by December M.
You have to really admire gardeners. They have the patience of that Job guy from the Bible. Down on their knees in their favourite gardening apparel, with a wide brimmed straw hat – hand tools by their side. They mulch and fertilise and tend to their patch with loving care. They create new garden beds and correct the pH levels of the soil, water and soak, plant the seed and watch and wait. And wait. And wait. Then water. And wait. And wait. Then eventually, something grows and they rejoice in the moment, picking whatever has grown to either eat or decorate with. And finally (if it’s not an evergreen), it dies. And so the process begins again.
I don’t have the patience for that. I dig a small hole with my bare hands, plop in a seed and hope for the best. Which, as it turns out, is as hopeful as the snail is that something will actually grow so it can eat it. I haven’t measured pH levels in soil since Science class in high school. And I inevitably forget to water the damn things. If something should pop up from under the surface, the snail usually beats me to it. Either that, or I forget where I’ve planted and thinking it’s a weed, remove it from the soil. Maybe that’s why I have a black thumb? No, make that a black hand!
But in my defence, I will say that I am very good at killing plants. Established gardens wither and die; gifted plants look at me sorrowfully and then let out a plant-ish sigh before giving up and committing suicide. If I sing to them, I’ve noticed that the plants straighten up as if letting out a blood-curdling scream of terror before committing Hari-kiri. So gardening is perhaps not the best hobby for me to pursue.
Digital gardens, however, are a whole different ball game… or plant game, as the case may be! I can tend them and sing to them and water them, in fact, almost kill them with kindness and they keep on soaking it up like a dry leaf lifts itself up to the rain. Digital gardens like me. And so, I like them.
And in the gaming world, digital gardens are everywhere. I can be a farmer and grow crops. I’ve no idea what half of these crops are, but they look pretty and inevitably I’ll be able to sell them to a mysterious buyer or market. I could be a florist and make extraordinary flower arrangements from plants in my garden and thrill myself at my astounding creativity. (It should be pointed out that beautiful flower arrangements are truly in the eyes of the beholder, and I think they’re beautiful, so therefore they must be!)
For something different, I could grow plants that I feed to animals on my farm and then turn the animals into products and foodstuffs. Or maybe make succulent meals from my hard worked garden. In the electronic world, gardens are easy peasy. And fun.
No sunburn, no sweat, no exhaustion and no real snails to fight with. (Any digital snails are normally part of the game, and you usually end up with some sort of vicious weapon you can kill them with!) But best of all, no waiting! Plants grow almost instantaneously and while you may not manage to save them all, you will have a good time trying to not kill them. And absolutely no plant deliberately kills itself. It doesn’t take one look at you and just ‘know’ that you are the worst thing to come along since the atomic bomb.
So I like gardening games. There are plenty of them around and they give you lots of warm ‘fuzzies’ at the end of every level. So this season, don’t bother with the real thing – go digital. Just be careful that you don’t decide to mix up the two types of gardens – water and computers really don’t mix!
To get you started, visit Club Casual Games and in the search box type ‘farm’. You’ll be astounded at how many games there are just waiting for your green thumb… and my black one!
