Seed of Life is a semi-open world platforming adventure game by development studio MadLight. It tells the story of a dying world in which one girl, Cora, is the only hope to restore light to the Seeds of Life and rejuvenate the planet. Unfortunately, Seed of Life is a game with good ideas that's held back by poor performances, clunky platforming, and bugs galore. What could have been a polished game about a girl finding her grandfather and saving the world ends up feeling like a half-baked prototype.

Seed of Life starts off well with wonderful worldbuilding. It takes place on the planet Lumina after it has nearly been wiped out after being discovered by an alien race known as the Namurians. A dying sun burns in the sky and the world is covered in darkness and decay, but Cora is determined to find her grandfather who ventured out to find one of the Seeds that could restore life. Along the way she meets an A.I. companion named Nar, who helps Cora gather the magic talismans that she will need to brave the dying world, avoid enemies, and ignite the Seeds.

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Sadly, the gameplay in Seed of Life is much less polished than its environments. It has a lot of interesting ideas, such as a HUD that rests on Cora's back like Isaac's suit in Dead Space and her collection of talismans that can project light, regenerate health, perform a powerful sprint, and dash to magnetic surfaces - all of which are powered by a resource called Lumium. These ideas don't hold interest for long though because playing as Cora feels unfinished. Everything from her movement to the camera feels like there is a lack of control and that Cora is drifting in all directions. This makes platforming feel awkward and frustrating, which is a huge issue as platforming is 90% of the gameplay. There are also some odd choices that were made, such as having multiple areas that drain Cora's health at almost 3 points per second (out of 100) to which Nara says that Cora needs Lumium to stay alive even though she doesn't get the regeneration talisman until well after that section is over.

Seed of Life Review

This leads to Seed of Life's biggest issues which are over explanations and inconsistencies. One of the most frustrating parts of this experience is having Nar constantly reminding Cora to get Lumium, even though the Lumium gauge is full, and explains the things that are visually happening right in front of her. It feels like the game doesn't trust its players to understand what's happening at any given moment even though it uses common tropes. In one area with green pools of water that emit green gas, Nar and Cora talk about how dangerous it might be for nearly a minute, despite the obvious visual cues and precedent for this particular type of environmental design. While that may be helpful for younger players who are new to video games, there are platforming sections that are hard for even the most seasoned veterans, both in their design and clunkiness, which makes it unclear who the intended audience is.

As mentioned, the worldbuilding for the game's setting is wonderful and deeply intriguing but the actual story and its performances are not. The narrative is inconsistent at best as Cora stumbles between various obscure or underbaked narrative plot threads, many of which, like the Namurian and Ancients backstory, go nowhere. Even with a small cast, the performances for each of the three characters is stilted and one-note, further compromising a promising initial design.

Seed of Life Review

Overall, Seed of Life is a game with unique ideas and wonderful worldbuilding, but it needs to heavily refine the parts that matter most. In its current form, Seed of Life is a fantastic proof of concept prototype but an easy to skip final product. While it doesn't take long to beat, due in part to the ability to navigate the world in unintended ways thanks to easily exploitable bugs, it leaves a lasting negative impression that could have been avoided with a little more time spent developing out from its early promise.

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Seed of Life is currently available on PC via Steam. Screen Rant was provided with a Steam Key for the purpose of this review.