The first matriach of gaming was launched in 2006 in her incarnation as Cooking Mama, stringing together touchscreen interactions into loose recipe challenges. Its popularity has since spawned five sequels and various spin-offs with other themes. Here, the simple gesture-matching challenge of the Mama series returns to the garden, with a collection of 50 horticulture-themed mini-games. Each challenge focuses on a different plant, requiring just the right combination of tapping, swiping and dragging with the stylus to mature. Time these gestures accurately, to enable the plants to grow well enough to sell at various animal-fronted shops, and earn in-game money, which in turn can be spent expanding the garden with more flowers, fruit and vegetables, and trees.
The thinly veiled busy work is made palatable for young players with larger-than-life cartoon visuals, anthropomorphised animals and the series’ well-worn touchscreen interactions. But that’s the target audience: the enjoyment will be short-lived for all but the very young, or those happy with endless fetch quests and incremental progression.
