Once I entered my shop, I immediately noticed it has seen better days, And i need to return it to its former glory. There were a few things on my mind about looking after this shop. Firstly there are no plants. How can you run a plant shop without any plants? And secondly I know nothing about plants, this is going to be a disaster. Luckily for me there was a book left for me, a glossary of plants. This book gives you snippets of information relating to the plants you have in the shop currently. There may not be many entries, and the book lacks depth but it is a start, that’s for sure.

The game itself feels like a hybrid between life simulation; taking on the role of running your shop, meeting locals and exploring the surroundings via a map. The second part involves puzzles, riddles, and trying to work out “what is that plant?”.

Your customers are a quirky and weird bunch of people. They will come into your shop complaining about  feeling sick, they can not sleep or a whole host of symptoms that they need help with. So as you take a glance over your book of plants, you will need to cross reference between the symptom or information the customer has given you and the book. The book contains a sketch of part of the plant, along with a minimal description that will maybe tell you, the colour or how the plant smells. This is when you put on your detective hat and try to work out the correct plant. You truly feel like you accomplished something when you get it correct.

When it comes to choosing which plant to give them, you might not have the plant that they need or the one you would like to give them. You have to go explore from your trusty map, the locations of new plants will be given to you in cryptic letters you need to solve, or a tarot card that has a riddle that you got from your dreams. To work out the locations, you might have to use a device and follow a certain path, or work out a hidden code. There is so much variety when it comes to these that they don’t feel repetitive and are a core aspect of the game.

Even though you will be traveling on your map, you never leave your shop. It’s played in this 2D aspect, and everything else will be done through dialogue. The game is very narrative heavy, and you get to love your shop. While it does start off pretty bare, it will soon be flowing with lots of different specimens of plants and fungi. It gives off this charm and homely feel throughout, with a more older era vibe and the rain dripping past on your screen, you feel nice snuggled up in your shop with your cat that you can pet in between customers.

Overall the game is outstanding both visually and gameplay, it keeps you entertained for hours and time will fly by. The difficulty curve felt nice with the progression and the ramp up speed was not too much. The puzzles do feel easy to begin with but later you will find yourself sorting your plants alphabetically or in my case tagged them also with function, this was actually key when you had to remember what they did. There are a few times I felt stumped but not in a bad way, as I never got frustrated. I just re-read the information and thought outside the box.