Game Groups > Gameplay feature: Botany, farming, gardening

This game group features games where the player controlled character may farm, garden, or participate in botanical activities involving plants or equivalent flora, primarily for the purpose of harvesting byproducts from them.

Farming, gardening, or botanical activities in this regard, is a minor or optional feature in the game and does not qualify for the Genre: Farming Simulation game group. Farming, gardening, or a botanical activity is usually a common feature in the wilderness survival genre and role-playing games, although some hybrid adventure games may also have this feature. The byproducts of these plant or equivalent flora, may come in the form of fruit, vegetables, seeds, leaves, flowers, etc., which may later be used as food or ingredients for cooking or alchemy.

Before harvesting a plant, a botanical process must first be conducted to ensure the plant's survival, at least in the form of watering or fertilizing the plant. Other more complicated activities may include planting seeds or the plant itself, moving a plant from one location to another, maintaining an irrigation system, etc. Failing to maintain the plant may result in the plant's death or a lower harvest of byproducts.

Depending on the game, the process of farming, gardening, or a botany may be as simple as selecting the plant, which will automatically leave behind byproducts or a specific skill (e.g. botany) in addition to having proper tools or items (e.g. gardening tools) in the inventory are required to conduct harvesting from a plant.

Dwarves planting underground grain in Craft the World (2013).

Limitations

• Merely selecting a plant or equivalent flora and attaining a byproduct (e.g. picking berries from a bush) does not qualify as farming, gardening, or a botanical activity. This is only known as foraging. Further complex activities must be available to the player-controlled character. If no maintenance is required, the option of moving a plant one from one location to another should suffice.

• IMPORTANT: Games where farming is the primary feature of the game should not be included in this game group and should be added to the Genre: Farming Simulation instead.

Related Game Groups

• Gameplay feature: Alchemy
• Gameplay feature: Fishing
• Gameplay feature: Hunting
• Gameplay feature: Hunger / Thirst
• Gameplay feature: Mining
• Gameplay feature: Survival Cooking

Related Genres

• Genre: Simulation - Farming
• Genre: Wilderness Survival