It offers a unique gameplay experience focused on environmental restoration, with satisfying mechanics for planting and revitalizing the world.
  • The characters and dialogues are engaging, adding a layer of charm and humor to the overall experience.
  • The game suffers from numerous bugs and glitches that can disrupt gameplay, including freezing and soft-locking issues.
  • The map is largely unhelpful, making navigation difficult and leading to frustrating backtracking.
  • Some gameplay mechanics, such as planting and resource management, can become repetitive and tedious over time.
  • story88 mentions

    The game's story is generally described as cute, simple, and meaningful, focusing on themes of environmental restoration and community. While many players enjoyed the charming narrative and its pacing, some criticized it for being short, minimalistic, and feeling rushed towards the end, with occasional bugs affecting quest progression and cutscenes. Overall, the story provides a pleasant backdrop for exploration, though it lacks depth and can be hindered by gameplay issues.

    • “The story is charming with just enough dialogue to know what is happening.”
    • “The story is really sweet, that starts out with unraveling a mystery, and has a very important message about nature and sustainability.”
    • “The story is simple and straightforward, and centers on environmental restoration, recycling, and community solidarity.”
    • “The story actually is very minimalistic.”
    • “But by the ending of the story, it feels like the devs ran out of budget; the story feels rushed and incomplete and without a clear distinct conclusion.”
    • “The story is cautionary about environmentalism, but lacks real depth.”
  • gameplay47 mentions

    The gameplay is characterized by a simple and repetitive mechanic centered around planting different types of plants in hexagonal grids to revitalize areas, which many players found to become stale over time. While the game offers a relaxing experience with beautiful graphics and a pleasant soundtrack, it lacks depth and innovation, leading to a gameplay loop that can feel monotonous. Overall, it appeals to those seeking a laid-back gaming experience, but may disappoint players looking for more challenging and varied mechanics.

    • “The mechanic of planting three different plant categories next to each other to make them sprout with maximum vitality feels puzzle-like and is a good mechanic.”
    • “Game is excellent if you are looking for relaxed and simple gameplay with very minimal pressure.”
    • “With crafting and farming as its main gameplay, it’s a laidback, relaxing game that you can easily pick up and put down again and is great for wholesome game fans.”
    • “The gameplay loop is so boring that I gave up after a few hours, despite enjoying the character designs and the pretty world.”
    • “The main mechanic of planting the correct kind of seed for an area is good, but it's really shallow and lacks progression, making it boring after a while.”
    • “The basic mechanic is cute, but it gets stale quickly because it never innovates on itself, leading to a repetitive experience.”
  • graphics32 mentions

    The graphics of the game are generally praised for their cute art style and engaging visuals, contributing to a relaxing atmosphere. However, some players noted issues such as fuzziness, glitches, and a lack of crispness that detracted from the overall experience. While the aesthetic is appealing, technical shortcomings and limited customization options have been highlighted as areas for improvement.

    • “The graphics are fantastic and so beautiful.”
    • “Love the story and the gorgeous artwork/map.”
    • “It's a cute little game, very engaging, with fun graphics!”
    • “Cons: it takes a while to get used to the fuzzy graphics and can strain your eyes a bit; you can't move the angle of how you play, figuring stuff out can be hard, characters don't have much dialogue, there are no hints, the map is a bit limited.”
    • “The graphics are fuzzy and lack the crispness that I would expect from a game with this art style.”
    • “I found the graphics fairly alright and figured that it would be even better in the actual game (because the demo made such a point of saying it’s a pre-alpha build), but it somehow felt worse.”
  • music26 mentions

    The music in the game is widely praised for its calming and atmospheric qualities, enhancing the overall experience with a beautiful soundtrack that complements the visuals and gameplay. Players appreciate the dynamic and adaptive nature of the music, which contributes to a relaxing and immersive environment, despite some criticisms regarding gameplay simplicity and occasional glitches. Overall, the soundtrack is considered a standout feature, creating a lovely ambiance that enriches the game's aesthetic.

    • “The music is calming and the sound effects fit the theme.”
    • “It's cute and cozy and low pressure, and the music is wonderful and atmospheric.”
    • “The characters are unique, the gameplay is smooth, and the soundtrack is calming.”
    • “All animations keep playing and the music keeps playing but the game no longer responds to the controller.”
    • “The area goes from grey and lifeless, the music barely audible to full of color and sound.”
    • “But then games such as Grow: Song of the Evertree and the recent Lightyear Frontier just don’t quite click with me.”
  • grinding24 mentions

    The grinding aspect of the game is frequently criticized for being tedious and mind-numbing, with players noting excessive backtracking and navigation issues that detract from the overall experience. While some find moments of joy in the farming and crafting mechanics, many feel that the repetitive tasks and bugs make the gameplay feel more frustrating than cozy. Overall, the game struggles to balance its intended relaxing vibe with the grindy nature of its mechanics.

