We are excited to announce the dev-blog series about our comfy gardening sim! Since this is our first post, we think it would be best to answer the question that most people who know us will surely have: why a gardening simulator all of a sudden? Aren’t we that Bus Simulator studio?
First – yes, we are indeed that Bus Simulator studio - but Garden Life is being created by a very different team. The game's producer, Kay, is very knowledgeable about flowers, gardening and many other cool plant related things, which is directly reflected in our core gameplay. She previously was a florist and a floral designer with several awards: Chelsea Flower Show Gold (2016) and Silver (2012) medals and Young Florist of the Year 2016. Cool, right? And, to be honest, we’ve always wanted to try creating something new and different. A garden sim looked like a perfect game to explore.
Why? Because there’s not a lot of gardening games out there. Too simple of a reasoning, maybe? Well, it’s the truth. And we want to try and “digitalize” gardening. Isn’t it super fun to see your plants and flowers grow, change overtime and finally, bloom? Real life gardening can be very messy and not everyone has the space for a garden. That's where Garden Life comes in!
The plant care system and plants themselves are based on their real world counterparts and gameplay will feel very close to a real garden. That’s the sim part. But we also made sure to make it feel very chill and relaxed; stress and pressure free. There’s no punishment for doing something “wrong”, there’s no sense of running out of time or resources. Garden Life is more about the peace and beauty that comes with your own garden, full of beautiful plants, flowers and decorations. That is exactly why we picked an anime – more exactly a Studio Ghibli – inspired art style: it’s very, very cozy. Just looking at it should evoke a feeling of calm serenity, a union with nature and all its beauties. You can play entirely at your own pace, grow your garden slowly and make it become a blooming plant paradise!
We’d love to jump deeper into mechanics but we are running out of time already. For the next blog, what would you like to know about first? The plant care system? Or maybe you’d like to see what kinda flowers and tools will be available in the game? Tell us in the comments!
And don’t forget to wishlist and follow Garden Life here, on Steam.
Have a wonderful day!
