I’ve had fun with all the games from the Nacon Life label. Mostly. Which is what has kept me buying them. Garden Life: A Cozy Simulator has proven to be another fun one for me, likely taking the place of Farming Simulator for the year. That’s how much I’m enjoying it. The developers of stillalive studios have nurtured a great relaxing flowerbed to full bloom with this release, even if a few weeds have invaded.

The gameplay loop of Garden Life is a simple one. Called in to take over running the garden from its previous occupant, who died after an accident, flowers must be grown of all varieties and in all colours. Robin, the previous occupant, can communicate with you. Though none of the other villagers are aware of that. Their spirit is connected to this garden, allowing them to watch over you as their To-Do list is completed.

There is no true interaction with anyone, however. No-one will be wandering around the garden, or the village square. Instead, if anyone has something to say, a text-based cutscene will play out. All the characters here are fully voiced, with some good voice acting to bring out the personalities of them. Not having people wandering around is a good thing, however. It keeps the focus fully on the flowers.

The shop in the village square will sell one colour of every flower type. The first few days act as a tutorial, introducing the flower growing, cutting, and crafting. And also composting the leaves to get quick-grow fertiliser. No need to worry about ever running out of it. Trust me on that. Flowers that have been well cared for will produce harvestable seeds. Sometimes, they will produce seeds of a different colour, with that being the only way to collect them all.

The villagers will have requests for you to fulfil, which will be posted daily to your letterbox. These are one of two ways to make money in the game. These requests will ask for flower cuttings, bouquets, or for you to be growing a certain amount of a particular flower. The requests will only stay in the letterbox for a few days, but if you accept one of them, it stays indefinitely.

Not long into the story, a stall will be built in the village square for you to sell things. This is money-maker number two. Most things can be sold at this stall. Simply put anything you want to sell into its inventory, then the next day the money will be waiting for you to collect. Once you have a lot of flowers growing, this stall is the easiest way of making money. Because you’ll have a whole load of seeds you don’t need.

Speaking of seeds, it’s time to get into the weeds of this game. The inventory management is bad. Oh, it’s simple enough to place things in one of the storage units or to get them out. But as I said, the management is the problem. As you harvest the seeds and have no inventory space, those seeds will go straight to their storage unit. But sometimes, they don’t stack.

So you can be searching for a particular seed and come across three separate stacks of it on the same page of that unit’s inventory. The same also applies to crafting. You can have space in your own inventory, but upon crafting something, it will split between your inventory and that of the decoration storage unit. Such isn’t a major problem. The lack of an auto-sort might be, but it’s easy enough to figure out a manual solution to that.

For those who just want to create a garden without having to wait for the correct colours to be harvested, stillalive has included a creative mode. With this mode, all the colours of all the flowers are within the seed storage. Where the To-Do list would be in the story mode, a season changer exists. Doing exactly what it says, you can change the season at any time. Money is also non-existent here, making everything in the shop free.

Garden Life: A Cozy Simulator absolutely nails its core. Growing flowers is a delight. The way they grow feels authentic, even if the growth rate is exaggerated for gameplay purposes. Using the photo mode to get up close to these flowers shows that. And oh, have I been using that photo mode to capture many great shots of my garden.

For a relaxing time with a simulator, look no further. If you want a game with no pressure put on you, Garden Life is it. Sure, the inventory management needs sorting out, but I’m certain that can easily be done. So, this latest Nacon Life game is an easy recommendation from me.

Images Taken From:
Garden Life: A Cozy Simulator | Xbox Series S