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A jam submission

Botanica BoutiqueView game page

Climate Jam
Submitted by PW, vyyy-ttt, K0, BJimbo, shiyuue, Drew Nitz, Kamikawa Natsuki (@kamikawanatsuki) — 1 day, 15 hours before the deadline
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Botanica Boutique's itch.io page

Artistic Statement / Use of Theme
Botanica Boutique explores mitigating climate change through a cozy, storybook-inspired shop simulator, focusing on solutions that use plants for issues such as managing heat, flooding, pollution, biodiversity loss, etc. Inspired by games like Good Pizza, Great Pizza and Trash Goblin while taking into account an educational perspective, we wanted to make climate action feel approachable and rewarding by showing how small, thoughtful choices can help a community flourish.

Development Summary
Our game began as a broader storybook-inspired concept set some time between the Medieval Ages and the Victorian Era before evolving into a plant shop simulator visually inspired by these time periods. We shifted from a multi-mini-game structure into a day-night cycle shop loop with customers in order to narrow down the scope of the game. Throughout development, we had to balance the amount of plants that could be offered as solutions with the types and difficulties of each customer’s problem, all while attempting to build up the in-game world alongside it.

Topic Tags
global warming, pollinator diversity, water pollution, soil pollution, air pollution, water contamination

Sprint Participation
yes

Game Engine, Platform, Format
Unity engine, HTML

Generative AI Disclosure
no

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Comments

Submitted

The artstyle and the character designs for this game are soo charming and memorable! I absolutely love the overall aesthetic. I found the game super educational and loved how you incorporated real plant species into the game. Really really fantastic work!

Submitted(+1)

It hardly needs to be said that this is an absolutely gorgeous game (since it so clearly is), but it deserves saying anyway — so, this is an absolutely gorgeous game! Its characters are extremely charmingly designed; its intro and outro paper-cutout style expositing is whimsical and cute; its UI is effective; its music is soothing. An absolute pleasure to behold to be sure. I think narrowing the scope to a highly polished single experience rather than a scattershot of minigames served you extremely well here. It’s already complete enough as it is, but if you ever did decide to revisit it, the only two things I can think of atm that would have heightened my experience might’ve been a bit more of an overarching story for the characters you meet (so the world seems to be changing and progressing apace) or more stuff for you to do in your downtime between shifts (so you can feel invested in and like a part of this community you’re serving). As it currently stands, however, it is already a very polished and pleasant experience.

Developer

Thank you for the kind words!

Submitted(+1)

This was so polished! I appreciate how thoughtful the customer dialogue is. Thanks for making!

Submitted(+1)

solid incorporation of the theme and i quite like the ui improvements since the previous sprint, it feels pretty smooth to play, aside from how sometimes something that seemed like it should work didn't solve all of their problems, but solved the one they were talking about if that makes sense, which made it a little harder to parse. i like how it kept expanding and opening up with more and more goals for your plants to reach though, and more and more niches for them to fill. overall pretty good game, just not really the type of game i enjoy.

Submitted(+1)

Cool project, I love all the unique characters and the art style. The restocking -> sales loop works well, and expanding through the slots fills it out nicely. My only critique would be that I didn't understand sometimes why the bee disagreed with my plant choices, sometimes I would fulfill one role but maybe missed another that seemed unspoken? Or included a role the bee deemed unnecessary? A little clarity there would make the game much more readable. Sort of a quibble though. I enjoyed your game a lot!

Submitted(+1)

Very charming game. I love the art style and the incorporation of real plants within the game. It taught me more about the different roles that houseplants can take and the ways that they can help out. I love it!

Submitted(+1)

The game looks and feels awesome. Great Job!