Wildlife Games – CtrlAltNoob

Horticular

Developer: inDirection Games

Release Date: Coming Soon

You have been magically summoned by mysterious gnomes to restore a long-lost garden. Attract adorable animals, build a lush environment, and immerse yourself in this relaxing garden-builder. Will you manage to reclaim the wasteland or succumb to a looming corruption?

Horticular feels like a mixture of two genres that I individually want to love, but together may be a winning recipe. The two genres that I refer to are cute sandbox builders, and zoo management games. While neither of those things are entirely what this game is about, it takes – in my opinion – the best part of both and merges them together in an ultimate, zen experience. But the kind zen that requires some planning and thought… but not too much!

In Horticular, we are recruited by a council of gnomes to restore a wasteland, reviving the ecosystem and attracting more wildlife into our custom made, picturesque environments. There is an impressive amount of beautifully crafted pixel flowers, terrains, items, decorations and so on, allowing for maximum creativity. Of course they aren’t all available to you from the start. The more that you restore, the more money you can make to continue restoring and unlock new options.

All of these items impact the environment in different ways, mostly being the deciding factor of whether an area is habitable for certain creatures. The more creatures you attract, the more you will learn about their needs, which helps you to invite more creatures. The more creatures you have the more resources you will gain, and the more pride you can have that your environment is thriving. It is a cycle of absolute pleasantness to the highest degree.

Even from the demo I feel like this is a game that I have been looking and hoping for for a long time. The developers are doing an outstanding job and I wish them every success. I hope this game can get the attention that it deserves.

Demo Length – I played for 2 hours and got the impression there was quite a while to go.

At a glance
+ Beautiful.
+ Peaceful.
+ Loads of options to make your garden your own.
+ Ground types only cost time which allows you to be creative.
+ It is exciting when a new animal arrives.
+ I enjoy the gnome theming.
+/- It has management game elements without going really far in that direction. Perfect for people like me who fall off those games when it starts getting too complicated. Maybe not so if you are looking for something extremely complex.
+/- I am not sure how keen I am on the corrupted gnome attacks. Difficulty options make this a none issue though, and I can’t judge it this early as there is an entire progression route to it.
– I had trouble seeing nectar that had been dropped.