Of flowers and nightmares

Butler Austin is a busy little bee. He steers you through the various gardens and also does most of the cleanup for you. To help him make the necessary purchases, you play match-3 puzzles. In these puzzles, you always have to match three fruits of one color to solve them. Another row of fruits moves up until you match all the fruits in a puzzle correctly. Moving the fruits works by tapping and swiping. The individual puzzles are always nice and short, so they can be solved perfectly during a train ride or on the bus.

Once a puzzle is finished, you're allowed to get back to work in your garden. New plants need to be purchased and planted. The fountain is in urgent need of repair and the hedge could certainly use a trim. For such tasks, the game often offers you a small selection of tools from which you have to choose the right one.

But even butler Austin needs your help from time to time. For example, the faithful soul is sometimes plagued by nightmares in which his way is blocked, or his feelings for his sweetheart cause him trouble. The game switches to small sliding puzzles that you can solve for additional rewards. The puzzles are about creating a path for your butler to reach his destination by pulling out certain sticks. Besides, through the small puzzles you'll learn a bit more about your butler Austin.

As time goes by, you'll unlock new items and later you'll be able to discover completely new gardens. Austin, however, is always by your side to make sure that your little green oases become the most beautiful places in the neighborhood.

What do users think of Gardenscapes?

For players, Gardenscapes is an interesting mix of an idle game and a puzzle game. The graphics are very well done and the gameplay is simple. Also, there are many items that you can discover for your garden.

However, the game often lacks variety. The puzzles hardly differ and the story around Butler Austin, while quite lovingly designed, offers little motivation to play it for a longer time. There is also no way to trade purchased items with other players, for example, or to compete against each other.

Overall, Gardenscapes makes a solid impression. It is certainly sufficient for a small puzzle round in between. But the long-term motivation is missing due to the lack of variety, so you might want to look for alternatives to pass your time.