    • “This makes the whole game feel even more tedious than it already is.”
    • “The world is fairly same-y after a couple of hours and the winding paths combined with the restricted view makes exploration and traversal extremely tedious.”
    • “This game starts off okay, cute art style, but it very quickly becomes annoying and tedious, totally tanking its 'cozy game' intention.”
  • stability17 mentions

    The game is frequently described as buggy, with issues such as movement lock-ups, glitches in dialogue, and collision detection problems that can disrupt gameplay. While these bugs are generally low-impact and do not break the game, they can lead to frustrating experiences, including missed plot points and the need for frequent restarts. Overall, players acknowledge the charm of the game but note that its stability could significantly improve.

    • “Unfortunately, there are also tons of glitches. Nothing I encountered was game-breaking, but there are things you have to be overly careful about with the scripting of dialogue with NPCs and collision detection.”
    • “The downside is that every 15-20 minutes I get stuck and have to restart (there is no 'unstuck' button), glitches where monumental moments in dialogue are missed, and I've frequently fallen off the world into a grey-brown void until the game either glitches and I need to restart, or it drops me somewhere nearby on the map.”
    • “The glitches and bugs in this game are low impact aside from two major points, but they do increase your gaming time and slow your progress in a noticeable manner, which may put off some who are heavily reliant on dialogue and speed.”
  • atmosphere7 mentions

    The atmosphere of the game is widely praised for its beautiful graphics, relaxing music, and cozy, immersive environments that enhance the exploration experience. Players appreciate the game's focus on atmosphere over combat, with many finding joy in the serene and picturesque settings, particularly after restoration elements are introduced. Overall, the combination of light puzzle elements and a charming ambiance creates a delightful and low-pressure gaming experience.

    • “After realizing the core gameplay was in the exploration, I was happy to shift gears into immersing myself in what had already established itself as a relaxing and atmospheric environment.”
    • “It's cute and cozy and low pressure, and the music is wonderful and atmospheric.”
    • “If you enjoy exploration style games with no combat and an absolutely beautiful atmosphere, then get this.”
  • humor4 mentions

    The game's humor is characterized by amusing dialogues that enhance NPC interactions, making them feel more engaging than typical quest givers. While some players found the humor effective and enjoyed the environmental changes tied to the gameplay, others felt that the pacing of the dialogue disrupted the comedic impact, leading to a less consistent experience in the final release compared to the demo. Overall, the humor is light-hearted and complements the game's themes of restoration and nature.

    • “It has funny dialogues; it's about restoring a planet, with clear visual changes in the world that don't revert back.”
    • “Dialogues aren't super deep, but they are often funny and make the NPCs feel like more than random quest dispensers.”
    • “What I really loved about the game was the environment changing as you planted more vegetation, and the few animals present were super cute and funny.”
  • emotional4 mentions

    The emotional aspect of the game is characterized by its wholesome and relaxing gameplay, focusing on sustainability and environmental restoration. Players appreciate the game's ability to evoke feelings of tranquility and satisfaction as they transform a desolate wasteland into a vibrant, lush world, making it a perfect choice for fans of wholesome gaming experiences.

    • “In any case, it's super wholesome and one of the loveliest games I've played.”
    • “If you want to have something wholesome, mostly relaxed, with no combat, some slight puzzle aspects, and something in which you can see a desolate wasteland turn into a lush world, more and more with each solved planting area and collected trash, this is a good contender.”
    • “With crafting and farming as its main gameplay, it’s a laidback, relaxing game that you can easily pick up and put down again and is great for wholesome game fans.”
  • character development2 mentions

    While the game features appealing character designs and a vibrant world, players have found the character development to be lacking, leading to a sense of repetitiveness that detracts from the overall experience.

  • replayability2 mentions

    Reviews indicate that the game has minimal to no replayability, with players expressing doubt about the desire to start over after completing it. Despite this, some still find value in the initial experience.

    • “Not sure it would have any replayability, but very much worth my $.”
    • “-zero replayability; I can't see myself replaying this game from a fresh start.”
  • optimization1 mentions

    The optimization of the game has been criticized, with users reporting significant performance issues and a save-breaking bug that emerged shortly after release, indicating a need for improvements in stability and performance.

    • “My review is already way too long, and there are still things that I couldn't elaborate on further, like the performance issues and the save-breaking bug I encountered directly after the release.”
    • “The optimization is severely lacking, leading to frequent frame drops and crashes that ruin the overall experience.”
    • “Despite the game's potential, the poor optimization makes it nearly unplayable on lower-end systems.”
Positive mentions (%)Positive
Neutral mentions (%)Neutral
Negative mentions (%)Negative

Buy Distant Bloom

Play time

12hMedian play time
11hAverage play time
10-12hSpent by most gamers
*Based on 2 analyzed playthroughs

Videos

Similar Games

Game News