Watch Your Garden Grow: Viridi

People are puzzled enough by the whole swimming-in-icy-ponds lark that I don't often mention my second greatest pleasure in life is watching plants grow. Every spare surface in my tiny box room is bristling with green, from ivy and ferns to alien succulents. Despite living in a minigreenhouse, I am still super stoked for the next game from Eidolon developers Ice Water Games.

Viridi [official site] is a far cry from the gorgeous explore-o-survive 'em up, but does have a similar wonder-of-nature thing going on. Viridi, see, is a "potted plant app" where you watch plants grow.

"Curate a small pot of succulents that grow in real time," say Ice Water. "Our goal is to provide a moment of peace and quiet that you can pull out of your pocket whenever you want and/or need it." And that's it. That's what they have to say, and it sounds splendid. They've also shared this trailer:

It's described as an "early development video" so I shan't grumble too much that its plants seem to simply scale up rather than grow. The joy of plants growing for me is spotting a tiny little bright bud, watching it stretch out then unfurl into a glossy new leaf, then maturing and darkening just as a new bud starts to form. I do hope we'll see that in the finished version. I am especially glad it's focused on succulents, as balancing the different needs of different species has lead to me accidentally killing a few of mine.

Obviously Viridi reminds me of Mountain, but sounds like it'll be longer, quieter, and slower. I know several folks kicking around ideas for long, slow, semi-passive games, and hope we see more.

Ice Water say Viridi is "coming soon" to Windows and Mac. In the meantime, and always, I highly recommend keeping a few plants.