Hopefully by now, you've played Amanita Design's marvelous point-and-click adventure/exploration/music-time story-thing Botanicula. But I'm entirely open to the idea that you have not—and so is Amanita, who have now made the first section of the game playable for free through their website.

You may recall that earlier this year I said Botanicula so charming that it stole Julia Roberts away from Pretty Woman-era Richard Gere. That about sums it up. You really should play this game: It's got a great sense of humor, beautiful art, and one of the best and most distinctive soundtracks of the year.

Don't take it from me! Head on over to Amanita's site and play the game for free. And bear in mind that there's much more to the full game than the bit in the demo; all sorts of hidden joys and fun digressions. You'll see. Go play.

Botanicula Demo [Main Page]

I think that Botanicula, the new game from Machinarium indies Amanita Design, is freakin' wonderful. I already wrote about why I like it, so read that if you're wondering about the game. Short verzh: If you have a heart and like lovely and funny things, you should play it.

Botanicula comes out today, and as part of a promotion, the Humble Bundle guys just let us know that they have created a special bundle just for the game. They also sent this goofy-ass video to promote it. Heh.

You can pay whatever price you want (!!), and if you do, you'll get Botanicula as well as Aminata's other two games, Machinarium and Samorost 2, both of which are great in their own right. You'll also get the soundtracks for all three games, which are all so good that they're pretty much worth the price of admission on their own.

If you pay more than the average price, you'll also get the (probably weird and delightful) Czech film Kooky, with art direction by Amanita's Jakub Dvorsky, as well as Windowsill, another point-and-click game from Vectorpark.

The kicker is that not only will you feel good about yourself for getting a bunch of great games for basically no money, but you can also pat yourself on the back for saving the planet—you'll have the option of donating a portion of your purchase price to the World Land Trust.

So what are you still sitting here for? Go do this thing. Play Botanicula!

Humble Bontanicula Debut [Humblebundle.com]

The Splendid Botanicula Overflows With Weapons-Grade Joyfulness

Joy is a terribly underrated commodity in video games. Most of the games I play inspire all kinds of feelings-stress, tension, exhilaration, frustration, even less-celebrated but still mentionable sensations like "comforting routine" and "empowering murder-fantasy."
There aren't all that many... More »

There aren't all that many games that make me feel really, truly joyful. Botanicula is one of them.

Argh, this game. This game! It's basically a government-created smartbomb designed to deliver a payload of exuberant joie de vivre from your hard drive straight to your brain. Except it wasn't made in some government lab—it was made by actual people who put their actual selves into it. The result is a gorgeous, hilarious, endlessly creative, warm-hearted thing.

Botanicula, which comes out tomorrow and costs $10, is basically a point-and-click adventure game for PC, Mac or Linux. You'll be able to get it from Steam, the Mac App store, from GOG.com or direct from the developers.

In it, players control a group of five little nature-dudes who live in harmony on a giant tree. I call them "five little nature-dudes" since each one is different and it's not entirely clear just what they are. There's the little one-winger dragonfly dude, the little branch dude, the little(ish) fungus dude, little mushroom dude, and little glowing nut-dude.

Uh oh! Some scary black spider-things that more or less represent "evil" arrive and start sucking the life out of the tree. The head little nature-dude, (glowing nut-dude if you're keeping track) sees a vision and decides to get his little dude-friends and set out to stop them.

This is all conveyed without words—just like Machinarum, there's no talking in Botanicula, just goofy sorta-speak from various characters as well as visual representations of text that play like little cartoons.

Botanicula comes to us from Amanita Design, an independent Czech game development studio headed up by Jakub Dvorsky and Tomas Dvorak. Amanita is probably best known for their fabulous and too-often-overlooked adventure/puzzle game Machinarium. Have you played Machinarium? Good god, what are you doing with your life, etc. Go play it, etc. It's on like every platform known to man.

Where Machinarium relied on ingenious (if at times very difficult) puzzles roadblocking your progress, Botanicula is much more exploration-focused and, perhaps, approachable. I've been moseying through it and while all of its puzzles require brainpower and creativity, they're nothing close to the difficulty of Machinarium. They are fantastically creative, though—the game found a splendid number of ways to use my Macbook's trackpad, backing up Tim's notion that the apple trackpad is the best game controller yet made.

