Video Game: Lawnmower Game

Rating

6/10

Review/Comment

Funny, simple and cheap game to play for a few minutes, or get all the achievements for and put on your steam profile as a joke

• Good:
  • Cheap and it is also often on special
  • The game is simple and anybody could understand it and know how to play
  • The idea is funny and it is funny to play in an ironic way
    • You can put it on your steam profile as a joke
  • Very few and easy to get achievements
    • That you can put on your steam profile as a joke
  • Pumpkins are somewhat easy to find and help you explore the environment
  • Going for a high score or trying to beat other people’s score could be fun for some people
  • You can mow the lawns of the houses, not just the fields
  • Two camera angles, one third person, the other first person
  • Simple controls
    • You only need one hand to play
    • Mouse doesn’t do anything
  • Simple tutorial that is also optional
  • Fuel is easy to find and get
  • Jump right into the game, nothing delaying you from mowing that lawn
  • Game can run in background, so you can do other things on your computer while you idle to get certain achievements
  • You could play this as a form of mindfulness or meditation as you could focus on actively playing this game without much distraction, because the game is so simple
    • Playing in first person could help with this
    • Things you could focus on as playing this game as a form of mindfulness or meditation
      • Controlling the game and the lawnmower
      • The sound of the lawnmower
      • Certain things in the environment or on the lawnmower
      • The way the grass changes from uncut to cut behind the lawnmower
  • You can lower the graphics if your system has trouble playing the game at higher graphics
    • Lowering the graphics really low and seeing the garbled mess is fun to do
• Okay/Neutral:
  • Environment is alright to look at and explore
  • It is very hard to lose at this game
  • The game has no story
  • The game has no cutscenes
  • Graphics aren’t very good, but that is understandable for an Indie studio or person who made this quickly or in a short amount of time
  • The lawnmower is automatic transmission, so you don’t have to deal with changing gears yourself
    • Some people may prefer to change gears themself as it would give more to do and manage
• Bad:
  • Game can get boring after a minute or more
    • When it gets boring is different for everyone
  • Game doesn’t have Trading Cards on Steam
  • Bad English grammar and spelling
    • No issue to me, but may be for other people
  • You can get stuck and be forced to restart or wait out until you run out of fuel
    • I got stuck once on the rocks that were around river
  • When I select a resolution above 1280x720, the game looks the same as when it was on 1280x720
  • Performance
    • Lag spikes when turning sometimes
    • Screen tearing happens often for me
  • The game doesn’t have any leaderboards for high scores and doesn’t even save your own high score
  • Sound Design
    • There is no music in game, only in the menu
    • The lawnmower sound can sound relaxing, but it could also be annoying or boring to people as the sound never changes
    • Pumpkin sound was quite loud and did frighten me the first time
    • Fuel sound is okay, but nothing special

Tips and Tricks

• To get the “Play 60 minutes in row” achievement, keep the game running in the background while you do other things and come back to it every once and a while to get fuel, so you don’t lose
  • You could do this trick for the “Play 10 minutes” and “Play 15 minute” achievement

Notes

• In my game, the fuel canisters were a dark green, but other gameplay and the tutorial shows and says it is yellow
• Perhaps, my game ran poorly due to my setup, but with how simple and non-intensive this game is or should be I feel this isn’t the case
  • The game does look to run better in other people’s gameplay, so I am not sure why I got the performance issues I got

Links

• Lawnmower Game | Steam Store Page
• Gameplay without Commentary: “Lawnmower Game - Геймплей” - YouTube Video by “MN Indie Games”
• Gameplay with Commentary: “Lawnmower Game” - YouTube Video by “Cr1TiKaL” (“penguinz0”)