Freshly Blossomed Fantasy Action Puzzle! note
"The settlements of Florea were once a single kingdom, united with the power of the seven Sacred Blossoms. As the kingdom shattered into fragmented city-states, so too did the Sacred Blossoms scatter across the land. The legend foretells that whoever gathers all seven and restores them to their place in the royal garden...will be granted their heart's true desire..."
— Opening narration
Petal Crash is an indie Puzzle Game created by Friend & Fairy, led by Tim Ashley Jenkins, and published by Galaxytrail, with writing by Zack Morrison and music by Michael Staple. The game was designed to feel like action puzzle games from the mid-90's, especially those that came out on the Game Boy Color. It was crowdfunded
through Kickstarter on October 27, 2019, and released for PC via Steam and itch.io, Nintendo Switch, and PlayStation 4 on October 12, 2020. An online multiplayer client was released for the Steam and itch.io versions on October 3, 2021, with a standalone version of Petal Crash Online also being available at a lower price on itch.io.
The wish-granting Sacred Blossoms are in the hands of seven individuals scattered around Florea, which used to be a united kingdom. Each of the Sacred Blossom holders sets out to gather the other six and make their wish come true, discovering parts of themselves in the process.
The writer's recommended order for story mode (explanations here) is: Strelitz, Penny & Deony, Lilibri, Daize, Ore Kid, Yosoti, Rosalia.
A sequel, aptly titled Petal Crash 2, was announced on October 13, 2023, and is scheduled to release in early 2024 through the BackerKit service.
Petal Crash contains examples of:
- all lowercase letters: Ore Kid's dialogue is rendered this way to illustrate her more laid-back attitude. Near the end of her story mode, she drops the lowercase text and starts talking more seriously when Daize and Rosalia push her into a mental corner. This also extends to the names of her levels in Puzzle Mode.
- Anti-Frustration Features:
- Colorblind? No problem! The game comes with colorblind-filtered block skins for the default flower blocks and the Suit Blocks too for good measure.
- Online, as of 1.1.0, lets you set which side of the screen your board is on, so players using touch controls can do so with less risk of obstructing their view of opponent's board.
- Bratty Half-Pint: Strelitz is a demon prince that pretty much antagonizes everyone, especially those who call him a kid. Except towards Rosalia, though, since he thinks she's a really cool and moody hero.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall:
- Ore Kid does this at the beginning of her story, praising the player for (she assumes) choosing her first. She then decides against being an omniscient narrator because she does not actually know if you're playing as her first, "plus being meta ruins immersion..." Not that this stops her from saying that her story starts "with this text box".
- One of The Baz's winquotes has him say that he deserves his own slot on the character select screen.
- Chest Monster: One of the three unlockable backer characters, Mimi, is a Mimic of the common treasure chest-variety. She is also the only backer guest character made specifically for the game.
- Co-Op Multiplayer: In the form of a two-player score attack mode, introduced in 1.1. You and your partner work together to score as high as possible, but have the burden of Friendly Fire filling up your board. Both players need to work together to control the damage, or risk ending the run early.
- Creative Closing Credits: The credits sequence is a playable game board with its own High Score record.
- Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: For all that casual banter Ore Kid has, she honestly has no idea what she wants in her life beyond treasure hunting. It's when this trope comes into discussion with Daize that she breaks her usual no-caps talk and admits this, and does so once more with Rosalia.
- Developer's Foresight: In Online, if a match ends the instant it starts (possible by using custom rules to reduce the board size and increase the number of spawners so the screen is already completely filled with blocks), the time elapsed on the results screen will read "lol nice".
- Dismantled MacGuffin: The seven Sacred Blossoms, which have been scattered across the land and found by various individuals, have to be gathered and brought back to the Royal Garden to make their wishes come true.
- The Dividual: Penny & Deony are twin siblings that play as a unit. It's even reflected in their AI, switching between Penny's impulsive playstyle and Deony's more passive and deliberate playstyle. The 1.1 update allows you to play as one of them individually as an alternate costume.
- Duels Decide Everything: Zig-zagged. In certain cases, disputes between the Sacred Blossom holders are settled through games of Petal Crash. In most, however, there's no real dispute to begin with, the characters are more than willing to help each other out... and then a Petal Crash happens anyway, often as a show of respect or camaraderie.
- Dynamic Difficulty: Story Mode takes cues from Super Smash Bros. Ultimate in terms of difficulty scaling. You set your base difficulty rating at the start of the game, the level going up depending on your performance on that round, or going down with continues.
