{Review} Soil and Rubble

"Soil and Rubble" by Daniel Mullins

Test season has started at my school, covering the surfaces of my apartment in paper like an academic winter. Also, due to not keeping up with the reviews, I have lost any overview I once had as to who requested their review when. So I thought I might try a game that I thought looked interesting and like it would appeal to the brain-activity-challenged me currently inhabiting my body.
That game is "Soil and Rubble".

Story
You start with a small garden where the plums are ripe. My first reaction to the game was: "That plum looks like a bottom." My second reaction was: "What is that thing dropping in the backgrou... Oh."
The game wastes no time in setting up its scenario. The world as you know it has ended and all that stands between you and starvation are your plums. So you better keep them growing. Other than that, you get a few insights into your nightly thoughts that go ever crazier...
I won't spoil the ending but it seemed to come rather quickly in my opinion, leaving me wondering if it was something I said or did that caused it to say: "That's enough, run along now."
Was it because of my stats? Was it random? Was it supposed to end exactly there? If the latter is true, an option for long play might help. I don't think I would start it again to get more, but I definitely would have kept playing to enhance my Frankenstein pantry. What do I mean by that? Well...

Mechanics
You put down soil, put in a seed and water it. Then, sooner or later, the plant produces one or slightly more fruits. Repeat or die.
The game is nice enough to let you use every part of your butt-plum. You eat it to fight your ever growing hunger and you use the seed to grow a new one. The interesting moment came when the Geiger counter in the corner came to life and told me that radiation had changed my crops. Now my plum would fill me up even more but also increase the radiation I had in my body. That is where you decide.
Do you keep eating boring plums a bit at a time, keeping just ahead of starvation, like some kind of post-apocalyptic uber-fruitarian with "Death to Monsanto" embroidered on your poncho?
Or do you embrace the brave new world of skull-faced plums and accept that radiation may melt your brain but feels so good in your belly?
I went down the latter path, though I couldn't bring myself to actually eat the fruit that looked like the actual symbol of death. But I felt like I had some pretty neat varieties in my arsenal, which is what made the aforementioned ending a bit more frustrating.
Speaking of frustrating, I would have showered anyone with plums of their choice and covered them in seeds (that came out wrong...), if they had brought me a single flyswatter. Your plums taste good to you but also to mutated dragonflies. Or maybe it was always the same one that came and ate my crops. I don't know for sure. But the smug look on its face suggested it. If you're fast enough, you can eat the plums before it does, but nevertheless this creature became something like my character's white whale.

Presentation
More or less the only thing you see is your garden. It and the plants you grow look handdrawn and fittingly drab. Apocalypse just ain't pretty... Sound and music seemed unremarkable to me, with the exception of the intro, which used them very effectively.
One thing that I'm not sure about is the writing. Its prose seemed a little purple for my taste, with "the fingers of radiation carressing your plums". Oh my...

On the whole...
Is it a big game? No. Would it benefit from being a bigger game? Probably. Is it an interesting game? Yes. Do I overuse this rhetorical question gimmick? Absolutely. Was it the nice little gaming snack I hoped for when I fired it up? Pretty much.
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Link: http://contest.gamedevfort.com/submission/312#.Vfw_z9_tlBc

Dev: Daniel Mullins

Time Played: 10 minutes

Got My Vote? Yes, because it has an interesting concept at its core and because the skull-shaped plum told me so in my dreams.