Botanicula feels designed to draw you into its world and, once it's got you there, to delight the living shit out of you. The world is organic and real-feeling from the first moment of the game. The art and colors are vibrant, soft, and lush. The puzzles and sequences themselves are all unique and memorable—you'll never repeat a single action, and each each new area and challenge arrives at new creative heights.

This game has been realized down to its tiniest details—many of the best gags are easter eggs that have no effect on the game whatsoever. (Watch out for the penguins, is what I'm saying.) The character animations are so good, so funny, that they recall Pixar's best and most charismatic silent beings—say, the robots of Wall-E. Each character was animated with flawless comedic timing—a pause here, a beat there—that makes every tiny movement a pleasure to watch.

On top of all that, Botanicula is possessed of one of the most creative and endearing soundtracks I've heard in ages. And that's not just my well-documented bass clarinet bias talking.

All of the sound effects and music in the game were created by the band DVA, who for the bulk of their sound rely not on instruments or samples but on human voices. Almost every humming insect, growing flower, and plunking, crashing sound effect was created by a human voice. It gives the game a loopy, child-like energy that in this age of (don't-get-me-wrong-lovely) chiptunes and electronically augmented sample libraries. It feels damn near sweded.

Friendly John Walker at Rock, Paper Shotgun observed that the soundtrack recalls the (hip! good! worth checking out!) band The Books, and he's spot on—from the moment the game started, I felt as though I was playing a video game version of The Lemon of Pink.

Curses. I don't want to get sidetracked on the soundtrack just yet. For now, just… the soundtrack to Botanicula is pleasing, hilarious, winning, touching, and flat-out gorgeous. It sounds entirely unlike every single other thing ever.

To sum up, here are some 100% true facts about Botanicula:

• Botanicula is so adorable that it can only be controlled by picking up a puppy and moving its puppy paws on your computer's trackpad.
• Botanicula is so funny that after they played it, the cast of Parks & Recreation said, "Wow, that's pretty damned funny."
• Botanicula's music is so good that the people who wrote the theme song to Parks & Recreation said, "Wow, that is some damned good music."
• Botanicula's sound effects are so good that you won't even notice that a lot of them involve a dude making chewing sounds in close proximity to a microphone. You'll even think it sounds cute.
• Botanicula is only on PC but feels destined for the iPad, so you should play it so that in six months when all the iPad people are freaking out you can be all hipster about it.
• Botanicula is so charming that it stole Julia Roberts away from Pretty Woman-era Richard Gere. He was pretty pissed but reported that he "couldn't stay mad at [Botanicula]".
• Botanicula is so organic that it won't deign to be sold in Whole Foods. It is so organic it lets out a quiet-but-not-that-quiet snicker every time someone brings up The Omnivore's Dilemma at a dinner party.
• Botanicula is so clever that it snuck up behind the raptor that snuck up on Muldoon in Jurassic Park. "Clever game," said the raptor.
• Botanicula is so damned good that it probably won't even wind up on Metacritic.

And so okay, yes, it won't be to everyone's taste. It's not exactly that difficult and there's not as much "game" to it as there is to many other games.

Vampires and Republicans probably won't like it. It'll probably go over the heads of most babies, and Vulcans won't see the appeal. Ditto serial killers and dead-but-actually-secretly-comatose soap-opera characters and people who paid to see Stan Helsing in theaters.

But whatever, I'm not talking to those people. I'm talking to you.

Botanicula is so good. You should play it.

Man, I want to play Botanicula. Amanita Design won me over forever with their splendid adventure game Machinarium, and I've been looking forward to its follow-up Botanicula ever since I first heard about it.

Today, Amanita announced that Botanicula will be released for Windows, Mac and Linux on April 19th. No word on an iOS release.

Take a look at this trailer and you'll see what I'm talking about. Can't wait for this one.

The ridiculously good Bit.Trip Runner has a sequel, of sorts, on the way. It's not part of the Bit.Trip series, though, so it's simply called Runner 2. Which about sums up what's going on.

Note that, as good as this already looks, it's a "super sneaky peek" at pre-alpha code, which you'll eventually realise with the lack of effects or background animations.

