With thanks to the folks at Stillalive Studios and Nacon, we’ve been getting our hands dirty with Garden Life: A Cosy Simulator. You can find our full Garden Life review here, for Xbox, PC and Nintendo Switch. As ever, this comes with our common-sense parent’s guide including game ratings and a look over game content.
Whether you are looking to find out if Garden Life is any good, or whether it’s safe for kids, read or watch on, down below.
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The Basics – What is Garden Life: A Cosy Simulator About?
Available on: PC, Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo Switch
Price: c£35
Type: Chilled, first-person garden sim
Download: 5.3GB (PC), 3.13GB (Xbox), 1.7GB (Switch)
In Garden Life, players will take on the role of Groundskeeper for an out-of-the-way community garden. You’ll explore a slightly run-down plot which grows with you as you progress through the game. Players take over the role from their predecessor Robin (they/them), following their unfortunate passing.
Robin did, however, have big plans for the garden, to help the residents of the local village, and just provide a little slice of calm heaven in a bustling world. You’ll work to keep their dream alive, expanding your garden, and the variety of flowers within.
As well as planting and tending to your garden (and getting decorations involved), players will get frequent requests from villagers. You’ll need to grow specific flowers, discover new colour varieties and craft various decorations to satisfy these, and make some cash to expand your toolset.
Garden Life really lives up to its name as a cosy simulator, giving players the time and freedom to find their own path as the seasons progress. This is exceptionally chill, with no energy metres or time constraints, leaving players to tend their gardens in peace. It does manage to also give you targets and, while progress does get slow, this helps to keep relaxed progress going.
Is Garden Life: A Cosy Simulator Safe for Children?
Rating: Family Friendly.
Garden Life: A Cosy Simulator is rated by PEGI at 3 and above and by the ESRB at E for Everyone. This is a really relaxed title, which is also incredibly inclusive, and we’ve not found anything of concern at all. We’ve got no hesitation in letting our Micro-Bandits watch and have a go on their own (something made much easier as Sandbox Mode is available from the start)
The Run Down – Our Five-Point Rating for Garden Life: A Cosy Simulator
Nb: We’ve been playing Garden Life on Pc, Xbox and Nintendo Switch, and it does come with some different scoring for Nintendo’s handheld platform. The main scores here reflect Xbox and PC
Gameplay – 4: While it’s fairly simple in premise, Garden Life manages to provide great freedom to plant your garden, and choose your own path. It’s fairly slow to build and expand, but this has helped to keep a relaxed atmosphere overall. Sadly on Switch the garden can quickly fill up with flowers and decorations, with a fairly low limit to the amount you can fit in your garden, and so for Switch Gameplay drops to a 3.
Visuals – 4: I really adore the art style for Garden Life, and its mixture of realism and cartoon visuals really fits the cosy vibes. Up close things can get a little rough around the edges, but it’s packed with character and season changes are lovely to see. For Nintendo Switch visuals sadly drop to a 2, with exceptionally low framerates and some poor visual optimisation hitting this one quite hard.
Audio – 5: On all platforms the sound is cracking, with weather effects, birdsong and typical garden sounds providing an exceptionally soothing backdrop. On top of this, I’ve loved the voice acting for all characters, which manages to add a little more depth to the title.
Narrative – 3: It is slow to build but there’s a nice little cosy story here. It’s fairly light touch, and mostly based as a background for the gardening you’ll do anyway, but it’s been enjoyable overall.
Replay – 3: There are a good lot of flowers, variants and decorations to discover, and Garden Life is perfect to just drop in whenever you need to relax and take things a little easier.
The Verdict – Is Garden Life: A Cosy Simulator Worth It?
Overall Pixel Bandits Titchmarsh Level for Garden Life: A Cosy Simulator is a great 8 / 10 for xbox and Pc, with Nintendo Switch dropping to 6 / 10.
Overall for PC and Xbox, things are great here in our cosy little garden world. I’ve really enjoyed the freedom to plant and decorate the garden as I like, and there’s a lot of customisation you can do to really make the place your own. It also comes with a cat installed, and overall just feels like you’ve pulled a warm woolly blanket around yourself and snuggled up with a hot cup of cocoa.
Sadly things do drop off for Switch and in both handheld and docked mode I’ve found it tough to play, due to visual issues and very tight decoration and planting limits in the garden, which is a bit of a shame.
If you’re looking for something cosy, relaxing and great to pick up and put down, Garden Life is definitely recommended for PC, Xbox and going out on the limb with an assumption here, PlayStation as well. It’s an exceptionally cosy and inclusive title and while it can be slow in places, the gradual and relaxed progression is a pool of calm in a rather hectic world.
As ever, to provide this review and common-sense parent’s guide, we received free copies of Garden Life: A Cosy Simulator from the folks at Nacon.
