Strange Horticulture is partially about running a plant shop, serving customers and finding new stock. You have to learn to identify plants, and might be able to use the mystical effects of some to influence events. Oh, also you’re embroiled in an occult mystery with witches and secrets and murder. “Later, as you receive strange clues in dreams and follow them to find new and exciting plants in strange swampy locations in the area, I became increasingly suspicious,” Alice explained after playing a preview version. “In between customers I would pore over the map with these clues - one that I enjoyed in particular was just a torn card with a pencilled X, as well as another that asked me to find the intersecting point between four locations - and would quickly return my papers and letters to my desk drawer as a new customer approached. I didn’t want them to see what I had discovered, or the strange contraptions I was working on…” She later named it one of our most anticipated games of 2022. Strange Horticulture launches January 21st on Steam, GOG, and the Epic Games Store. An updated demo is available from Steam. This does make me want to play Wunderdoktor again, for some reason.
