Ready Set Indie Games Plays/Reviews Garden Story (PC)

I remember playing Garden Story’s demo back during last year’s Spring Steam Game Festival and after a year the full game has become available. In fact, it was a really clever way that the game releasing was announced because to be fair I didn’t know the game was released until I watch the latest Indie World Direct from Nintendo. So imagine my excitement when not only the game was releasing, but we here at thedailygamepad.net were offered a free copy of the game to play on stream as well as review. So before I go into my review of this adorable game, I would like to take the time to thank the developer Picogram and the Publisher Rose City Games, for providing us here at thedailygamepad.net with a free copy of Garden Story to review and play on stream.

Garden Story is the story of Concord, a young greenling who seems to be the last greenling born in the village of Hamlet. Concord’s who lives in the Kindergarden outside of Hamlet has one job and that is to take care of the Vine that is supposed to produce more greenlings, but sadly after the Rot infested the grove that they live in it has been quite some time since the Vine has produced more greenlings, in fact, Concord is the last greenling to come from the Vine. However, because resources are becoming scarce in Hamlet, Plum the trusted Guardian of Hamlet has come to relieve Concord from their duty, as they can no longer afford to keep the Kindergarden funded. So Concord is removed from the Kindergarden and brought to The Bend and is appointed as the Guardian of The Bend, as Guardian Plum is being sent to another post. You then play as Concord the newly appointed Guardian of the Bend.

I really love how the game has turned out from the demo I played over a year ago. You can most definitely see the love and hard work that went into the game. The game art style is really adorable and is a game that makes you want to play more of it. Although, this is a cute and adorable game it gives off an adventure/exploration vibe, and the developers did a great job of making this an exploration adventure game. In the game, there is a Job Board that Concord must read with objectives that they must complete. One of the things, I would have liked is the ability to see the objectives that need to be completed. I’m not sure if this was due to it being the prologue but it doesn’t keep a running list of objectives. So maybe a journal of some sort would be nice to keep the list of objectives as I don’t have the best memory to remember the objectives.

When it comes to controls the game does use both a keyboard and mouse as well as a controller, and I really liked the controls for the game. I will admit I forgot how to use my healing, but again that was all on player error and not the fault of the controls. Another interesting in this game is that Concord gets passive or abilities from the memories they collect, and I really like that concept. Right now in the beginning, you can only equip one ability at a time, so I’m curious to see if that increases as the game goes on, although I like the idea of being able to equip only on ability. It gives the game a bit of a challenge. Not that the game isn’t challenging, because it can get a little challenging starting off because when you attack the Rot creatures – the enemies in the game- you have two hits before there is a cooldown. So be sure to use your attacks carefully, again not sure if this increases. It did look like you may be able to get better weapons for Concord but in the beginning, there’s only a two-hit limit.

Overall, I really enjoyed what I played of Garden Story and am looking forward to playing more of it in the future. If you would like to play Garden Story for yourself, you can get a copy of the game on PC or macOS on Steam as well as the Nintendo Switch for $19.99 USD.