Botany Manor
Our verdict
8.5/10
- Difficulty: Easy
- Players: 1
- Playtime: 3–7 h
Botany Manor is a calm first-person puzzle game set in an English country house in 1890. As retired botanist Arabella Greene, you explore the manor and its gardens to work out the ideal growing conditions for fantastical plants, gathering hints from books, letters, posters and Victorian contraptions. It suits players who want a cosy, low-stress puzzler with a story rather than a tense escape room.
Players praise how each plant becomes a small research puzzle: you cross-reference clues around the house, set temperature, light or soil just right, and watch the flower bloom. Reviewers love the painterly art, gentle music and the way the notes tell Arabella's story of being dismissed as a woman in science. Most describe the difficulty as easy to moderate, with clues fairly placed.
The common caveat is value. Most players finished in three to seven hours, and several say it is best bought on sale. One reviewer missed being able to recall clues from the herbarium, so expect to take screenshots, and some wished the later puzzles were harder. A lovely pick for relaxed puzzle fans; skip it if you want a stiff challenge.
Pros
- Each plant is a research puzzle solved by cross-referencing clues
- Gorgeous Victorian manor and gardens with cosy music
- Arabella's story of a woman in science told through found notes
Cons
- Short for the full price; many recommend waiting for a sale
- Later puzzles stay gentle; little real challenge
- Hard to revisit earlier clues, so players take screenshots
About
Botany Manor is a first-person puzzle game set in a Victorian English manor.
It's 1890, and you play as botanist Arabella Greene, who is working to finish her botanical research book 'Forgotten Flora'.
Explore a complete historical English manor and its grounds, researching how to grow rare plant specimens from seed.
There are many rooms and gardens to discover, all set inside a beautiful countryside surrounding.
The manor is filled with mysterious clues for you to discover, including books, posters, letters and fascinating Victorian contraptions.
The plants you grow are fantastical, but still inspired by real phenomena in nature, so some of them require you to think outside the box. Using what's available to you in the manor, you must create the ideal conditions for each plant.
Room by room, you learn more about the life and career of Arabella, and the challenges she faced as a woman navigating her scientific career.
Botany Manor offers a relaxing and peaceful environment, feel free to stop and smell the roses.
