Indie games have the freedom to experiment with different genre elements to create something unique, and that’s a pretty good encapsulation of The Abbess Garden, from first-time developer MD Studio and publishing platform indie.io. Your job is to tend a garden in France in 1643, but you’ll dig up more than just plants. You’ll also discover buried objects and uncover secrets that could be dangerous in the wrong hands.
At its heart, The Abbess Garden is a cozy gardening game. Set at the abbey of Port-Royal-des-Champs, a real French historical site, you’re entrusted with caring for the Abbess’s private garden, a patch of land that nobody has been allowed to enter in years. Time has taken its toll, and you’ll need to clear it of the wild growth that’s overtaken it and figure out how to bring it back to its previous glory.
That sounds pretty simple, but is a bit more complicated in practice. You’ll need to use actual botany, getting to know real-life plants and what each needs to thrive. This isn’t a grid-based game where you plant seeds in predetermined slots. Your garden is an open area where you can plant what you want where you want, but just like real life, certain plants need certain conditions to survive.
Things like soil type, moisture level, and proximity to other plants all matter. And as the seasons change, you’ll need to keep an eye on your plants, assess when the right time is to harvest them, and plant new seeds better suited to the current conditions. And these details won’t be spelled out for you. You’ll need to experiment, take notes, figure out what’s making some plants flourish and others struggle, and adjust accordingly.
While tending to your garden, you can explore the grounds and discover hidden objects that will fill out your collection book and trigger new quests and conversations with the local townsfolk. One such item you’ll unearth is a cryptic book written by a dead spy. It holds secrets that would be of interest to European royalty, so you’ll need to work together with your neighbors to figure out what exactly it all means.
Though this does pull you into some political intrigue and court drama, you’re never in any real danger. This is still a cozy game, after all. And it’s a game meant to be enjoyed at your own pace. Linear quests will open as you uncover new items, but they aren’t timed. If you want to spend days just tending your garden before moving on to the next step of the quest, you can.
In the process of completing these quests, you’ll get to know your neighbors and can build relationships with them. There are NPCs based on real people and events from French history, and while building these relationships, you can find romance. So the basic goal of the game is to build a beautiful garden, solve a mystery, and live happily ever after.
The Abbess Garden is available on Steam and the indie.io Store now for $9.99, a 20% launch discount that will be available for a limited time. It’s also playable on the Steam Deck, and a bundle is available that includes both the game and its soundtrack with an additional discount.
