Mowy Lawn is brought to us by Playstack, who are based in London, and who were founded on the belief that even the greatest developers need support in order to create their best work. They offer support in three key ways; end-to-end funding, publishing expertise, and tech to build a strong gamer audience and community.
So, usually when you hear of an app with the premise being about gardening you’d assume that it would be a Zen experience. Something after a hard day of slogging it at the office, you’d come home and play a nice relaxing game, get in touch with your inner Buddha and get those tired fingers nice and green…unwind and chant a few om’s right? WRONG! well, at least after the first couple of levels and then it’s pedal to the metal.
Welcome to lawnmower heaven – where lucky blade-spinners are set free on fields of glorious bushy overgrowth. Pick from a selection of souped-up mowers and dive into a sprawling mass of grass until everything is shaved down into neat, tidy, satisfying strips, but beware of dogs! Grassland is filled with four-legged hazards, from canines to frogs to, uh, sheep! Let’s jump in and take a look at one of PlayStacks newest mobile app games – Mowy Lawn
Gameplay
You start off in Mowy Lawn in what you’d except, a nice little plot of land where you glide your lawnmower with ease over the long blades of grass, cutting it all down for a nice trimmed garden. There’s a small catch and that is you can only maneuver your mower right at all times. This isn’t too much of a challenge to begin with, but as you climb the level ladder it starts to get tricky…Goodbye relaxing Zen feelings. You are then faced with a dog who just loves to ruin your fun or masochistic sheep to avoid.
Each level, as stated, does become harder and trying to turn the lawnmower constantly only right without falling off the edge and maintaining as little road kill as possible can drive that anxiety bar up quite a bit.
As you mow down the grass, you receive coins. Save these up as much as possible to buy yourself some kick-ass looking mowers ( I honestly never thought I’d say that sentence ) these lawnmowers not only look pretty cool, but they have different speeds as at times you will need a faster mower or a much slower one depending on the level. I started to opt for the much slower mower to help me with moving panels I had to go on so i had better control.
Graphics
Visually Mowy Lawn is cute and cartoony looking, with bright colours that draw you in. Everything you’d want in a mobile game of this kind. I especially loved the different mowers you could choose from, they were appealing and a great touch to include, especially with the bat mobile and the cat being a hit with myself. If I had to compare it to another game, I would say it has the same visual feel as Minecraft with the blocky characters and vibrant display.
Audio
Mowy Lawn maintains it’s fun aspect with the music. Although there’s only one tune playing, its enough to keep that up-lifting flow as you’re getting extremely stressed! The lawnmower really does sound like a real mower, I’m wondering if the devs took real life recordings of this? Either way, the audio is light, basic and exactly right for this addictive but stressful gaming app.
Longevity
There are many levels in Mowy Lawn that will keep you busy for quite a long time. Saving up those coins might be a grind for some though as when you fall off the edge or blow yourself up when coming head to head with a dog or sheep, you have to pay out in coins to refill your mower up again with gas. The replay-ability factor for me would be quite high as you can go back and redo levels over again as many times as you want, especially if you find that particular level easier than most = a good way to earn easy coins?
Conclusion
When I was asked to review a mobile app about gardening, I was actually looking forward to it as I needed ways to relax…yes I was wrong, this does not relax you in the slightest! You’ll find your anxiety levels that much higher, maybe your blood pressure too and maybe even a few marks on your mobile phone, but this is one of the most addictive games I’ve played in a while and once you get past the frustrations of only being able to turn right, the crazy animals and moving platforms, you will have a lot of fun and much more than just a time killer while waiting in the doctors office. Mowy Lawn receives a Silver Thumb Culture Award.
Disclaimer: A code was received in order to write this review.
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