Wylde Flowers Is an Addictive Farming Game, But With Gay Witches
I love a cozy game. Your character lives in a small village and has to travel around completing tasks for villagers? YES. I’M IN. I loved Cozy Grove but it got a little too repetitive for me, and once I “completed” the game (you can keep playing,but the story does have an end) I wasn’t super interested in carrying on. I replayed a few of my favorite Apple Arcade games, and my 6 month free trial was coming to an end, so I figured I was done with Apple Arcade (and by then I’d discovered Rusty Lake’s games). THEN I upgraded my iPad, was sent another code for 3 months of Apple Arcade, and I downloaded Wylde Flowers, which i am now obsessed with.
It’s a plot as old as time: A girl (in this case, Tara) moves from the Big City to a small island to care for her grandma, whom she has been estranged from for 20 years, as well as her farm. Tara has to get to know the townspeople, upgrade and expand the farm, and complete tasks. But here’s where Wylde Flowers is different! Tara, Grandma, and five other townspeople are witches who control and protect the island… and everyone on the island is gay.
Okay, not everyone is gay (or are they??), but the queer representation in this game is so strong, it feels like there is nary a straight on the isle of Fairhaven. Part of Tara’s story involves romance, BUT you have to opt in (you can choose for Tara to date no one!), and you can choose to have Tara fall in love with a man, a woman, the non-binary ethical butcher, and even a werewolf.
And there is so much cultural representation, you can tell that the developers truly care about making every player feel seen. There’s an Indian scientist, a South African bartender, an Italian Jewish diner owner, a Japanese and Chinese butcher… the list goes on. Each character is fully voiced and has a deep backstory that you uncover throughout the game (I just found out there are AA meetings in the game??). Even Tara’s personality develops based on the choices you make. I fully plan to finish my current game, then play another game and make different choices to see how things change. I doubt the changes will be major, but I’m interested to see the small ways that dialogue and relationships change. For example, I became best friends with Angus so quickly, and without really trying, but I’ve been playing for 26 hours and just became causal friends with Lina. And someone who plays differently and makes different choices could be on the subreddit asking, “How on earth do you become better friends with Angus??”
Nothing is perfect, and I do have a few criticisms for the Wylde Flowers devs. Firstly, there’s a clear devotion to diversity, but no disabled characters, at least so far. When you get disability rep in a story, there’s always the risk of it ending up being “inspirational” (FYI, we hate this), but I have faith that the Wylde Flowers team could avoid such a mess. My idea is to have the Scientologist-adjacent Cameron try to “cure” or “save” them and then our disabled hottie shuts him down and we all learn a valuable lesson about how disabled people aren’t broken and don’t need saving. Then we build a funicular to make getting down to town more accessible.
The next issue is that there are myriad ethnic food options, but the favorite foods of characters are often connected to their own background, which seems… uncomfortable? To bump up your relationships, you have to discover villager’s favorite foods, prepare them, and gift them to the villager. For example, I’m trying to woo Kim, and their favorite foods include rice wine and sushi. They’re Japanese. Giva is Indian, and her favorite foods include chai and chicken tikka masala. I get that this is because there is a guessing element to the favorite foods, and with Kim, when you give them sushi they say, “Oh this reminds me of home!”, but it feels reductive to have characters only like “their” foods. This might be nitpicky, but I prefer the idea of having diverse characters and diverse foods but the diversity can cross over - Kim can like chai, Giva can like sushi, etc. (i’m also bitter because the one time I guessed a favorite food and gave Amira a slice of Persian love cake she just went, “Okay.”)
Overall, Wylde Flowers is a great game for anyone who likes story, diversity, and a typical farming game with a witchy twist. It’s currently only available on Apple Arcade, but I believe other platforms are in the works.
