Time to get your hands dirty
with this assortment of plantastic games!
I can’t keep an irl plant alive even if my life depended on it - but I absolutely love doing so in games! I enjoy learning about all the different types of plants, love decorating my bases/houses with them, and adore seeing them in all these different kinds of gorgeous plant pots.
This week, I present to you… five plantastic games that hopefully won’t die!
Leafy Corner
I played the Leafy Corner demo, and I am definitely buying this later!
This game combines the “take care of plants” hook with “run a shop”, effectively maxing out on cosiness. The premise is simple: buy a pot, put it on a shelf, put a plant in it, water the plant, sell the plant, buy more plants.
The demo is limited, but the loop is solid. Simple, cosy, adorable, and with tons of promise in terms of what kind of plants and decorations they might add in the full version.
Plant Therapy
I’ve already reviewed Plant Therapy in this post before, but it bears repeating.
The premise is simple: you get an apartment and a plant that drops coins when you take good care of it. Water it, fertilise it, collect the coins, buy more plants, rinse, repeat. Fill the apartments with tons of gorgeous decorations and just chill with your plants.
This game is genuinely a gem. It’s as therapeutic as the name implies. I keep going back to it whenever I’m in need of the gaming equivalent of a blanket.
Urban Jungle
Urban Jungle is at its core a puzzle game disguised as a cosy plant game.
It’s reminiscent of Unpacking in terms of telling a story through moving from house to house, unpacking the stuff you bring with you on this new adventure, but with the addition of having to put down a certain amount of plants in spaces that make sense, taking into account the light, hydration and company these plants need. While keeping the room cute and cosy, of course.
It’s clever storytelling and great worldbuilding alongside challenging yet unpunishing puzzles. The ideal pastime for a brain in need of relaxation.
Strange Horticulture
Oof, this game. Strange Horticulture ticks so many boxes.
Gorgeous plants, mysterious storyline, occult atmosphere, iconic art style, adorable familiar and you get to write your own labels?!
This is one of those games that catches you by surprise. A bit of a slow start, don’t really know what’s going on, and before you know it, you’ve spent 5 hours and finished the story. It’s technically a puzzle game, but the puzzles don’t feel like individual puzzles, they’re just part of a mystery you’re unraveling. And I love that it encourages completionism, in a way that doesn’t feel forced, you’re just naturally driven to it because there is still room on the shelf and I need that plant.
I played this four years ago and it still lives rent-free in my heart and mind. There’s a sequel-that-isn’t-really-a-sequel, Strange Antiquities, which is similar but with trinkets instead of plants - but that’s for a different post.
Botany Manor
In Botany Manor, you step into the role of Arabella Greene, a botanist putting together a herbarium of forgotten flora found around the world.
Find out which conditions your seedlings need to grow into thriving plants through immersive clues and storytelling, and explore the gorgeous handcrafted manor and its surrounding grounds.
