The Garden Path Review – Take A Stroll Through A Cozy Garden

OVERVIEW

The Garden Path is a soothing slice-of-life gardening sim that invites players to celebrate the small moments in life.

Developer: carrotcake
Release Date: July 30, 2024
Price: $19.99
Platforms: PC (Steam & Itch) and Nintendo Switch

Gameplay in The Garden Path

Image of inventory menu in the garden path game

Players begin their journey in The Garden Path by creating a character that resembles themselves. They then wander into the garden, and can immediately start researching and harvesting some of the plants in the area.

As players speak with the various characters that visit their garden, they can complete tasks to receive gifts that can be used to decorate their garden or avatar. NPCs can even be convinced to stay in the garden, as players continue to rebuild it.

In The Garden Path players can also collect various items and creatures that can impact their entire garden. Some fish can be released after being caught and can help grow plants and increase plant health. Guidestones can be collected around the garden and can be used to unlock helpful items and cosmetics. Players can also connect constellations by unlocking stars, by completing tasks. The constellations can also have lasting effects on a player’s garden.

Wander Through A Magical Garden

The Garden Path does an excellent job of capturing the feeling of wandering into a magical garden for the first time. The game does have a tutorial that players can choose to turn on at the start of the game. The tutorial focuses more on controls and leaves exploration up to the player. This can seem overwhelming to some at first, especially when looking at how massive the map is, but the controls were easy to memorize after a few play sessions.

Speaking of play sessions, The Garden Path recommends players play for shorter periods of 10-30 minutes, rather than long gaming sessions. This is very different from games such as Animal Crossing: New Horizons or Stardew Valley which give players a lot of tasks, that sometimes make players feel obligated to complete them as fast as possible to progress the game. Time in The Garden Path is localized to each player’s computer or device, making an in-game day last a full 24 hours in real-time.

Since The Garden Path is designed to be played across shorter sessions, and because time is localized to each player, this makes the game very accessible to players who have other responsibilities or need constant breaks. It is also easy to access a list of the controls and those can all be remapped as well. Because of this, The Garden Path gets the “ChromaGlitch Gaming While Parenting” seal of approval.

Final Thoughts on The Garden Path

Overall The Garden Path is a cozy and whimsical gaming experience. The hand-drawn aesthetic combined with beautifully crafted ambient effects and music, makes playing feel like taking a walk in a park. Sessions can be as short or as long as players need, with shorter sessions still feeling productive. If you enjoy games such as Stardew Valley and Book of Travels, you should give The Garden Path a try. The Garden Path is available on Steam, Itch.io, and Nintendo Switch for $19.99.

A PC key for The Garden Path was given to ChromaGlitch to complete this review.