Desk Garden Review (PC)

Desk Garden is a bit like one of those dollar store DIY zen kits, but without the plastic rake and pebbles, and with more gelatin blocks and slices of toast with the odd bit of egg and kale. Why egg and kale? Gee, I’m not entirely sure, nor am I confident that a scarecrow would mince well with a carrot if slotted into the same pot. But here, in Desk Garden, logic isn’t the issue; if anything, it actively shuns anything that dares talk down on the way of the pacifist, the sunshine and the rainbow rule. Here, everything is just perfect. There are no goals to achieve, nor are there any risks of receiving a big ol’ slap on the wrist for failing to make certain things connect or synergies flourish. It’s just you, a honeycomb allotment, and an idle affair.

Desk Garden isn’t one of those sorts of agricultural simulation games that frown upon bad decisions or lack of cultivation of the crops. Instead, what you have here is something a little more beginner friendly—childish, even. As an idle clicking game, it doesn’t force you to make brash decisions over the course of a sizable campaign, nor does it present you with an endless list of depressing ultimatums to work out. If it’s anything at all, it’s a simple, easy-to-digest garden sim with a handful of customizable components to toy around with, and a surprisingly generous selection of dynamic mystery boxes to unpack. If that’s enough of an incentive for you, then perhaps you ought to stick with us a little while longer as we cultivate the seed.

What’s Inside the Mystery Box?

If you’re relatively new to desktop-based idle games, then all you really need to know about them is that they sit on the bottom (or in another section of your desktop) of your screen. Unlike a traditional window-hogging video game with full-fledged mechanics and a built-in UI, idle games don’t often require much effort to complete. In fact, it’s so very rare that an idle game requires any form of input at all, what with their sole purpose being to generate things for you on the side—crops, fish, stock, or in this case, gelatine cubes with humanoid elements—whilst you tend to other tasks, like studying or, in my case, writing a two-thousand word review on why idle games are dominating the market.

Desk Garden is exactly what it says it is on the tin: a tab-sized idle game with which you can squeeze into a small corner of your screen. The game (if you can call it that) more or less sees you tending to a honeycomb pyramid of vibrant blocks—jello cubes that each have their own unique rewards, substances, and value. In a similar manner as a lot of gardening or agriculture-based simulators, each block that you plant ultimately produces items of interest. And with each block that you nurture, these varying rewards can allow you the opportunity to earn coins and—you guessed it—add more synergies to your garden, which can also allow you to the chance to experiment with more profitable plants and other peculiar combinations for even an greater yield. And that’s really all this is: an excuse to accumulate coins and embellish a honeycomb nest.

Let it Grow

While there isn’t so much of an endgame to chase in Desk Garden, there are several ways to keep the clock ticking and your attention from fizzling out. With a fairly meaty catalog of pots to purchase and unusual seeds to plant, you could quite easily spend several hours here without realizing how much time has actually passed. That’s sort of the goal that it tries to fulfill, though — to be able idle in the shadows, and to not interfere with your core duties, but to also provide enough breadcrumbs to keep you coming back for another season of mixing and cultivating. And it does that incredibly well, all things considered.

To state the obvious, Desk Garden is as equally cute and cozy as it is wholesome and harmless. The fact that it also doesn’t consume your desktop or force you to engage in timed activities, too, makes it all the more appealing and easy to roll with. And as for the kindergarten visuals and candy-popping block art, well, as much of a sensory overload as it might be, the fact that Desk Garden makes enough wriggle room to accommodate scaling options and a flexible interface does help to alleviate some of those headaches. The subtle lo-fi beats and get-up-and-go melodies, too, are just the icing on the cake for a genuinely enjoyable idle confection. Well played, Siesta Studio — full marks for hitting all of those nails on the head.

Verdict

Desk Garden won’t necessarily open your eyes to the vast world of agriculture, but it will give you a chance to dabble your fingers in an organic garden alongside your usual, presumably mundane admin duties whilst you wait until that next big farming IP. With enough in its back pocket to produce a thoroughly enjoyable seasonal desktop affair, Desk Garden will surely keep you engaged during the afternoon slump. It’s highly unlikely that you’ll find enough of an incentive here to warrant a second cultivation, though, given that it’s a desktop game that doesn’t pretend to be anything more than a brief introduction to idler software, you can’t really complain all that much about its lack of features.

Of course, if you’re heavily into desktop titles like Idle Waters or Cast n Chill, then I have no doubt in my mind that Desk Garden will have the capacity to deliver the same hallmark as its idle adversaries. If either of those two titles were enough to coerce you into divvying up the monitor without so much as a second thought, then honestly, it’s a no brainer here, folks. Love the idea of being able to stack boxes, pot humanoid plants and earn a treasure trove of little coins to spend on bite-sized upgrades? Desk Garden has you covered.