About a year ago, we shared Mutazione with the world. A quiet town with colorful characters and a mystery to unravel with the help of seven gardens. Now, Mutazione is a favorite with the PS4 audience, one of the best reviewed games we’ve ever published, one of the highest rated games in the entire Apple Arcade library! Fans have shown off mountains of fan art, have sent so many heartfelt messages about how the game has touched their lives, have spent hours in the new updated game modes and with the serene four hour soundtrack. From wonderful reactions from critics, peers and fans alike, to multiple award nominations, including a huge win for Excellence in Audio at the IGF awards, and the Narrative prize in Die Gute Fabrik’s native Denmark, it’s been a monumental year for Mutazione. It has been a monumental year for Mutazione. Today, let’s take a look it. And maybe, just maybe, there will be a few details about what comes next.
Mutazione for the Fans
When any game releases, apprehension always follows. How will people like it? Will they find bugs we never saw? Will they bristle at certain characters or story developments? Will they understand the plot elements being teased just out of view? While that apprehension is certainly natural for creators releasing their beloved project out into the world, we were delighted to find the game almost universally well-received.
“Mutazione ranks amongst the best narrative games I’ve played. It’s rare to come across a game with such wonderfully crafted characters and I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of my time with this game,” one user writes in the most liked review of the game on Steam.
One of our Apple Arcade user writes: “This game is so soft 🥺 It made me feel so invested in the characters’ lives and I truly felt like I was growing with them. The connection between taking care of plants and people seems like a great way to teach people how to be patient, open minded, and willing to ask for help.”
Likewise, fan art swiftly filled our feeds, from beautiful, imaginative compositions to simple, elegant illustrations. We’ve collected every piece of fan art we’ve ever found in the Mutazione Fan Art Library on our Facebook, so check it out if you want to see what the community has to offer!
Award-winning Music and Sound
From the moment Mutazione released, there was one piece of feedback we heard more than any other. This music is amazing and I cannot wait for the soundtrack! In December of 2019, we released the Mutazione soundtrack to many different platforms, including for free on Youtube. Alessandro Coronas, the game’s composer, had been involved with the development of Mutazione for years, so when it came time to collate the game’s sweeping ambience onto one collection, he had four hours of music to offer! From suites for the in-game day’s different musical motifs, to the diegetic punk playing on Miu’s record player, if there’s music you love from Mutazione, find it on the soundtrack!
Then by March of 2020, it became clear that more than just the fans were applauding the soundtrack. At the Independent Games Festival, Mutazione would take home the Excellence in Audio Award, as well as nominations for the Seamus McNally Grand Prize, Excellence in Visual Art, and Excellence in Narrative awards – the most nominated game of the 2020 IGF.
Mutazione would also take home the awards for Best Narrative at Spilprisen 2020 and another Best Audio from the Nordic Game Awards. The number of other nominations, including the Tearjerker Award from The Dreamies at Dreamhack, Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Mobile Game at Dragoncon and Game of the Year from the Pocket Gamer Awards, are tremendously humbling for us. Being able to call it not just ‘Mutazione’, but ‘the award-winning Mutazione’ is quite an honor!
The Garden Mode Update
In January, Mutazione received its first (but not last) content update. Garden Mode brings a standalone alternative to the story-driven playthroughs, allowing players to build a garden of their own in the clouds; collecting and sharing seeds, and composing music as the garden thrives and grows around them.
As players learned to share seeds with one another, Garden Mode grew into the multiplayer experience Die Gute Fabrik had imagined for it. Fans started gifting seeds to one another across social media, hunting down rare plants, adding rare instruments to add to their orchestral arrangements of humming, thrumming flowers, ferns, and fungi.
What’s in Store
In fact, gardens have been very much on our minds lately as we look not to the year behind us, but instead to the year ahead!
Today, we’re delighted to announce The 7 Gardens! An update to Garden Mode that brings each of the gardens from Story Mode to the standalone Garden Mode! If you loved planting Harsh trees on the beach or Spooky sprouts in the swamp, then I’d highly recommend picking up that update today… For those who haven’t taken a trip to Mutazione yet, now is a better time than ever!
This is certainly not the end of Mutazione’s story, with more content to come, but we’re especially pleased to release the Seven Gardens, which has become an oft-requested feature. It’s been hard to not let on that it’s been planned for a while now! If you’re excited, feel free to follow Die Gute Fabrik on Twitter for more hints and updates in the Anniversary season, as well as join the Akupara Games Discord to brainstorm more ways to complete your seed collection!
Thank you so much for being part of this incredible journey!