It’s interesting to note that the most successful puzzle games are those that take a very bizarre premise and implement it in a simple, addictive way. Flowerworks is like that, putting you in control of a little green alien called Follie and requiring you to feed various plants by gliding around the screen to shoot pollen at them. Do well at this and you’ll be rewarded with flower-style firework effects, hence the game’s name.

Things start out with just the basics: You move Follie about the screen by waving your Wiimote around, collect floating colored pollen, and shoot it at the plant on-screen by holding the A button (or changing your targeted flower by the B button while you hold A; it’s useful on many occasions). It quickly gets more complex, with new concepts coming up every few levels. What starts as one plant becomes two, then becomes a red plant and blue plant that each require the correct pollen color in order to grow, and later on you’ll be mixing pollen to make the right color if it doesn’t naturally spawn on the stage. And if that’s not enough, you’re also encouraged to launch pollen through other pieces enroute to a plant; get enough of them together in this way and bubbles will form which can also be struck with pollen to rack up even more points. This isn’t just a case of scoring points for their own sake, since getting a high score is how you unlock additional stages.

This basic idea is spread across two modes of play: Free Play, and Adventure. The Free Play mode is basically a minimalist version of the game where you simply play from one stage to the next, good for killing a little time. The real heart of Flowerworks lies in the Adventure mode, where you’re given a large world to explore and successful play lets you find new areas to go to. This part of the game is very in-depth, with new stages to play and new abilities available as you progress. Abilities can simply include things like being able to carry more pollen at once, or be more dramatic and include the ability to burst pollen in a circle around Follie which in turn can help you feed plants or accomplish other goals. You’ll need to get pretty high scores in each stage to see the full Adventure game however, which ensures some replay value on its own.

Flowerworks draws its appeal from both its simple but engaging game play, and the visual reward for playing well. Specifically, stringing together large pollen counts, bursting several bubbles at once, and other excellent play will cause lots of firework effects to go off. These effects look rather unimpressive if you’re only getting small pollen chains and otherwise playing an uninspired session, but they can become genuinely pretty if you do well and they’ll light up the screen with all kinds of nice effects. This gives Flowerworks a good way of rewarding and encouraging the player, and this is satisfying when it’s combined with the game possibly lasting you several hours since there are plenty of stages to play through.

While Flowerworks has flaws, they are mostly minor. The worst of them are that navigating the Adventure map is a chore (and one made easier as you get further in, since you’ll be able to teleport to various places after you discover them), and the first few stages are so simple as to be boring. Fortunately, the Adventure map problem is tolerable and the stages become reasonably interesting within perhaps thirty minutes of play, after which point it generally just gets better and better.

At 1000 Points/$10, this is one of the better deals available through WiiWare. It is an easy to learn and generally well-paced puzzle game, and the sort of thing that could entertain just about any player in any age group. With good length, intuitive controls, and a fun idea, Flowerworks stands out as an excellent choice.