Trailer: Runner 2 Pre-Alpha Footage (Gaijin Games) [IndieGames]

Eufloria HD is an iPad-only port of Eufloria, an indie PC and PS3 game created by a team of three game developers—Alex May, Rudolf Kremers and Brian Graingerm. It's a stripped-down real-time strategy game where players control colonies of trees and seedlings, each of which is spread out among a group of tiny asteroids. (The trees in the game are called "Dyson trees," deriving their name from the Dyson Tree, a hypothetical genetically-engineered tree that can grow on a comet.)

At the start of each level, players have control of a certain number of seedlings, little fly-like beings that flit around and between the circular asteroids like bugs around porchlights.

If you have enough seedlings around an asteroid, you can plant a Dyson tree, which serves as a base of sorts and causes more seedlings to grow. A tree can only support so many seedlings, however, and so comes the gameplay imperative—expand, expand, expand. Conquer new territories, and in doing so, complete each level.

Your colonial expansion is complicated by the presence of other enemy trees and seedlings. The moment they appear, you are commanded by your more-than-a-little-fascist "Mother Tree" to exterminate all of them and take over their asteroids. Of course, enemy seedlings fight back, so the game turns into a series of tense skirmishes as you route your flocks of seedlings quickly through your network of asteroids, volleying attacks onto enemy locations while watching your back for flanking.

Eufloria HD can be played at any of three speeds, which makes it easier or harder, depending on what you're in the mood for. At a slower speed, it feels much more meditative, while the higher speeds strip away any pretense of placidity and reveal the steely-eyed conquest machine within.

Eufloria HD's greatest strength lies in the simplicity of its basic systems. There aren't very many unit types, and so there's very little to keep track of. Most skirmishes come down to numbers and unit allocation.

A good number of seedlings are required in order to conquer larger enemy outposts, but in order to keep them moving, you must be constantly grabbing and re-routing seedling troops from other locations. It's a fun, constant yo-yo between attacking and resource management, and once you get used to the controls (which doesn't take too long, as they are well-implemented), you'll be directing your seedlings all over the battlefield like a seasoned general.

There is something off-putting about the story—it's just so alien and cold. It almost feels unnecessary—did a game like this really need a story? Eufloria HD says quite a bit simply via its framing and mechanics. In fact, the game feels somewhat like a philosophical riposte to Flower. ThatGameCompany's soothing PS3 game was all about nature and life, growth and expansion… but told as an "up with plants!" redemption story.

Eufloria HD is also a game about nature and life, growth and expansion, but it feels much more primal. It's about the constant, kill-or-be-killed struggle of the natural order, the winner-take-all quest to survive and propagate at all costs.

But that's the way of things, and it's most certainly the way of the game. Once I grew comfortable with my game-reinforced bloodthirstiness, I found myself greatly enjoying the constantly engaging flow of Eufloria. Planting a garden never felt so cutthroat.

Eufloria HD [App Store]

Hey, why should indie game developers get to have all the bundling fun? Game composers should get to experience the joy of bundling too. I'm glad to see that they finally are.

The folks behind the recent first-ever Indie Game Music Bundle are back with… can you guess the name?… the Indie Game Music Bundle 2! This one has five truly great soundtracks, which you can download for any price you'd like to pay.

You'll get the music from Aquaria, To The Moon, Jamestown, the bloody fantastic music from Machinarium, and even Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP, which you'll recall was my favorite game soundtrack of all of last year. Jim Guthrie's work in that game is a big part of why I put it in as a contender for our Game of the Year award.

In keeping with the bundle tradition, if you drop $10 on those five soundtracks, you'll get even more soundtracks, with a lot of albums that I actually haven't hear, as well as some as-yet-unrevealed bonuses that will be unlocked if they sell enough copies.

Hmm. Unlocked as they sell more copies? That smells like gamification to me. It would seem that the musicians have indeed learned a thing or two from their game-developer brethren.

Well played, video game composers. Well played.

Indie Game Music Bundle 2 [Official Page]

It's true. You can finally download PlayStation 2 classic God Hand to your PlayStation 3, people. That's the wonderfully wacky beat 'em up from the people who made Okami. IGN labeled it awful, while Kotaku contributor Tim Rogers likened it to "being a professional chainsaw-wielding glacier demolisher at a party where the penguins are going to need a lot of ice cubes."

