Plantera

Score: 8.0
2016

Plantera is a cute and cheap gardening clicker available on Steam. For a clicker game, I’d say it’s pretty awesome – but I’m neither an expert nor a fan of this genre. Then again I’ve clocked 11 hours in Plantera and all of it was actually fun. I think I’ll even go back to check the future updates.

When I say that I’m not a fan of clickers means basically that the idea of rather mindless clicking at first, to gather resources to upgrade different aspects of the game that it runs itself, is not that appealing to me. That’s not something I look in a game. But I definitely hold no hate towards it either.

Plantera is simple, super cute and cheap. At some point it was on discount on Steam and recommended for me. As I was really in the mood for something truly casual, I gave it a try. I was pretty much instantly charmed.

Compared to some other clickers I know, Plantera is nicely versatile and it has actually more to do than just click  anywhere. The player can choose which plants to grow and where on the area. Also the garden is constantly visited by butterflies, moles and a jousting knight (for some reason) to be poked for some coin, and different kinds of vermin and beasts that try to grab the player’s products. These things made it much more tempting to keep looking and clicking around instead of just letting the game run on the background.

It took me those 10 hours to complete the game’s achievements, which are simple and fortunately very obtainable. These kinds of achievements increase my motivation to play. I really wouldn’t like unattainable ones in my casual games.

Plantera is being regularly and lovingly updated. I’ll be happy to see if there’s new content to come. I’m also now a bit intrigued by the developer’s earlier games, which I might give it a go one of these days.