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A Single Seed That Blossoms into Endless Possibilities - Mitoza Review

4K View2022-09-27

Mitoza is one of the strangest and most intriguing games I’ve played all year. Developed by Gal Mamalya and published by Second Maza, this surreal free-to-play game makes players’ choices matter more than ever. Over the course of forty minutes to an hour of gameplay, those choices lead to odd, surprising, and random outcomes.

Decisions make up the whole of Mitoza’s gameplay. This game does not depend on a narrative to immerse players. It’s simply about making choices and navigating the results. But it’s this one-minded strangeness that provides such a gripping experience.

From Mitoza’s opening moment, I was immediately pushed to make a choice I was given a seed that I could plant or let a bird take it away. I chose to feed the bird the seed, and then I had to decide whether it should lay a large egg or a small one. From there, I was given two more options, and so on and so on. While the options seemed infinite at first, they eventually led to an end point. Once I reached that initial conclusion, I returned to a screen with the same tiny seed that started the journey and was able to begin again, either recreating my same story or exploring a whole new branch of possibilities.

Interestingly, all of these outcomes surprised me. The vignettes that play out from each decision tend toward being very weird or even nonsensical. For example, in one scenario I planted the seed, and it turned into a Venus flytrap. From there, I had to pick between a fly and a spider, presumably as food for the plant. I chose the fly, which buzzed onto the scene and actually ate the plant itself. Mitoza is full of these funny and odd sequences, with many of them never really correlating with each other and leaning towards total randomness.

While there’s no thread of logic that can be pulled through everything that happens in Mitoza, I can at least say that the game is never dull. I was enthralled enough that I uncovered all seventy-two ending scenarios, which may sound like a lot but took less than an hour. That said, trying out every choice in the game can be mildly infuriating, as it doesn’t provide a way to undo a decision or return to a previously explored route. If you’re planning to really dig deep like I did, the gameplay may start to feel pretty repetitive and tiring.

And yet I stuck it out to see everything, so I must have enjoyed it well enough. Mitoza doesn’t offer much reason to return after you’ve explored all the possible scenarios, but that shouldn’t dissuade you from playing the game. It may not be a life-changing experience, but its focus on player choice and its bizarre payoffs certainly kept me entertained.

SCORE: 3 STARS OUT OF 5

PLAY IF YOU LIKE:

• Randomness. If you enjoy the idea of never knowing what’s coming next, Mitoza might pique your interest for its strange and random gameplay.

• Cats in Time. If you enjoy playing casual puzzle games like Cats in Time with various scenarios to encounter and solve in your free time, Mitoza might be worth spending time relishing.

💬 Have you played Mitoza? If you could only choose one seed to plant, whether a fruit or vegetable seedling, to grow, propagate, and eat forever, what seed would that be?

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Mentioned games

Mitoza

7.5

Point & ClickCasualAdventureExplorationSimulation

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Comments

Robert "Bedauri"

I read a similar review perspective, which caught my attention. Although I took a different laid back approach. After about 3 hrs of play, I enjoyed taking in and appreciating every animation and likely on saw 30 endings. for me I love it !

2022-10-05

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Mitoza Review: Seeds and Possibilities

I have to say I completely had no idea what kind of game Mitoza is before really getting my hands on it. The reason why I decided to give it a try was quite simple. It was published by Second Maze, an indie studio that had gained some popularity by publishing The White Door, the spin-off story of the very famous Rusty Lake series. I also had a great time playing Milo and the Magpies, another exquisite puzzle title with the same publisher. And

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