If Wordle has you gazing letters this week, Unusual Horticulture could have you gazing flowers, leaves, thorns, and roots subsequent week. Within the puzzle sport from developer Unhealthy Viking, you’ve got inherited a spooky little plant store within the quaint little Victorian city of Undermere. As quirky and mysterious clients are available in asking to purchase vegetation you may must crack your tome of botany information, intently study the vegetation in your retailer, and determine precisely what your clients need based mostly on their descriptions.
I’ve performed the free demo of Strange Horticulture, and it is pleasant. You are basically a plant detective piecing collectively leafy clues. Your buyer may know the title of the plant they need, so it’s essential discover it in your ebook and match it with a plant in your shelf based mostly on only a few phrases of description and a sketch. Some clients could not know the title of the plant however could have just a few scraps of details about it, like that it has crimson flowers or that it is supposed to assist some particular affliction, so you may need to intently study your vegetation and web page by your ebook on the lookout for a match.
This largely mirrors my expertise of working in a bookstore the place clients would are available in with solely the vaguest concept of the ebook they’re on the lookout for. “I do know the quilt is blue,” they’d say. “Possibly the title has white lettering? And it is a few homicide in a small city.” After which off I would go, wracking my mind for one thing I may need seen months in the past whereas stocking the cabinets.
There’s additionally a roomy map to discover as you obtain clues to the situation of recent, undiscovered vegetation so as to add to your store, and as you serve clients and go to far-flung places each your assortment of vegetation and your tome of data will develop. And never everyone seems to be on the lookout for a plant that may assist their digestion or sharpen their imaginative and prescient. There is a darkish and harmful thriller unfolding whilst you play, and a few shadowy clients will try to pull you deeper into it.
The demo solely covers the primary couple days of working your store, and ever since I performed it I have been longing for extra. Unusual Horticulture releases on Steam on January 21.