- Easy-Mode Mockery: You need to play Story Mode on at least Medium difficulty for any chance of encountering Hyper Lilibri or Arlet.
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Ore Kid isn't her real name, but she's content with everyone calling her that.
- Fantasy Kitchen Sink: The world of Florea is home to numerous fantasy creatures and races, including elves, beastmen, fairies, dwarves, centaurs, and the like, which make up the vast majority of the game's playable cast.
- Floral Theme Naming: Each of the main cast is named after the Sacred Blossom they possess, in varying levels of blatancy. Characters like Lilibri, Daize, and Rosalia have the phonetic syllables of the lily, daisy, and rose respectively; Ore Kid is flat out a Punny Name for orchid, while Strelitz and Yosoti are based on the scientific name of the bird of paradise and forget-me-not, Strelitzia and Myosotis.
- The Gambler: Daize has a bit of a gambler streak in him, and is introduced playing cards. It's also how he got his hands on his Sacred Blossom.
- Guest Fighter: Six of them, three of which being Kickstarter backer contributions.
- The Baz, a character based on a scrapped Street Fighter II character design who serves as a mascot for the Two Best Friends Play channel and has made cameos in various other indie games including Shovel Knight, Divekick, and Indivisible. Can be played as when holding the Costume Change button on Strelitz.
- Libbie the Cyber Oryx, a character designed by Tyson Tan, as part of a LibreOffice community mascot contest held by The Document Foundation. Despite being one of the most well-designed and popular candidates, she ended up being rejected due to a last-minute rule change and released into the public domain after the contest's cancellation. Can be played as when holding the Costume Change button on Lilibri.
- Mimi, a treasure chest mimic, and the only guest character made specifically for the game. Can be played as when holding the Costume Change button on Ore Kid.
- Arlet, from Grapple Force Rena. Unlike the other guests, this character must be unlocked by defeating them in story mode, and will only appear before the final match when certain conditions have been met (completing a 7+ chain on medium difficulty or higher, you also cannot use a continue before the fight).
- Nova the Squirrel, the titular squirrel from the self-titled NES homebrew Retraux platformer. Introduced in 1.1 in commemoration of her game's creator, NovaSquirrel, creating the game's online component. Can be selected by holding the Costume Change button on Yosoti.
- Milla Basset from Freedom Planet. Introduced in 1.1 alongside Nova and can be selected by holding the Costume Change button on Penny & Deony.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Ore Kid does this a lot in her story, even outright breaking it at the start.
- Legacy Character: Yosoti is the current one in a line of Yosotis, famed for their performances.
- Level Editor: There is one for the game's Puzzle Mode, allowing players to make their own puzzles and share them via text code. Sharing is not available on consoles, and the editor is completely absent on iOS.
- Lost Orphaned Royalty: Rosalia deduces that Penny & Deony are lost children of royal blood after realizing they are orphans with a royal heirloom. She also is distraught at the possibly that her kingdom was responsible for the loss of their family and profusely apologizes, though she frames it as apologizing for asking for their only heirloom so they never catch on.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: It's left ambiguous whether or not the Sacred Blossoms actually have the power to grant wishes.
- Older Than They Look: Ore Kid looks maybe Strelitz's age, tops. The other characters treat her as older than that, Strelitz included, and the game's site spells out that she's actually a young adult.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: When Daize attempts to ask Ore Kid about the latter's wish, Ore Kid loses her cool and angrily tells him that she doesn't know what she wants. It happens again when she snaps at Rosalia, still not knowing what she wants and was close to forfeiting her quest until Rosalia objects to her giving up so quickly. This is underlined by Ore Kid speaking with proper capitalization instead of her usual no-caps speech.
- Quest for a Wish: The story involves the chosen character gathering the seven Sacred Blossoms to wish for their heart's desire.
- Lilibri wants a perfect record of Florea's past before its collapse. Her wish comes under scrutiny by Rosalia, realizing that past history was once living too. It's made up of successes and failures that need to be taught and learned from. For that reason, she instead wishes to establish a school for the Sylvan Library to cultivate that future as its teacher.
- Strelitz wants to be a demon king. But in reality, he's a really lonely kid that wishes he has friends.
- Penny & Deony want to meet their parents. Their mutual Selfless Wish ends up rolling over to not granting anything. They're not hung up on it though, as they have each other as family.
- Ore Kid doesn't have one, at least initially, only chasing the blossoms on a whim. She doesn't get a clear answer on what she wants either, but she's motivated to discover herself one treasure at a time.
- Daize just wants money to live easy and leave his old and poor town behind. He realizes he's too attached to his town to just leave them, and decides to use his money wish for them instead. He doesn't get his money either way, but it does unite the town folk to start a revolution.
- Yosoti wants to make an unforgettable performance so that they are remembered for their dance, not the name. It's already happened, as the Yosoti legacy is tied to their ancestors' performances. It takes Rosalia remembering a past Yosoti to realize their wish isn't so out of reach.
- Rosalia wants to revive her fallen kingdom, having lived long enough to see it collapse. The kingdom never collapsed, just changed. Rosalia realizes that she's mentally trapped in the memory of a lost kingdom, afraid she'll forget about the old kingdom. She instead wishes for the courage to leave it behind so she can spread the royal garden's hope for the current-day Florea's future.
- Retraux: The game's audio-visual presentation was clearly designed to mimic the look and feel of a Game Boy Color game with some elements of Game Boy Advance games sprinkled in, such as the game being in widescreen and sampled instruments being used alongside PSG instruments in its soundtrack.
- Shout-Out:
- When you first start up the game, you get a screen asking if you want to watch the tutorial. It resembles screens in Kirby Super Star that serve the same purpose.
- The "Yosoti's Cookie" block skin option is quite clearly inspired by Yoshi's Cookie, from the name, to the cookie designs. Yosoti is even mistakenly called "Yoshi" in their story by Penny.
- The Steam achievements for earning high scores in Solo Play modes, "Petal: The Absolute" and "Petal: Terror Instinct", are both references to Tetris: The Grand Master.
- Two of Nova's winquotes has her reference the Nintendo games for the Philips CD-i:
- One of the preset messages in the Petal Crash Online lobby is "I'm using tilt controls!" Another is "Looks like we don't have a choice!"
- Some of the color palettes in Online are references to other media. For example:
- Sucks at Dancing: Ore Kid tries to show Yosoti some of her dance moves, with Yosoti remarking before and after their Petal Crash battle that Ore Kid is pretty terrible:(Th-these moves...! Amazing! [Ore Kid] has a once-in-a-century lack of talent!)
- True Final Boss: Normally, Rosalia is the last opponent fought in story mode, unless you're playing as her. However, if you're playing on medium difficulty or higher and make it all the way past her without using a continue, Lilibri appears, admits that she gave you a fake lily and was holding back the first time you faced her, encouraging you to go all out in a rematch. If you're playing Lilibri, her final opponent is Daize instead, with you playing as Hyper Lilibri. Defeating either one will unlock this version of Lilibri as a playable character.
- Token Human: The twins Penny & Deony and Guest Fighter The Baz are the only playable humans in the game's roster.
- Units Not to Scale: Lilibri, being a fairy, is much smaller than the other characters story-wise. During gameplay, her sprite makes her seem much larger than she really is in order to make her reactions visible. She has a floating book with her at all times, except for when she is Hyper Lilibri, thus communicating her actual size to the player.
- Warmup Boss: Lilibri or Strelitz, depending on who's first in Story Mode. Lilibri knows how to make chains, but panics when she takes garbage, indicated by her cursor shuffling aimlessly out for a few seconds. Strelitz, on the other hand, plays randomly with no semblance of strategy, giving a taste of more aggressive play.
- Wake-Up Call Boss: Ore Kid, who is around the halfway point in Story Mode. She starts by growing flowers to fill up the board, then crashes them in rapid-fire succession. This makes her surprisingly aggressive in pushing the battle bar, forcing the player to pick up the slack or lose their lives quickly.
- Willfully Weak: Lilibri loves playing Petal Crash, but she's aware she gets incredibly excited when she goes all out and restrains herself. When she does let loose though, she's indeed much faster.
- Writing Around Trademarks: Strelitz's species was originally listed as "Tiefling", until the devs found out that the term was actually owned by Wizards of the Coast and their use of it was not covered under WotC's Open Game License, and had to be changed to "Fiendkin" in a later update.
- Years Too Early: For one of Penny's winquotes when played as without Deony, she says that the opponent is 1,000 years too early to face her and her brother at the same time.Penny: But if you pay all the annual fees up FRONT...
- Your Costume Needs Work: In Rosalia's story, Yosoti initially thinks that her armor is a renaissance faire costume. Played with in that they compliment it.
