Desktop Garden is a delightful little gardening platformer that plays out on your desktop and allows you to use your windows as platforms and climbing surfaces.
Created for Ludum Dare 46 by the Temporarily Unnamed Collective (creators of Seaway), Desktop Garden is a cute little platformer where you create a little garden on your desktop. When you load the game a little island pops up on your desktop with a little character (with a seedling in their backpack) that you can control with the arrow keys and the spacebar. Scattered around the screen are little pockets of water for you to collect, which keep your plant hydrated and allow it to grow.
To reach the water you’ll have to use actual windows on your desktop, moving them so that your character can climb them and use them as platforms (whilst still taking care to avoid the mines and gun turrets on the screen too). Your character can climb vertical surfaces, but only has limited grip stamina so you can’t climb indefinitely. Once you’re happy with how it’s grown you can then return to your island and plant the plant in the ground, then you can start again with a new one. If you’d like to take a break you can leave your little character to meditate on the island.
It’s a very charming and creative little game that makes clever use of the desktop environment. It’d be nice to see it expanded on (and incorporate a save system) as it’s a perfect little distraction to play around with during a break. Highly recommended.
Check Out a Gameplay Video Here
Download Desktop Garden Here (Windows)