Puzzle games have always been and are one of the most entertaining video game genres.
Many of the games we play have puzzles in their various sections, and these puzzles play an important role in all of these games. Therefore, games in this genre are very important and have a great impact on other games.
I have played many indie games in the puzzle genre and I enjoy these games a lot, but many times I have been frustrated by the difficulty of the puzzles in these games and the enjoyment of the game was decreased. This is one of the problems with puzzle games that developers face.
If the puzzles in the game are too easy, the game has no challenge and many players will complain. If the puzzles are too hard, many will complain again. Therefore, creating a balance in the difficulty and ease of the puzzles or inventing a method that can help players has always been one of the challenges of this genre.
Botany Manor was developed by Balloon Studios and published by Whitethorn Games.
The game was released in April 2024 for Xbox, Nintendo Switch, and PC and was available for free to Game Pass subscribers. Botany Manor was released for PlayStation in January 2025.
STORY
You start the game as Arabella Greene, a botanist who has just returned from her trip to the botanical mansion located in Somerset, a county in England, to complete her botanical book, Forgotten Flora, and send it to the publisher.
This book wants to introduce exceptional and forgotten plants and teach its readers how to grow them, and now you, as Arabella, must find out how to plant and grow these special plants by finding the clues in the game and putting them together.
Throughout the game, you learn a lot about Arabella, one of the most basic of which is her family, which you learn is her sister named Elizabeth, and her father is Augustus Greene and her mother is Adelaide Pendleton.
The story of this game is simple but interesting and entertaining, and reading the letters is essential to understanding the story, and these letters are very well written and entertaining.
Sometimes, along the way of solving some puzzles, you will discover interesting stories and information, such as the priest holes that were built in England and Wales in the mid-1570s, and these stories and information are also very interesting and entertaining.
GAMEPLAY
The gameplay is simple, you have to find clues such as letters, newspapers, photos, etc. you have to explore the map and find the clues and connect them to the corresponding flower in the Forgotten Flora book according to the type of clues and find all the clues related to a flower and then grow that flower.
The way to grow each flower is different and you have to grow the flower yourself according to the clues.
Each flower has its own unique look and all the flowers that you grow during the game are very beautiful and are very well designed and make you want to stare at each flower you grow for a while.
It takes about four hours to complete the entire game and get all its trophies.
PUZZLES
The puzzles in this game are very interesting and after finding the clues and putting them together, it gives you a very good feeling and is very enjoyable.
The puzzles are neither too hard nor too easy and I think Balloon Studios has managed to establish a good balance between the difficulty and ease of the puzzles, although it would have been nice to include a hint system, but I don’t think its absence is a problem considering the puzzles are not too difficult.
MAP DESIGN
The botany manor is very large, in each chapter you will investigate new parts of this manor.
Different parts of the manor such as: garden, greenhouse, kitchen, library, etc. are very well placed in the manor and you will find good shortcuts throughout the game.
The map is so good that you can remember it by seeing it once or twice.
After finishing the game, in order to get some trophies, I had to find the flowers that I had grown in different places in the manor, and I could easily remember and find their location, and this shows the excellent design of the map.
VISUALS
Visually, it’s as if you’re looking at a painting.
All parts of the map in this game are very beautiful, the colors are very vivid, the colors are very beautiful and eye-catching, and they’re well placed together.
You’ll see beauty in this game by looking at every corner.
The resolution and performance are also completely problem-free.
CONCLUSION
Botany Manor is a fantastic game with an interesting story, great and balanced puzzles, pleasing soundtracks, visually it’s like a painting. it has about 4 hours of content. I definitely recommend trying this game even if you are not a fan of the puzzle genre.
