10 Criminally Overlooked Gameplay Mechanics

People can have many different hobbies, but one often drawn line is the idea of inside and outside activities. Gaming is fundamentally an inside activity, and gardening is absolutely outside. Still, if you love both and want to see them in a beautiful marriage of fun, then this overlooked indie game is the one for you.

In The Gardener and the Wild Vines, you play as a gardener (go figure) who sets out on a journey to rescue their beloved prince. To do so, you scale towers with a deeply creative platforming system that sees you cutting flowers with your sheers to create branching vines. These vines produce leaves you can bounce on, carrying you further to more flowers. It's vine pruning in 8-bit.

The platforming of this game is addicting and smooth, with skilled players able to create mesmerising runs as they scale the towers. You'll encounter more and more challenges as you play on, but the one thing that won't change within the roughly 3-4 hour runtime is the satisfying feeling of mixing platforming with sheering.

This is a cute, creative, and inspired narrative platformer that is certainly deserving of more attention.