The Awake meter refers to the sleepiness of a Sprout. If the Sprout gets sleepy, it won't be able to concentrate on working until it gets the proper amount of rest. For this, you'll need to build a Hut, which is the first item you'll build in the game. The Hut can hold up to three Sprouts, where they will sleep until their meters are full, after which they'll awaken and come out on their own.

Sometimes Sprouts get little light bulbs above their heads, and this means that they're coming up with ideas for new buildings. As mentioned, the Hut is the first building they'll invent. When a light bulb appears, clicking on it will show a place in the world where the potential building is to go, represented by a hammer icon. To create a building there, you must drop Sprouts onto the icon, and they'll begin building. You can drop as many Sprouts onto the building in progress as exist; they'll keep working until either you pull them off, or they get hungry, bored, or sleepy. If any of those last three happen, they'll wander off by themselves. Building takes a really long time, and putting more Sprouts on a building will cause it to develop faster. Later buildings include a Bridge for Sprouts to use to cross a river, making other areas of the world available to them, and upon which they can sit to fish; and a Schoolyard for education. There doesn't seem to be a way to determine yourself which buildings are to be built, but perhaps the full version of the game allows that; the demo doesn't.

An interesting mechanic comes in the form of spells that you can cast. In the lower left corner of the interface, there is a window of small icons -- two pictorial icons, and nine numerical. The two spells you are given at the start of the game are Sunlight and Rain. Right away, during the tutorial, you're told to use the Rain spell to drench the Flower Garden. Then you're to use the Sunlight spell on the Garden again, to make the flowers grow. Only when there are flowers in the Garden will Sprouts be able to eat there. When they're all gone, you have to drop a Sprout onto the Garden to hoe it, then cast the Rain and Sunlight spells again to make more flowers grow.

The numbers in the icons refer to the amount of Karma Points that you must accrue to buy each new spell. You gain Karma Points through fishing, schooling, and by Sprouts making offerings to you, as mentioned earlier. The point totals are accumulative; once you've made it to the 25 Points level, the Points count doesn't then start over again at zero. Eventually you will reach the 350 Points mark. The very next spell you'll acquire after Rain and Sunlight is the Sproutling Egg spell, which creates a baby Sprout. In this way, you can increase the population of your Sprout village.

Sprouts Adventure, while slow-paced and simple, is still enjoyable in its way. While it isn't a terribly challenging game, there is fun to be had in managing your Sprouts' needs against the longer-term projects you need to build to increase the level of their society. You can grab the demo right here on Big Download for both Mac and PC.