I sold most things easily. It only takes one element to draw me in, and I'll jump right in. Tiny Garden takes place inside a Polly Pocket toy, which was perfect for me. If you grew up in the 90s you will understand, but for those who didn’t Polly Pockets were small plastic cases with different little environments inside. (usually house settings) in which you could place your little Polly (like a tiny Barbie) figurines.
This could have been any genre and I played it simply because it stirred up a little nostalgia in me. Luckily, the genre was perfect for me, too: farming sims. Or at least, that's what I thought.
Polly Pocket Puzzler A Fun and Challenging Adventure
At first glance, Tiny Garden is a cute farming sim, where you plant a small garden in the base layer, harvesting your fruit and vegetables to unlock new plants, upgrades, and furniture. There's a crank on one side of the toy that when turned passes time and makes the plants grow, and the further you go, the bigger your garden will become.
The top layer can then be decorated like Polly Pocket, and you can further change the color scheme of the case, garden, or furniture, put stickers on your toy, and customize the layout with different objects. Yet when you actually start playing, you'll discover that this is a hidden puzzle game.
It starts off simple enough with your first turnip, but when you plant your first cactus, it turns the tiles around it into dry soil, while bushes turn the surrounding tiles into a lush green field. However, if you remove the plant that is affecting the terrain, the soil only stays in the same state for a few turns.
When I needed to grow potatoes, I needed wet soil, which can only be found when you connect a dry tile to a tile with water. Well, no problem. I bought a fountain to create wet tiles, planted my cactus, and bang, bang, bang, I have wet soil. It seems pretty simple and easy at the beginning, but it gets more complicated later on.
Solving the Plants Problem Creative Solutions for Gardeners
Since your produce is also your currency to unlock your items and seeds, I used to harvest everything as soon as it was ready. This was my first mistake. When I needed to grow sunflowers, which required green plants, I found that my plants were wilting, since sunflowers take three turns to grow, and after removing the bushes my green tiles could only last two tiles.
At that point I realized I had to leave certain plants where they were, and always make sure I had access to specific tiles. You have to make the most of the small space you're allotted, so you'll probably have a few plants growing at a time, but at least you'll always have the tiles you need available.
Every mistake will set you back, as each plant requires a certain yield to buy. It's a chain reaction. A sunflower seed costs the same as a cabbage and a fern. The fern needs a raspberry and a grass and so on, going 15 yield-yielding items deep. You'll need to start over with your turnip and work your way back to where you were which can be really annoying. Now you can understand why I did my best to keep my tiles in place.
Things get more complicated as you progress. You'll need to unlock tools, like dwarves that move and create leafy tiles, or trees that create shelter tiles, while some plants work in conjunction with others, like ivy that needs a tree to climb, but it engulfs all surrounding tiles while it's there. If you want to collect the ivy, you'll also have to remove your tree. There's always a dilemma.
Some plants are invasive and spread; bamboo, in particular, falls into this category, but you can only clear it when it's withered, so you'll have to intentionally put something in its place that it can't grow from. Doing so can inadvertently cause other tiles around you to wither, which you don't want to lose, and then you'll have to replace them.
Peppers set their tile on fire, which is a great thing from a visual perspective, since you want a burnt tile for some plants, but unfortunately, this fire can spread. Luckily, moving my fountain quickly solved that problem. With every move you have to react to new circumstances and plan as far ahead as possible, but a new mysterious plant can mess up all your best laid plans.
Every time I had to restart my chain of fruit and vegetables, it felt like a new round of mayhem, and given how unpredictable the chains and plants can be, each 'run' could end with a wrong choice and bad luck over where you decided to plant something. The strategy involved in setting up your runs and combos to future-proof your garden reminded me of Baltro; you have to build a base, invest in the right cards, decide when to tag or play, and make sure each run lasts as long as possible. Tiny Garden became that for me. Another run. Just to unlock another plant. And it never ended with just 'one more.
A Gardening Sim That Blossoms Into a Puzzle Game
In a strange twist of fate and what I was thinking of as a relaxing Polly Pocket-like farming game turned out to be a charming little puzzle game. It is still relaxing, but its puzzle gameplay is a challenge that forces you to play again and again.
I have yet to unlock all the plants and decorations, and I know my little toy definitely needs a more efficient setup and better decorations, but that's all part of the fun. Finding the best way to grow your produce in a limited space is part of a larger puzzle, and frankly you want your garden to look pretty, too.
I wish it worked better on the Steam Deck as it's exactly the kind of easy game I'd love to play to pass the time, but unfortunately, it doesn't mesh well with the Steam Deck button setup. As the summer sun begins to brighten up the dull British weather this gardening puzzle game was just what I needed to relax. I probably won’t be tending to my own garden, so this game is a perfect alternative for me.
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