Garden Sim

A cozy gardening game that was made by a gardener

Demo is now live — an early look at one map and the overall direction of the game. The demo is pay what you want, and your support helps fund development and future art updates.

Demo features

  • 4 starter plants and 4 secret plants to find
  • fast-travel
  • beekeeping
  • NPC helpers
live now
Garden Sim hero artwork with a cozy pixel-art garden scene

Current art is AI-generated. Your support helps me hire artists for future updates.

Play the demo

About the Game

Garden Sim is an indie garden simulator that I am building solo. I started this project from my love for growing things, and I want each patch of land to feel welcoming and alive with flowers as much as food.

That's why growing flowers in Garden Sim gives the garden a real boost. Just like in the real world — where flowers bring pollinators and crop-health, flowers are the only way to truly progress in Garden Sim.

Another realistic aspect to Garden Sim is how fertilizers affect the yield you harvest from each plant. Every plant has a preferred NPK (just like real plants do), and your various fertilizers can be used to fulfill that NPK as well as to supply extra food to the plant. Some fertilizers can alter your BASE YIELD, while others affect your YIELD MULTIPLIER.

Looking Ahead

The Vision for the Full Game

The full game will have multiple maps and a story (thus, a reason you are digging up jars of seeds). As you gain access to more plots of land, automation options will present themselves to help you maintain it all. Of course, you could always just play the game with smaller gardens, it is your choice.

Soil health will be an element to the full game as well as soil acidity levels — these will be affected by which plants are on/next-to a tile as well as fertilizers/amendments. Soil health will only be improved via new trees that will be introduced later on.

Some maps will be monocrops, while other maps will have people that need help with their gardens.

Features

Garden Sim balances flowers and crops via Garden Morale which is only grown by having flowers. Unlockables and upgrades are granted to the player at each stage of Garden Morale. These range from gaining the ability to sprint, to attaining fast-travel, and even one-click buttons like: water all and harvest all.

Grow flowers and crops

Plan your beds with colorful flowers and practical crops, then shape your garden so beauty and harvest work together.

Boost Harvests

Plant Health and Fertilizers determine the yield at time of harvest. Plants prefer certain NPKs which various fertilizers provide.

Beekeeping

Apiaries can be added when you have enough Garden Morale, and this is the only way to replenish Plant Health.

Friendly Helpers

4 helpers come out to your garden as you progress to help you Harvest and Water your plants. One even collects Honey for you!

Store

The currency in the game is SEED. You collect SEED from each fruit that you harvest, but different plants cost different amounts of SEED in the store (it costs more SEED to buy 1 Rare Hibiscus seed than it does 1 Tomato seed).

You can also sell Wood and Fruits to help you save up to buy bigger items like the water system or an apiary (for Bee Keeping).

Demo

Watch the gameplay first, then play the demo with pay-what-you-want pricing whenever you're ready. Thanks for helping this solo-dev garden simulator keep growing.