On a fine, sunny day, a little, finger-sized fairy-child riding on a leaf floats upon an empty beach, and upon stepping on sand, causes grass to sprout around him. Frollicking through the meadows inland, the fairy child - named "Hoa", or "flower" - begins seeking his true identity and find out what happened to the world outside.
Hoa is an indie puzzle platformer developed by Vietnam's Skrollcat Studios and Kyx Productions, loosely based on a Vietnamese fable and with hand-painted landscape and music reminiscient of old-school Studio Ghibli films, with the layers in control of Hoa in exploring various landscapes, ranging from forests to underwater environments and dark, gloomy factories.
The game was released for the macOS, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S in 2021.
The World outside awaits...
- Advancing Wall of Doom: In the factory area, when Hoa is pursued by a Killer Robot he couldn't fight back against.
- Blackout Basement: In the underwater levels, Hoa periodically enter caverns and tunnels which are pitch-black and can't see anything except himself until he found luminiscent plants to light up areas.
- Bilingual Bonus: Hoa, the titular character, whose name translates as "flower"... and is destined to restore the world with his Green Thumb.
- Deliberately Monochrome: One of the last levels before the final stage, the Dream Land, which is a repeat of the first bulk of the game but now everything is in black-and-white.
- Double Jump: Hoa earns the ability to jump twice in a row, including in mid-air, after completing the Caterpillar King's favours in the forest stage. Naturally this comes in handy in later levels when platforming elements are more frequent.
- Ghibli Hills: The entire game's environments, notably the endless stretch of meadows and lush green hills that populates the first half of gameplay.
- Giant Crab: Variant - crabs larger than average crustaceans appears underwater, but given Hoa's size they're humungous in comparison. They're among the few friendly giant crab creatures in video games, who offers Hoa a ride and doesn't hurt him at all.
- Lily-Pad Platform: Hoa can cross ponds using lily-pads in a few areas.
- Macrozone: Every single stage, since Hoa's a thumb-sized fairy creature exploring the world. He even toadstools and caterpillars as springboards, swing on stalks of bellflowers, tiptoes on vines and rides a dandelion at one point.
- Nature-Loving Robot: The one good robot who saved Hoa in the ending flashback, unwilling to see his kind wipe out a forest. This one robot went back to rebuilt the forest after the war, and could be seen on various promotional materials.
- Pushy Mooks: Those springy-headed, metallic... things on spider-legs. Who likes kicking everything in their way, including the titular character, aside several feet upon contact, but can't damage Hoa in any way (there's even an achievement for getting kicked 10 times by it - "Do I look like a ball to you?"). Hoa jumps on their heads and uses them like a Goomba Springboard.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning:
- In the factory stage, Hoa can re-activate a long-dormant robot, whose eyes glows a benign white. The robot provides some exposition about the past to Hoa in a cutscene, before the machine meant for activating the robot suddenly re-adjusts itself... cue the robot's eyes suddenly turning red, with the robot shouting at Hoa to "run!" - because it's defense mechanism has triggered it into becoming a Killer Robot that rampages after Hoa.
- In the flashback epilogue, the hostile robots busy destroying the forest all bears red eyes. The one good robot who saved Hoa is the exception.
- Regained Memories Sequence: Hoa's past finally comes into light after the Dream world, where we found out what happened to the rest of the pixies. In the backstory, Hoa and his race of pixies are decimated when a hostile robot army attacked the forest he dwells, until one of the robots defect and allows Hoa to escape on a leaf carried by a butterfly.
- Super Not-Drowning Skills: Played straight in underwater levels, where Hoa can run and float on the ocean bed. Then again, Hoa's not a human but a pixie-like creature.
- Temporary Platform: Sleeping ladybirds in the forest levels serves this purpose. Hoa can jump on them in platforming areas, but they'll awake and fly away in a handful of seconds, sometimes with Hoa still on them, dropping Hoa to the floor as they leave. But they'll return resting on the exact same spot moments later.
- The Voiceless: Hoa doesn't say a single word for the entire game.
