Gardening Games

As if gardening isn’t enough fun there are actually people out there that have made computer games for us to play too!  I’ve been playing a couple that I thought you might be interested in trying yourself. You can download them to your desktop or laptop, I have them on my iPad, and they have Smartphone versions too. These review are my own opinion and do not reflect the views or policies of the UC System or Master Gardeners (even if I am an Aggie).

The first one and my personal favorite is called Gardenscapes.  It’s put out by a company called Playrix. It is a no pressure game (unless you set it to timed mode).  The story goes that you’ve inherited a mansion from your late uncle and want to rejuvenate the gardens to their once former glory.  In order to do so, you must find things within the house to sell and earn enough money to upgrade the garden. You are given choices of what to buy, and there is pressure from the garden club to update it in order to become a member.  The musical score in the garden is peaceful and relaxing and the butler that comes with the property keeps you on track. I opted to upgrade to the paid version for this one.

The second one is called GardenDash. Made by the same folks, Playfirst, that makes the now infamous DinerDash.  This one is a lot of fun, but make sure you’ve had your dose of caffeine for the day!  In this one, you play “Barbara” who has been told she needs to take a vacation and de-stress. To make a long story short, Barb begins a business and you have to plant the plants, water, prune, harvest and fill the customer’s orders.  You earn money selling your produce and can buy things to fix up your garden or things to help Barbara get things done more effectively. I’ve only been playing the free version, but I have plans to shell out the 1.99 for the full version.

The last one I’ve been working at conquering is Garden Panic! This one you are in charge of a patch of strawberries and Sgt. Strawberry walks you through how to defend it by planting cornstalks that shoot kernels and tomatoes that through grenades. There are various attackers. Grubs, ants and caterpillars come at a regular rate and the more you shoot the more sun ray energy you get to power you up. The graphics on this one are really nice, but the print that you have to read to get the instructions is small and I wasn’t able to enlarge it on my iPad. It’s also a bit difficult to figure out, and even though you get more lives at the push of a button it’s probably not one I’ll be upgrading to the paid version.

So gardeners, treat yourself. Try one or try them all. It’s just fun to find out that gardening has hit the gaming world. Just look out for those bugs and worms.