Release Date: April 9, 2024
Systems: Windows, Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series S/X, Xbox One, & PlayStation 4/5
Publisher: Balloon Studios
Developer: Whitethorn Games
Time Spent: 112 Minutes
Botany Manor is a cozy little fantastical puzzle-laden gardening sim that I ended up taking a little too seriously, meaning that I once again over-thought a few puzzles and was fully expecting something creepy to come crawling out of a flower pot. But no. Botany Manor is simply just a first-person perspective game where you solve plant-based puzzles in late 19th century England in a typical point-and-click fashion. The puzzles are not overly difficult if you take them on one at a time, and are well crafted in a way that makes complete sense within the world building just within the demo. There are also hints of a mystery through friendly albeit semi-cryptic letters and newspaper clippings uncovered throughout the stage while you search for hints on how to solve your area-progressing puzzle.
The game/demo starts you off in a greenhouse made up of a couple of rooms that function as a tutorial for the game's mechanics and the basis for the overarching story that is only hinted at during the duration of the demo. Here you have a journal where you keep information about the story as well as information you uncover about specific plants that includes a clues-board that helps you solve the puzzle that lets you further explore the manor grounds and later the manor itself. The puzzle themselves consists of finding a flower pot, filling it with dirt, finding the specific seeds to plant (I believe that only one seed per area is available at a time), and then solving a series of informational puzzles to determine what it takes to make that specific plant grow. And this is where most of the fantastical elements come into play.
During the demo, you only end up growing two separate flowers although the second flower requires a lot more steps to go through, it is still equally satisfying when you manage to get the flower to bloom. Because this is a video game about gardening, a few real-world steps had to be slimmed down to make the game playable. So after you plant and water a seed, the plant immediately sprouts. Then, depending on the flower, your next step is to find a suitable location for the sprout followed by an additional step that allows the sprout to bloom into a flower. On top of the rapid growth rate of the flowers, the flowers are also fictionally based with names that wouldn't be out of place in a slightly less punny Plants vs. Zombies game. The Windmill Wort has petals reminiscent of a windmill that can purify the air of toxins within seconds, and the Fulguria with lightning bolt-shaped petals.
The demo for Botany Manor ended after only completing two flower-based puzzles although another puzzle was hinted at by a blocked door. I don't know if elements of the second puzzle would be used again for the third or future puzzles, but I wouldn't be surprised if this wound up being the case. What I really enjoyed about Botany Manor was that the puzzles were reminiscent of those that you might find in Resident Evil or an Amnesia game but without the tension of worrying about what was lurking around the next corner. The puzzles were logical and satisfying; sometimes I just want to play a stressless game. A cozy game if you will.
And that's why this genre exists.
~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
No More Footprints In The Sand
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