Critical Play: Gardenscapes
Gardenscapes is a match-3 puzzle game situated inside a garden restoration simulation.
The premise is that you have inherited a large estate and must restore it step by step. By completing levels of a match three game, you earn stars. You use these stars to complete tasks to restore the garden such as buying new benches, planting flowers, and building a tree house. As you complete these tasks, new areas of the garden are unlocked. The protagonist, Austin the Butler, helps guide you through the game.
There are a few social elements to the game as well.
There is an in-game social network where you can see all of the virtual world’s character’s and their social media interactions. As you play more levels, you unlock more characters.
You can also link the game to your Facebook. You can then see your rankings compared to your Facebook friends and the rest of the world. You can request extra lives and give extra lives to your Facebook friends. These lives are used up when you fail to complete a match-3 level.
Once you complete enough levels, you are eligible to join teams. In these teams, you earn more lives, earn more coins to use for restoration tasks, and can chat with other players.
Gardenscapes is primarily a challenge game. The fun comes from winning the match three levels, and slowly accomplishing the challenge of restoring the garden.
Gardenscapes also has the aesthetics of narrative and fellowship. Austin brings you through the storylines of the restoration and of the other townspeople. But you have the option of skipping these parts to get to the match 3 game faster. Regarding fellowship, you have the option to interact with other players but it is only done in the interest of being able to better play the match 3 game.
The in-app purchase options also reaffirm the game’s status as a challenge game. You can only buy more lives and helpers for the match three game.
I felt like the game was a gilded version of Candy Crush. I think that many narrative and sandbox games are very fun. But, because of the lack of choice in the narrative you experience and the garden you can build (you have to choose from 2–3 options and follow their defined order), Gardenscapes robs the player of the joy of a narrative and the aesthetic satisfaction of building your own virtual world.
