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“Botany Manor excels at it’s main ambition – presenting a succinct, cozy space to admire whilst working through its light puzzles.”

Gameplay sees you taking on the role of Arabella Greene, amateur botanist and owner of the gorgeous manor house that serves as the game’s playing space. Your goal is a simple one, to research and grow twelve species of fantastical flora, in order to fill out the pages of her herbarium. Alongside growing these botanical specimens, you uncover a glimpse into Arabella’s history and her struggles in an era where her achievements as a woman weren’t taken seriously.

It’s a frustrating read, and it mostly is reading, as exposition is delivered through letters and other documents scattered throughout the manor. Though touching, there’s very little in the way of interactive or visual elements to really immerse yourself beyond the snippets that are presented. Arabella is coming into the latter stags of her life and seeing her history of being overlooked, I desperately wanted to see her herbarium completed and to see that lifetime of hardwork come to fruition. The developers clearly have a deep reverence for the women of history and it radiates from every inch of the story they’re telling. Both uplifting and surprising, the narrative resolves in a way that was both satisfying and felt at home in historical context.

Greene Manor is a stunning microcosm and exploring the space is as integral to the experience as solving the puzzles scattered throughout. The grounds are surrounded by golden fields and a river that gently winds its way through the valley. It’s saccharinely quaint in a way that left me wondering if the developer’s impression of England came from one too many Jane Austin novels. Inside, a bold use of colour draws the eyes. From interviews, the team have stated that they spent a lot of time researching contemporary manor houses and their homework is on full display. The final product is that the layout of Arabella’s home fits together in a way that is both fun to explore and feels like a genuine livable space.

In the gardens that surround the manor there’s a pronounced air of tranquility, with clear blue skies and lots of vivid flowers. On closer inspection, a lot of these background botanicals are little more than splodges of colour, which seems like a missed opportunity for a game with ‘botany’ in the title. This lack of attention is made even more apparent when compared to the care lavished on the specimens Arabella is tasked with growing. Still, it’s a gorgeous visual arrangement, one which practically begs you to stop and smell the flowers on one of the many benches, sofas, armchairs and stools that litter the manor. Botany Manor excels at it’s main ambition – presenting a succinct, cozy space to admire whilst working through its light puzzles.

There are ten plants to nurture, from sapling to flower, and the puzzle aspects come in the form of working out the specific conditions required to make them bloom. Posters, letters and other artifacts can be found scattered through out the manor, providing fragments of information. Solutions can only be discovered by cross-referencing the snippets contained within several different documents and working out the answer makes you feel smart as, you piece it all together. When establishing the perfect conditions, the music swells as the unremarkable sapling morphs into a new striking appearance before your eyes. Many of the specimens have fantastical qualities, from bioluminescent bulbs to flowers that whistle in strong winds, which makes them larger than life and give each a unique appearance.

To help organise this process, you fill in pages of the herbarium by matching hints you’ve found to a specific species. Each page has slots for a specific number of documents and when you’ve correctly filled each slot the page becomes static, to indicate you’re on the right track. Unfortunately, there’s no option to review documents from the herbarium, which only records a title and a location within the manor. If you can’t remember an exact value or reference you have to run around trying to find them, which disrupts the otherwise slow leisurely pacing. The ability to read documents all in one place would help cut out some of the busy work, as there were a few occasions when I had the solution but just need to double-check a few values.

Musically, the game takes a very minimalist approach, with only the occasional bit of strings gliding through the soundscape, like petals across the breeze. When a flower blooms or a new delivery arrives at the gatehouse to the grounds, it switches gear. These deliveries are how you unlock new areas of the manor so the swelling music digs into that sense of achievement. However, this arrangement is on a very short loop. During one delivery, I was busy organising my growing collection of plants and its frantic eagerness quickly grew frustrating. It’s a small complaint, but in so many other aspects, this game creates an unhurried and relaxing pace, inviting you to meet it on your terms.

Playing on Xbox One, I encountered a few performance issues. Passing between areas occasionally lead to some choppiness and the frame rate in general seemed to dip in and out at random. By no means does Botany Manor require anything resembling speed and precision, but some more work could have gone into the engine, as assets would pop in to existence in plain sight, making it difficult to properly immerse myself in the environment

Ultimately, Botany Manor is a short experience. With a limited number of flowers, the game only runs for around three hours, which felt like an appropriate considering the simplicity of its puzzles. Pleasant in its cohesion, the experience could have been in and out of my life in just the one sitting, although it is a perfect game for picking up for an idle thirty minutes. That being said, it would set you back £22.54, which feels like a steep ask for such a short experience. Like I said, it is on GamePass so, if you have the chance, I’d recommend playing it that way.