Strange Horticulture review: A game about running a plant shop

These plants are Strange Horticulture do all sorts of things: There’s one that can open anything that’s locked. Some can be strong, comforting, and even a threat to someone’s life. Fox Button — scientific name Canimum vulpes — is a plant that symbolizes friendship, its fluffy flowers supported by a stem with pairs of shiny leaves. Harlequin Blue, on the other hand, is often used as incense — incense that screams as it burns.

This small shop is hidden away among the streets of Undermere. It houses a variety of plants, as well as many other items, and it’s tucked away by a mysterious, rainy lakeside town. You can also find In Strange Horticulture, I play as a person who’s just inherited the titular plant shop after a family member’s death. In this way, it’s a life simulation, figuring out life as a new shopkeeper, learning about plants and the community as each day passes.

However Strange Horticulture There’s more to it: An intriguing, occult tale that revolves around plants that you sell. Also, clever puzzles that include everything from solving riddles, reading maps, and identifying plants.

Image: Bad Vikings/Iceberg Interactive

Strange HorticultureEach new customer enters the shop and things begin to unravel slowly. A bell rings and a patron approaches the counter. Hellebore, the black cat, greets them. Not all patrons are looking for plants; there’s one character who simply delivers mail, for instance. But when a customer has a request — say, for St. John’s Poppy, which will improve their hearing — I’ve got to identify that specific plant on my shelves by flipping through my reference book. I will often ask the customer for the name of the specific plant. If they do, then I’ll flip the page and see the exact image. Once that is done, I choose the right plant. Elsewhere, customers only know the affliction they’d like to fix, so I rummage through the pages to find a plant that’ll cure the malady.

This is how it works: researching plants and putting them under the microscope to get a better view. If I’ve identified the correct plant, the customer moves along. If not, I add to a meter called “A Rising Dread,” which forces me to complete a puzzle before returning to my botanical pursuits. There are labels in three colors that players can use to keep track of plant names, or use some entirely different method of organization, but it’s not required. In my case, the plant shop was an unorganized mess. Although I only labeled two plants, it helped me organize them in a way that made sense. The active sense of organization and the tactile feel of research and plant care can shift with each individual player; the way that I’ve played feels like “correct,” but recent livestreams and YouTube videos suggest otherwise.

Apart from selling plants, I am also a plant shopper. This is why the map helps me. Following clues in letters and information from customers, I discover squares of the map. Some clues require mysterious tools to solve, found in the stuff that’s laying around my desk whose contextual meaning I haven’t yet discovered.

John Donkin is half of Bad Viking. He co-founded the company with his brother Ron Donkin. Strange HorticultureIt has a feeling of a game board. John pointed out Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective Gloomhaven As inspirations.

Image: Bad Vikings/Iceberg Interactive

“It came from legacy games [like Gloomhaven], where you open the box and there’s a lot of little boxes inside the box,” John said. “But you’re not allowed to open the little boxes, so you’re like, ‘What do they do?’ ‘What does this envelope do?’”

It’s that sense of mystery that kept me hooked through my playthrough. These questions inspired me to explore the various tools and go to unexplored places on the map. It made me question certain decisions, like whether I should side with a coven of witches or a cult, or if I should cure an asshole customer’s itchy rash, or make it worse. Strange HorticultureIt isn’t open-ended. However, small decisions such as these can impact the story and lead to different branches.

Image: Bad Vikings/Iceberg Interactive

The gameplay is generally consistent through the entire duration of Strange HorticultureIt took me about five hours to finish. When it does change, it changes gradually — like when you unlock a laboratory to brew elixirs from different plants. After the ending of the story, Strange Horticulture still kept me coming back: new clues opened up the map, and new mechanics kept things fresh in the “late game.”. It was all despite constant iteration.

Strange HorticultureThis is an appropriately strange game. It has simple premises which balance intrigue and sense of place with puzzles in a pleasing, tactile manner. It’s so easy to become engrossed in this world, to become obsessed with the litany of beautiful, exotic, and sometimes dangerous plants that line the walls of my shop. And it’s already one of my favorite games this year.

Strange HorticultureWindows PC was available Jan. 28, 2008. Iceberg Interactive provided a code for the download of the game. Vox Media also has affiliate relationships. Although these partnerships do not impact editorial content, Vox Media could earn commissions on products sold via affiliate links. Here are some links to help you find. additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy here.