The Rose Garden is about roses and probably other, complicated things

Charlotte Madelon is a game designer from the Netherlands who enjoys making immersive art installations and her new game feels like an extension of that, in that I usually have to walk through a very pretty garden to get to an art museum. And this is a game about a very pretty garden. Will there be zombies for the plants to fight? Absolutely not. Do I get to just sit back and enjoy good coloured weeds being chill and calming? Yes, yes I do. Well. That's exactly what I needed today. Thanks you, The Rose Garden.

Madelon's description for the SimChill experience is as follows:

"Find seeds, place pits and grow your roses. Over 40 breeding combinations to discover new roses in this poetic flower game. All the roses are named after famous women, paying a small tribute to their lives and achievements."

My broken gamer-man brain saw this an immediately thought, "Wait, there are achievements in this game?" Some mornings I am exceptionally stupid upstairs. Do these flowers have deeper meaning? Probably.

You can download The Rose Garden from Itch, where it's pay-what-you-want with no minimum. Check out the trailer below:

Madelon has a similar game from 2017 called Lily, which is a game about flowers but moreso about childhood trauma. (SEE I SAID FLOWERS MEAN OTHER THINGS. I KNEW ABOUT FLOWER METAPHORS. DEAL WITH THAT, GEORGIA O'KEEFFE.) Take a look at the trailer for that right here: