Flower in Us sprouts up on Windows PC

• Announcements by Jack Allin
• Published:

Demo also available for short narrative-driven locked-room mystery on Steam and itch.io

Generally you know what you're getting from an escape room adventure, but the newly released Flower in Us by indie Korean developer Chalkseagull and Team Gypsophila promises to subvert most of those expectations for a very different kind of experience. 

You awaken on the floor of a basement, with no memory of who or where you are. Before you is a young woman, bound by her hands and neck to a pole. You don't recognize her, but she seems to know you. What's worse, she says that you're a police officer named "Moss" and that you were the one who raided the place and tied her up! She calls herself "Peony," a flower-based code name from a revolutionary group seeking to overthrow the ruling dictator. Peony claims to be an innocent, a new recruit who means no harm, and offers her help in exchange for setting her free. But can she be trusted? Did you really just fall down the stairs and hit your head like she says, or were you the victim of a "violent assault?" There are many puzzles preventing you from escaping on your own, so you'll need to "determine whether she's your ally or hiding something sinister," perhaps even forming a "genuine bond with her along the way." If not, her revolutionary compatriots will be returning soon, and won't be at all happy to discover your intrusion. 

Set in "an alternate 1980s Korea under authoritarian rule," Flower in Us forsakes the traditional first-person, mouse-driven solo experience of most escape room adventures, instead presenting its action in third-person. Officer Moss can be moved around via keyboard, though there isn't far to go in the confined basement space. But there's a surprising amount of puzzling challenge to be found in such a small space filled with "locked compartments and boxes that require passcodes to open." Some of it involves simple inventory collection and use, like finding something sharp and manipulating the keyboard in a simulated motion to cut Peony's hands loose from her bonds. Others, however, are far more complex, so don't expect a handy door code nearby its combination lock. Oh, there are coded symbols right beside it, all right, but they're just the start of a rabbit hole of related clues and puzzles to unwind the various layers involved in deciphering them. Whether friend or foe, you can turn to Peony for help as a kind of built-in hint system. Of course, you'll also have to contend with the blow to your head. Are you thinking clearly? You'll have reason to doubt even your own thoughts when, "out of nowhere, flowers bloom like hallucinations, transforming the basement into an eerie, dreamlike space. As reality begins to shift, you'll come to realize that the world may be governed by rules different from your own."

You can hop right into this short "two-person chamber drama" right away as Flower in Us is available now on Steam for Windows PC. If you'd like to try it out first, an even shorter playable demo can be downloaded from Steam or itch.io.