If polarizing PS2 games aren't your thing—though at just ten bucks a pop, those emulated last-gen games are certainly worth experimenting with—there's much more on tap in this week's North American PlayStation Store update. NBA Jam On Fire Edition, the original Crysis and the lovely looking Eufloria, for example.

But if "new" video games aren't your cup of tea, Sega Bass Fishing, Odin Sphere and Resident Evil 5 Gold Edition are also recent adds to the PlayStation Store. See the full list of new PlayStation 3 and PSP games in the very long list below.

Games & Demos for PlayStation 3

Resident Evil 5 Gold Edition ($29.99)
Crysis ($19.99)
NBA Jam On Fire Edition ($14.99)
Shift 2 Unleashed Digital ($39.99)
Eufloria ($9.99)
Sega Bass Fishing ($9.99)
Space Channel 5 Part 2 ($9.99)
Eufloria Demo
Pro Evolution Soccer 2012 Demo
PSone Classics - Chrono Trigger ($9.99)
PS2 Classics - Odin Sphere ($9.99)
PS2 Classics - Maximo: Ghosts To Glory ($9.99)
PS2 Classics - Grim Grimoire ($9.99)
PS2 Classics - Ring of Red ($9.99)
PS2 Classics - God Hand ($9.99)

Games & Demos for PSP

FIFA 12 ($39.99)

Add-ons & Expansions

Portal 2: Peer Review (free)
Rage – Wasteland Sewer Missions ($9.99)
Dead Rising 2: Off The Record Free Support Pack (free)
Street Fighter III: Third Strike Online Edition Match Pack 1 (Fight For The Future) ($3.99)
NBA Jam On Fire Edition – Time Is Money Pack ($4.99)
Magic The Gathering: Duels Of The Planeswalkers 2012: Foil Conversion "Auramancer" ($0.99)
Magic The Gathering: Duels Of The Planeswalkers 2012: Foil Conversion "Cloudburst" ($0.99)
Magic The Gathering: Duels Of The Planeswalkers 2012: Foil Conversion "Grave Whispers" ($0.99)
Magic The Gathering: Duels Of The Planeswalkers 2012: Full Deck "Auramancer" ($0.99)
Magic The Gathering: Duels Of The Planeswalkers 2012: Full Deck "Cloudburst" ($0.99)
Magic The Gathering: Duels Of The Planeswalkers 2012: Full Deck "Grave Whispers" ($0.99)
Cabela's Big Game Hunter 2012: Alaskan Rocks (free)
Cabela's Big Game Hunter 2012: Chile Plateau (free)
Cabela's Big Game Hunter 2012: Texas Woods (free)

Rock Band 3 tracks

• "Gold Cobra" – Limp Bizkit ($1.99)
• "My Way" – Limp Bizkit ($1.99)
• "Nookie" – Limp Bizkit ($1.99)
• "Re-Arranged" – Limp Bizkit ($1.99)
• Limp Bizkit Pack 01 ($5.49) – "Gold Cobra," "My Way," "Nookie," and "Re-Arranged" by Limp Bizkit.

Rock Band Network tracks

• "Bagatelle No. 25 – Fur Elise (Beethoven)" – Thomas Walker ($0.99)
• "Farewell, Mona Lisa" – The Dillinger ($1.99)
• "Glow" – Alien Ant Farm ($1.99)
• "Heroes Don't Cry" – Free Spirit ($1.99)
• "Pendulum" – After the Burial ($1.99)
• "Ship With No Sails" – Neonfly ($1.99)
• "Stabbing The Drama" – Soilwork ($1.99)
• "The Window" – Raven Quinn ($1.99)
• "These City Lights" – Rose of Jericho ($0.99)
• "Trying Hard" – Loni Rose ($0.99)

