Strange Horticulture (2022)

This was a very enjoyable game. I was surprised by it since I expected more of a standard simulator type game, but it was actually more of a puzzle game.

You spend most of it identifying plants for customers and solving logical clues from notes and clues you get to find places on a map of the area to find more plants and plant information.

It was quite cozy, and I love the design and lore given of the plants. Also there's a cat always there in your shop. Additionally, the story was surprisingly Lovecraftian/Cosmic Horror adjacent, which was unexpected and welcome. This type of games lends well to cosmic horror (cosy cosmic horror??).

Roll Credits?: No

Surprised/Let Down/As Expected: Let Down

Favorite Mechanic or Narrative Moment: Exploring the map and solving the little meta puzzles given to you by mail or other means was pretty fun. It was a relatively unique way of telling a story. We also enjoyed that you would end up with a little collection of labeled flowers.

Least Favorite Thing: Controls were pretty poor with a controller. Apart from that, from the way people discussed the game, I was expecting it to do more with the identification mechanics. Maybe it gets more interesting at a later point, but it felt that we got rather far in the game and every day still felt about the same as the last just with a different little meta puzzle. The story being a little esoteric and told secondhand through everyone visiting you didn't do a great job of getting you invested either, so that part didn't help drive us to continue on.

If you are looking for a game that combines horticulture and occult themes, you might want to check out Strange Horticulture. It is a deductive puzzle game where you run a small plant shop and have to identify plants for your customers using a botanical guide and your logic skills. Along the way, you also get involved in a story about secret cults and a mysterious creature that they are trying to summon or stop.

I played Strange Horticulture and I enjoyed the deductive puzzles, which are the main gameplay element. They are not very hard, but they are satisfying and make you feel smart when you solve them. The game gives you clues about the plants' characteristics, such as their color, shape, size, smell, and so on, and you have to use the guide to narrow down the possibilities and find the right plant. Sometimes, you are given a choice of what plant to provide someone, to either help or hinder them.

The game also has a story that unfolds as you progress through the levels. You learn more about some mysterious happenings and the strange creatures that have spotted around town. The story is not very deep or original, but it adds some flavor and variety to the game.

The graphics and sound of the game are decent, but not very impressive. The game has a simple and minimalist style, which suits the theme of the game. The plants are well designed and distinct, but the characters are somewhat bland and there is very little animation. The music and sound effects are also adequate, but not very memorable.

One thing that I did not like about the game was the punishment system. If you make a wrong guess or take too long to find a plant, you lose time and have to wait (or do menial actions to speed the wait). This can be frustrating and annoying, especially if you are close to figuring something out or if you make a mistake by accident. I think the game could have been more forgiving or creative with its penalties.

I also feel that the game should have automatically tagged plants that you have identified; it was tedious to manually tag everything even if I definitively identified it (and the game acknowledged that I definitively identified it)

Overall, I think Strange Horticulture is a fun game for logic puzzle fans, but it is not very remarkable or innovative. It has an interesting premise and a decent execution, but it does not offer much challenge or surprise. If we acknowledge the existence of "airplane books", which will be fine for genre fans but nothing special, for reading on an airplane, I'd say that this would be an "airplane game" for the same reason.

• Year played: 2023
• Platform: PC
• Playtime: 6 hours
• Completion level: finished main story, all plants identified
• Overall rating: 8 / 10

Really liked this one. The core gameplay loop involves serving customers who come into your botanical shop, which you do by traveling to different locations to collect plants or new pages for your plant identification book, and then working with the book to figure out what plant you have and what kinds of ailments it can treat.

Often you're faced with a choice between multiple plants which can solve the problem in different ways - you can either help or hurt depending on what you pick. There's an overarching story to uncover as you go as well, which you mostly complete by solving a chain of cryptic clues and hints.

I think my only complaint would be that the UI got a little clunky at some point, since you end up with a lot of plants that need to be manually organized on your shelves, and it's easy to lose track of where you put them. The auto-labeling feature helps, but you'll be doing a lot of manual labeling too, which makes a keyboard a must-have for playing this game.

I would have 100% completed this one, if not for some of the achievements requiring a second or third playthrough to get them all, so overall this is a recommend from me.

Had a good time with this!

Took me about 4 hours across a couple of very late nights. There are two other endings to get, but I'm likely not gonna bother with those right away.

Really liked the atmospheric music and sounds. The story was pretty interesting, and presented to you in snippets as your customers come to you for various plants.

As a kid, I read this book about a postman that had all of these letters that you could pull out of envelopes and read. I really loved that interactive aspect of the book, which has carried into adulthood. This really scratched that itch for something point-and-click with lots of little gadgets and envelopes and letters to go through. The interface is well-designed and you can organize all of your clues, letters, notes, etc. easily as you work through each day.

Glad I finally picked this up.

I absolutely adore this game. Not only is it a total vibe, but the gameplay is excellent. I feel that the puzzles were well thought-out.

Cozy: You can argue against that because you can only enter the wrong answer a certain number of times, but you have unlimited time to think about your answers and feel positive about it. It's also not crazy difficult, so it balances out and you can take your time with it.

Spooky: This is not a sweet little game. There are some heavy themes in there, and it gets dark, especially depending on the choices you make.

Mentally stimulating: The puzzles and story development are great, just enough to keep you on your toes. There are also a few different endings. I think after a while I will go back to the game and give it another go, see what different decisions will lead me two.

I was able to finish the main storyline in one evening, about 6 hours. After that, you can complete the entire collection of plants, even once the main storyline is done.

I played this on the computer, and that's how I would recommend it, unless you have the patience to use your controller as a "mouse" and however input you have to type names it, etc... (the labeling system is excellent).

Overall, loved this game and strongly recommend!

To summarise the gist of it: it's a point & click, casual type of game with a slightly eerie atmosphere, an interesting story that doesn't overwhelm you with huge boxes of text to read through, good pacing and intuitive gameplay with puzzles that you don't have to struggle to figure out. For the most part, you solve puzzles that allow you to travel to different locations on the map in order to acquire plants and their descriptions so you can identify them and distribute them to your customers. The gameplay is engaging and fun without being tedious and repetitive because there's a larger story told through your work of identifying the plants. The puzzles require some thought but not a lot which suits me just fine for a casual game. It's very intuitive and I hardly got stuck at all (a bit in the beginning while I was figuring out the system which I don't blame the game for) but when I did, the hints were helpful without being too revealing so I still got satisfaction from solving the problem.

Bonus: You can click on the cat and it purrs (it's pure ASMR) and it often rains and there's lightning and thunder effects which pleased my inner thunderstorm stan.

The biggest flaw of this game is that it's too short. It does have multiple endings but I think I got the best one and I'm not really the type to ever want to get a bad ending, achievements be damned! Although for this game, I might!