Botanicula is a 2D point-and-click adventure game about a group of five small tree creatures who set out to recover the last seed of their home tree that has been overrun by spider-like parasites. Just like previous games Amanita Design has been associated with, the player needs to guide the characters around and interact with objects and animals in the environment to solve puzzle and to progress.
Puzzles are always environment based and rely on different types of mouse movement (clicking, dragging, arranging items) to discover the effect. Many of the tasks are based around visual clues and sound effects. The mouse cursor changes when an item can be interacted with. There are also actions that are not mandatory to progress, but merely show a short animation. Most of the friends' journey takes place on the tree and other organic environments. They can move to different areas and there is often a map to keep track of the possible directions. Many creatures can be interacted with and these speak an unknown language. Clues are however provided through visual elements and speech balloons that show an object. When a certain number of items needs to be collected (five keys for instance), this can be tracked through an element near the top of the screen. For a limited amount of puzzles an object needs to be found and it is then stored in the inventory until it can be used.
Next to the main quests the friends meet different types of animals and these encounters are stored as creature cards that can be viewed in a separate menu. Certain characters also reveal more of the story through a short animated sequence. For certain puzzles it is possible to pick a specific character to use its particular strengths.
