In a world where parties don't happen without piñatas and the candy-filled creatures need to be cultivated or captured rather than constructed, skilled gardeners who have a penchant for papier-mâché wildlife are in great demand. In Rare's Viva Piñata, you have the opportunity to become such a gardener. Although the game is very open-ended and looks like something that only young players would enjoy, its colorful exterior belies a carefully structured and occasionally challenging experience that provides plenty of depth. Yes, Viva Piñata is primarily aimed at the same audience that might enjoy the animated TV show of the same name. However, like hitting things with sticks or eating candy, you're not too old for its appeal just because you can get into PG-13 movies, drive a car, or claim a pension.

The land you're given at the start of the game really doesn't look like much.

Your life on Piñata Island begins on a small patch of land that used to belong to a legendary gardener named Jardiniero. It's been neglected for some time, though, and looks more like the beginnings of a desert landfill than a garden that any self-respecting piñata would want to call home. When you arrive, a tearful girl named Leafos, who spends her days lamenting the state of the garden, will guide you through all of the game's basic controls and gameplay mechanics. By the time you're done talking to her, you'll be armed with a shovel, a watering can, and a packet of grass seeds with which to get started on your piñata paradise. The game doesn’t present you with many specific tasks at any point, your goal is simply to create and maintain a garden that increasingly demanding piñatas will want to make their home. This degree of open-endedness can actually feel a little daunting at first, but you’ll quickly realize that your progression through the game is more structured than it first appears.

Depending on your profile settings, Viva Piñata's controls will default to either a basic or an advanced scheme. Neither setup is complicated, but the basic option should be a welcome addition for anyone who isn't entirely comfortable with the idea of using both analog sticks simultaneously or with using the triggers in addition to the face buttons. The functions performed by the four face buttons are context-sensitive and displayed in the top right corner of the screen at all times, which goes a long way toward making the game accessible for family members who perhaps aren't as familiar with the Xbox 360 controller as you. The numerous menu screens in the game are also very user-friendly, with each option appearing as a petal on a flower.

Within moments of getting started in your garden, you'll begin to attract the attention of wild piñatas. Each of the 70 or so different species in the game has different criteria that you or your garden will need to meet before they'll appear. Once you've sighted a piñata, you'll have to meet further criteria before they'll visit, move into, and ultimately, procreate in your garden. In the early stages of the game, it can seem as if almost everything you do has a positive effect on the local wildlife. But as you level up and gain access to more abilities, more seeds, and better tools, the demands of the wildlife that you'll be trying to get into your garden increase proportionately. For example, you might attract a new low-level piñata simply by growing a vegetable or a certain kind of flower. But to even catch a glimpse of some of the larger, more-impressive species, you'll need to dedicate large portions of your garden to their needs. In some cases, you’ll even need to ensure that they have plenty of smaller piñatas to feed on. Still more challenging are the evil, sour piñatas that will be attracted to your garden from time to time. These instantly recognizable red-and-black creatures that invariably have very sharp teeth, do nothing but cause trouble until you figure out a way to keep them out or tame them.

Viva Piñata's learning curve is near-perfect. It does a great job of giving you new abilities over time. It also prevents you from progressing to a point that you and your garden just aren't ready for, which is based on the way that you level up in the game. You'll earn experience points (read: blue flower petals) toward your next level each time you attract or breed a new species of piñata or successfully grow a new kind of plant. There are other, less obvious ways to level up as well. For example, you may discover different color variants of piñata that you already have in your garden by instructing them to eat or otherwise interact with different things. The majority of the piñatas have three different color variants for you to discover, and some will even evolve into entirely different species after eating certain items.

Figuring out the correct fertilizers to use on different plants becomes more important as you progress.

While you're experimenting with telling your piñatas to eat different things, you'll also want to try out different colored fertilizers on any seedlings that you plant. Early on, you won't need to concern yourself with the art of fertilizing plants. But when space is at a premium later on (there's a limit on how many items--including piñatas and helpers--you can have in your garden), the skilled horticulturalists among you will find that growing one tree capable of bearing 24 fruit is far more efficient than planting two trees capable of only bearing 12 fruit each. Even small, seemingly insignificant plants, such as daisies and buttercups, can be fertilized to produce multiple flowers. Unless you figure out how to make your own fertilizers, you can count on regular trips to the gardening store.

As you progress, you'll unlock a number of different store owners and other useful characters. You'll be interacting with most of these characters quite frequently. Their services don't come cheap, but the game's chocolate coin currency should rarely be a cause for concern because every item and piñata in your garden can be sold quickly and easily if needed. Furthermore, certain species of piñata are capable of producing goods for you, including honey, milk, and wool. With the correct accessories from the pet store on the piñatas in question, it's possible to automate these production processes. You'll still need to hire a helper to gather the finished produce, though, if you don't want to bother with collecting and selling all of the items manually.