And play with your own virtual pet snail
Viridi is a free-to-play gardening simulator which released on Steam last week in which you grow and care for a pot of succulent plants. The plants grow in real time even while the game is closed, so this isn’t the type of game you’ll want to play for long periods. Rather, I find myself loading up my virtual potted plants for a few minutes each night to see how they’re coming along.
To keep your plants alive and thriving, you’ll want to make sure they’re sated by keeping them watered, but don’t water them too much or they might die. It’s also possible to sing to them by zooming in on a plant and leaving the screen focused on it, but who knows if this actually helps stimulate growth or not.
While Viridi is free, you may also choose to pay for new plants or multiple pots, but this is definitely not necessary to enjoy the game. It starts you off with one pot containing several seedlings, and a new random seedling is received for free each week. You can move the plants around, discard them, and even give them names.
There’s also a cute little snail that’s always there, slowly circling around the pot. Like the plants, the snail can also be watered, sung to, and given a name. I named by snail Gertrude. She’s adorable.
There’s really not much else to Viridi than that, but it’s a nice little distraction. The crisp, low-poly graphics and the peaceful soundtrack make it a rather zen-like experience, and it’s nice to spend a relaxing couple of minutes each night taking care of my digital succulents. It almost makes me want to try growing some real succulents as well.