Game Videos

Qore 10/4 Edition
NBA 2K12 – Momentous Trailer
NBA 2K12: 3D Trailer
Kingdoms Of Amalur: Reckoning Gamescom Trailer
Need For Speed The Run – Porsche Reveal Trailer
House Of The Dead: Overkill Gameplay Trailer #1
Final Fantasy XIII-2 2011 TGS Trailer
Jurassic Park: The Game – Action Montage Trailer
Metro: Last Light – E3 Gameplay Trailer
Metro: Last Light – Teaser Trailer
Saints Row The Third – Killbane: The Walking Apocalypse Trailer
Twisted Metal Vengeance Trailer
Resistance 3 "Follow Capelli" Trailer
Resistance 3 "No Mercy" Trailer
Resistance 3 "Radio" TV Spot
GT Academy Behind the Scenes – Helicopter Cam
GT Academy Behind the Scenes – Rally Course

Themes, Wallpapers & Avatars

Rochard Skyrig Theme (free)
Rochard Theme (free)
Rage Wellspring Dynamic Theme ($2.99)
Rage Premium Theme ($1.99)
A Murder of Crows Dynamic Theme ($2.99)
Amphibian Delight Dynamic Theme ($2.99)
Bombshelter Blues Dynamic Theme ($2.99)
Flirty Girl Dynamic Theme ($2.99)
Xuriga Static Theme ($1.49)
Tatsuka Static Theme ($1.49)
Misti Dawn Playtime Static Theme ($1.49)
4 Elements Hd: Wallpaper 2
Rochard – John Rochard Wallpaper
Rochard Wallpaper
Lost Planet 2 Avatars (x20) ($0.49)
Rocket Knight Avatar Collection 2 ($2.99)
Red Faction Armageddon Avatar Bundle ($0.99)

Sales, Price Drops & Bundles

Explodemon! – Sale (PS3) (now $6.99, original price $9.99)
Tales From Space: About A Blob – Sale (PS3) (now $5.99, original price $14.99)
Enigmo – Sale (PS3) (now $1.99, original price $3.99)
Jane's Hotel – Sale (PS3) (now $1.99, original price $3.99)
Zombie Tycoon – Sale (PS3) (now $2.99, original price $4.99)
Zombie Tycoon French – Sale (PS3) (now $2.99, original price $4.99)
Stardrone – End Sale (PS3) (now $7.99, original price $4.99)
Bulletstorm – Digital Download – Price Change (PS3) (now $29.99, original price $39.99)

PlayStation Plus

Costume Quest (free)
Elemental Monster (free)
PSP minis - 1000 Tiny Claws (free)
PSP minis - Speedball 2 (free)
PSP minis - Street Smarts (free)
PSone Classics - Warhawk (free)
Resident Evil 5 full game trial
Shift 2 Unleashed full game trial
Eufloria – 20% off
Explodemon! – 30% off
Tales From Space: About a Blob – 40% off
Resident Evil 5 Gold Edition – 25% off
Elemental Monster Online Card Game Booster Box DLC – 50% off
Lost Planet 2 Avatar Bundle (free)

Not content to run a downloadable games service where players have to wait weeks for repairs in order to play titles already out on Xbox Live Arcade, Sony Computer Entertainment America commits $20 million over three years towards the development of more excellent PlayStation Network exclusive games.

Teasing aside, the PlayStation Network has been a hotbed of amazing exclusive titles, from Q-Games' PixelJunk series and Thatgamecompany's Flow and Flower. Sony has accomplished its mission of delivering unique games to PlayStation 3 owners, and now it just wants to keep up the trend.

To that end SCEA has invested $20 million towards the development of new PSN games over the next three years. The money will go towards its first-party studios, as well as financing via the Pub Fund program, which provides development monies towards independent game development, as it did with Doublesix's Burn Zombie Burn.

"PlayStation Network is poised to deliver an enviable line-up of exclusive and imaginative games this year, with highly anticipated first-party titles like thatgamecompany's Journey and PixelJunk Sidescroller," said Brandon Stander, director of PlayStation Network marketing, SCEA. "We're doubling down on PlayStation Network software, and under this additional investment over the next three years, we anticipate a steady flow of high-quality titles that can't be found anywhere else."

Games being produced under this new initiative include the ambient bio-mechanical space exploration game Eufloria, action-puzzler Okabu, crime simulator Payday: The Heist, and colorful puzzle platformer Papo & Yo.

You like Machinarium? Then you may like Osada, the newest game from Machinarium's developers, Amanita Design. It's free, and you can play it right now.

While we're on the subject, Amanita have also recently done some amazing work on both the puppet film Kooky and its book. You can - and should - check that out on their site.