Plantabi: Little Garden by Adrian Corpuz
Presented as a sandbox gameplay experience, Plantabi: Little Garden provides a mixed bag for its players. The relaxing lo-fi music complements the cutesy low-key environment. Inevitably, said space fills with an abundance of plants and decorations.
However, patience is a virtue, and colliding headfirst with boredom within the first hour might deter one from progressing toward a bountiful garden.
A Sandbox Garden
Sandbox games are meant to accentuate freedom of creativity alongside a stress-free environment. For the most part, Plantabi: Little Garden hits the nail on the head. Developed by Adrian Corpuz, Plantabi’s colorful pixelated visuals drew me into the world of gardening, despite my minimal knowledge of the subject.
Plantabi begins with a very brief and semi-fragmented tutorial. Pieces are missing that eventually come to light, but only through experimentation with clicking and dragging.
Eventually, an aloe plant and a snake plant occupied the plain blue screen that was my canvas.
Adding décor to your space doesn’t produce any supplemental value to your plants but rather delivers an opportunity to establish a cozy oasis. Small things, like adding a few windows and wallpaper, spruce up the atmosphere in a way that’s so simple yet inspires players to furnish the setting to their liking.
In retrospect, furniture is expensive and crowds a room. Why would I care to possess a giant bed when it’s utterly useless to my goal and takes up potential space for more plants?
How Does Your Garden Grow?
In the beginning, unlocking new plants and quirky knickknacks happens at a consistent pace by completing requests from clients. Participating in these assignments is the only way to make progress.
Your phone will buzz, generating a task to nurture a plant to a certain stage. Upon completion, you sell the plant and receive gold, décor, and possibly a new plant or an upgrade.
After time has lingered on and you’ve acquired a digital green thumb, the orders become very erratic. At one point, I was fostering a ton of aloe plants because that’s all that was being requested.
Orders also come in one at a time. Therefore, I also wasn’t unlocking anything worthwhile, and completing an assignment took forever.
At one point, I wound up acquiring a medley of plants I didn’t care about just in case it came up in a request. That way, the possibility of making some headway as an aspiring master gardener and unlocking things faster became plausible.
Watching the Grass Grow
The entirety of Plantabi is watering or fertilizing your garden of assorted greenery. As time passes, healthy plants passively add gold to your income. The more mature the plant, the more money you accrue.
Applying purchased upgrades to a plant, such as “unlimited water” or “longer nutrients time,” puts a unique spin on Plantabi. Unfortunately, though, these costly enrichments must be procured one at a time and applied to only one of your plants.
It’s easy to become uninterested in Plantabi, flipping between your rooms, simply waiting for a plant to need something from you. Clicking that fast-forward button for too long hinders your progress if you allow a plant to go without its nutrients for too long.
Fostering it back to health sometimes doesn’t even seem worth the effort.
The Verdict
Plantabi yields a lot of leisurely moments for its players, generating an experience that doesn’t require much effort. The colorful design accompanied by the sound of rain and tranquil music is enough to lull one to a mental state of restoration.
However, the cute fundamentals of Plantabi sometimes overshadow flaws that can be difficult to ignore.
Plantabi: Little Garden is available on Steam.
Watch the trailer for Plantabi: Little Garden below:
