Strange Horticulture casts the player as a plant shop owner who fulfills customer requests by identifying specific plants based on appearance, smell, or desired effect. Customer interactions form a methodical loop of examination, note comparison, and occasional quick minigames when mistakes occur. The gameplay balances cozy shopkeeping with darker elements, including encounters with a mysterious cult and the ability to poison patrons. Released in 2022 to strong reviews, the game became free on the Epic Games Store for a limited time, offering players an atmospheric mystery-driven puzzle experience grounded in careful observation and deduction.
One strange thing that happens when you work retail or service industry jobs is that people start to imagine you're borderline psychic. They want you to get them what they had last time, or that thing with the coffee and flavoring they can't quite remember, or the book with the blue cover, you know the one. It turns your day into the world's worst puzzle game, but one actual puzzle game makes that strange quirk of customer psychology into a satisfying mystery to solve.
In Strange Horticulture, you play as the owner of a plant shop fulfilling customer requests by figuring out exactly what kind of plan suits their needs. That might make it sound like a cute and cozy life sim, until your work starts putting you in contact with a mysterious cult in the woods and you find out that you can just as easily poison your patrons as help them out.
The game quickly establishes a familiar loop: a customer comes in with some notion of what they want, typically only knowing what the plant they need looks or smells like, or what effect they want to get from it. Then it's up to you to use your shop's tools and knowledge you gain as you play to make the right selection.
Collection
[
|
...
]