Warm-hearted Garden Life – A Cozy Simulation is a peaceful, gardening focused game, with relaxed mindfulness vibe to it. In game, there is no hurry and you can do things in your own pace, without any restricting time limits. The first feel of The Garden Life is very peaceful and relaxed atmosphere and it feels exactly what the name implies: a cozy simulation.
Game starts when you arrive in a small remote town and decide to take care of a small community garden. The time has ran its course and the garden looks like it has seen better days. You roll up your sleeves and start working to repair the garden for you and the community.
The game offers two game modes: story mode and creative mode.
In story mode, the community members give you tasks, which upon completion give you new tools, seeds, decorations and new areas for the garden. You will also learn more about the community and its members.
Respectively, creative mode gives you all the tools and seed, along with the areas, so you can start creating the garden of your dreams right away.
Let it grow, let it grow~
Growth of the plants is implemented individually, meaning they will grow differently; some of them prefer shade, some direct sunlight and some adapt to the surroundings by climbing near by objects.
Placing flowers is not tied to a predetermined grid either, allowing you to place flowers where ever you want.
Game uses real gardening methods which are made to fit everyone. For example, it is good idea to leave enough space around seeds, depending on how large the flowers will grow. You can also make the grow better by fertilizing , by watering and by removing the weeds. Bug infestations are dealt with bug spray of course.
The flowers will sometimes produce seed, that open new color variations of the said flower, hence bringing more color to your garden. All flowers also blossom regardless of the season so your garden will always look pretty.
You can make money by selling thee flowers and flower arrangements, and then use your funds to buy new seeds and decorations for your garden. You can also donate your flowers to decorate the town pavilion which gives you chance to win rewards.
Smooth sailing
After a short practice, the controls fell natural and are remembered easily.
Character moves faster, the more you press the stick to a direction, so small movements and precision planting is easily doable. The game also shows the button prompts on screen depending on what you are trying to do.
You could say not having the option to auto-arrange inventory is a minus, especially when you get tens of different seeds and flowers. Considering the nature of the game, however, I don’t think there is need for such.
Game is graphically calm and stylish: flowers and decorations fit nicely in the colorful garden, which makes the garden pleasant to look at. Animations fit in the game naturally.
The portraits of characters and nice and personalized, and the voice acting adds to the personalities.
The music is calming and chill.
All in all the game is very pleasant to play: there is no hurry, no time limited tasks. That means you can create things on your own pace.
Garden Life – A Cozy Simulation is a great game for those who enjoy gardening simulation, as well as to those who want to create without extra hurry. The game is currently going for about 25€ on Steam and gives content for at least that much.
The game does what it implies in its name, being a cozy simulation.
Also, you can pet the cat.
Fox Score: 8.6/10
Pros:
- Atmosphere
- Colors
- Audio
- You can pet the cat.
Cons:
- No inventory auto-sorting
