

In reality, of course, communal gardening and farming is much more complicated and requires greater capacity and commitment than simply casting a spell. In that game, you cast spells to plant trees which then sprout fruit for the community kitchen. My favourite growth mechanic, though, comes from A Bewitching Revolution, which Melissa introduced me to recently. I’ll probably never be able to grow a real-life tomato, and I can’t spend hours weeding, but my Sims can! But that garden needed tending, dammit! As working-class city folk who only recently gained access to gardening-and as a disabled person who’s limited in the ways I’m able to garden-I appreciate the sense of reward and ambition provided by games like The Sims. Zainabb Hull: In my old The Sims 3 save, I got married to the handyman and then turned him into a full-time gardener, and to this day, I feel really bad for him because he ended up feeling lonely and overworked all the time.
Garden story game succulents how to#
I also appreciate how every Bethesda game encourages curiosity in identifying and harvesting plant life, which honed my interest in foraging long before I began learning how to do so safely in my urban environment. In games: I appreciate the realism/surrealism balance of The Sims 4, in which I find gardening so time-consuming it’s usually the responsibility of a full-time stay-at-home Sim, but which rewards you for maxing out that skill by allowing you to grow some truly bizarre and game-breaking plants. You can earn rewards from it while you level up your skill but there is always. Mainly what I have learned is what a constant, never-ending labor gardening is! It’s a daily quest. Sara Davis: I also am learning to be a better gardener-although, in my densely populated, concrete-and-asphalt neighborhood, that exercise is limited to volunteering in parks and tending to a few sun-blasted patio containers. It may not be the same as eating raspberries off the vine, but the delayed gratification of it, especially because you may not know what you’re doing when you plant it, has always tickled me.

That said, I do want to say that even though I’ve never played it all the way through (do not come for me), Legend of Zelda : Ocarina of Time having places where you plant magic beans that don’t benefit you until later/until you travel through time has absolutely fascinated me since I read a walkthrough of the game in Nintendo Power magazine. Lots of games let you cultivate plants and turn them into other things, but I don’t know that a game has really captured the rewards of gardening. Few games really capture the feeling of gardening to me-it’s hard to replicate the surprise when a plant you thought had died comes back the next year (shoutout to my peonies!) or the first time you taste a homegrown tomato and your opinion of an entire food changes. I have more space, and fewer plants drown in our lovely but persistent PNW rains. Melissa Brinks: In the six years (woof) since we last did a roundtable on gardening in games, I’ve become a better gardener. So let’s not limit ourselves to what it means to garden in a game-let’s think about planting and growth in all their forms! What’s your favorite gardening or growth mechanic in a game? What makes it so special? So, naturally, this month we’re talking about gardening and growth in games, and maybe interpreting that a little loosely because why not? Why be beholden to a single definition of a word? May is also the month of May Day, encompassing both the Pagan celebration of the beginning of summer and International Labor Day, which brings attention to labor rights, worker exploitation, and the various and extensive problems with capitalism the world over. As the common adage goes, April showers bring May flowers.
