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PixelJunk Eden is the latest from Q-Games, developer of PixelJunk Monsters and PixelJunk Racers, a tower defense RTS game and well, racer, respectively. The team’s newest creation is much more difficult to categorize. The visuals were designed by a Japanese artist named Baiyon, and if this game’s stunning Day-Glo art is the result of reaching out to the modern art world to fine-tune a game’s aesthetics, then developers should do this brand of outsourcing more often.

The game truly looks like nothing we’ve ever seen. As a bonus, Baiyon contributed the eerie ambient electro soundtrack which fits the otherworldly vistas like a glove.

“Yeah, yeah,” you’re saying. “It looks great. But what the heck is it?”

Underneath this gorgeous art project beats the heart of a traditional platformer. Start by catapulting your Grimp into the pleasantly psychedelic environments by aiming with the analog stick and firing away. You see, the Grimp doesn’t run, nor does he walk. He grips and jumps (hence the name) and it is your job to enable his gripping and jumping. Gripping is done automatically when he comes into contact with any surface, be it leaf, branch, or stone. Jumping is performed with a double tap of the X button. Pressing the X button only once releases a strand of silk that the Grimp can use to swing around and grab little goodies that are floating around the garden.

Chief amongst these goodies is pollen. Much as in our world, pollen is what makes the gardens grow. Swing into enemies to make them release pollen. Collect enough pollen and you activate new seeds. Jump on these seeds and watch in awe as a new branch, flower, or whole tree sprouts from the roots, creating a new path skyward in the process. Hidden throughout each garden (ten in all) are five Spectra, or tokens, that when obtained, help unlock other gardens. Mario 64, anyone?

If any of this sounds confusing, it’s because PixelJunk Eden is a chore to describe, but a joy to play. Leaping from tree branch to sprouting flower to Spectra is an exhilarating experience, and the immersion factor is only heightened when you throw one or two buddies into the mix. There are few things more entertaining than ganging up on one of the garden’s minions, swooping up its pollen before it can regenerate and knock the Grimps out of the tree.

The biggest problem is that we get knocked out of that tree a lot. This game is bone crushingly, controller-breakingly hard, especially in the mind-bending later gardens where merely finding the Spectra is an adventure unto itself. To make sure that our wounds are good and salty, the developers, in their divine wisdom, have integrated an Oscillation meter, which is really just a fancy word for a timer. Failure to find a Spectra before time runs out boots you back to the main menu. There are time-restoring crystals scattered about, of course, but pardon us if we wish to find the lay of the land without having to worry about the quaint ticking clock. That the game feels the need to manufacture difficulty in such an unimaginative fashion is really the only blemish on an otherwise soaring good time.

When Pixeljunk Eden was first unveiled, we thought it would be a wonderful experience without much game. But do not be fooled by its art school exterior. Eden is a game, a punishing game that will reward the hardest of the hardcore. Most of the time, this old school “game”-ness complements the cutting-edge art perfectly. In other respects (that blasted Oscillation meter), we wish that the developers hadn’t been so beholden to the rules of the game and instead let the innovation fl0w. Considering the low cost of entry, however ($10 US), both Leaderboard climbers and budding art students alike would be missing out by not diving into these gardens at least once.

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