It can also be a little daunting to find your way around, especially at first. You always have a map with you, but given how much the surroundings look and feel until you start making them your own, it can be easy to feel a little lost among the trees. Finding visitors is at least easy, as they appear as markers on your map, and the time of day as well as weather conditions can determine who you encounter.
The garden path rewards patience, what is like a real garden? I ask because I have no experience. Not at all. The developers specifically suggest that players only enter for a short time each day, and that is the right decision. So much Stardew Valley eats up more time socializing than sleeping for many of us, it’s nice to just play a game for a few minutes each day, check in with your garden and the locals, and disappear again without having to be annoyed by a multitude of status bars, notifications, or side quests begging you to complete them. That was my biggest gripe the longer I invested in Cozy Grove, that I had to find more and more items to complete another objective just to move things along. Here, your reward is a simple sense of achievement for whatever you choose to do.
Final thoughts
The Garden Path is a calm and thoughtful gaming experience that doesn’t involve worrying about mission objectives or the need to build wealth over time. Combined with some impressive visual effects and an audio score that relaxes the soul, it’s an experience that many will enjoy compared to some of its older brothers in the farming sim space. There’s a lot of creativity on display, even if some of it feels a little over the top in places, but you can feel the love and respect for your time in every beautifully hand-drawn pixel.
Tested on PC // Review code provided by publisher
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