Farming and gardening games, in which the player's central challenge is to grow fruit and vegetables, can be almost as relaxing as real gardening. There are a surprising variety of gardening games to play on rainy days when you can't satisfy your green thumb outdoors.
Harvest Moon Series
The Harvest Moon series started with a quirky role-playing game on the Super Nintendo. Graphically, the game looked like "Zelda: Link to the Past," but instead of heading off to kill monsters in dangerous dungeons, the player controlled a young farmer who had to turn around a failing farm. Along the way, the player helps out the local town people, marries one of the girls in town, grows crops and tends to chickens and cows. Since then it has had over a dozen sequels. The graphics in recent versions are now 3D and players can cook, make their own tools and found new towns.
The Flower Shop
Flower Shop takes its inspiration from anime "visual novel" dating games. The player controls a teenage city boy as he is sent off to live on his uncle's farm out in the country. The father hopes his son will learn responsibility through hard work. Unfortunately, this means leaving behind his girlfriend in the city. Farming is the core of the game, but players also have to decide whether to maintain the long-distance relationship or start a new relationship with one of the girls living in the country. There are nine endings, depending on how the player deals with the farm, his friends and his romances. Although there are controversial aspects to the game (including the option to build a homosexual romance), there is no pornographic content.
FarmVille
FarmVille, as of early 2011, is one of the most popular games in America. Dr. Phil hosted a show on addiction to it, and players outnumber actual U.S. farmers by over 60 to 1. The game is played on the social networking site Facebook, and players manage their small farm by growing and harvesting crops. Along the way, they can trade goods with their friends and customize their farms with exotic animals and decorations. Like most Facebook games, players are rewarded for getting their friends in on the game as well, and new content is regularly created by Zynga, the game's creators.
Gardening Mama
Gardening Mama is a Nintendo DS game that builds on the franchise of the popular "Cooking Mama" game. In Gardening Mama, the player helps Mama build up her garden through a variety of mini-games played using the DS touchpad and stylus. The mini-games are varied and each takes only a few seconds to play. Players can even use Wi-Fi to trade plants from their garden.
Tags: Gardening Mama, Flower Shop, gardening games, Harvest Moon, player helps