A Hero and a Garden by NPCKC

[137beth]

NPCKC has released the upgraded version of A Hero and a Garden, a hybrid between a visual novel and a clicker game, on PC and Android, two years after releasing it on consoles and three years after releasing a preview version on Itch.

Here's my review:

Spoiler: A wall of text

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A Hero and a Garden is a visual novel disguised as a clicker game by npckc. You play as a knight who unsuccessfully tries to rescue a princess from a wicked witch, but ends up as a gardener in a village full of monsters instead.

You collect magic berries from bushes, which you can sell for money and use to complete missions, which get you upgrades that help you gather berries faster. Every time you complete a quest or buy an upgrade, you see a cutscene with story dialogue. Sometimes, that means talking to one of the monsters in the village and learning about their way of life. Other times, you learn about the lives of the protagonist and the princess he failed to rescue.

Can you repair the town (that you destroyed)? Can you put your own life back together in the process? Why were you so desperate to rescue the princess in the first place? What’s the real deal with the witch and the princess, anyways?

Playing through, I find myself constantly intrigued to know more about the characters and their world. Though some parts of the story are sad, the main characters’ snark keeps the mood light hearted for most of the game.

Now I want to help manage your expectations about the genre: this is a story first and a game second. In my play-through I spent more time reading the story dialogue than collecting berries. If you are hoping for a massive idle game with thousands of possible upgrades and months of grinding, you will be disappointed! The veneer of an idle game adds a bit of immersion by forcing you to see things from the perspective of the protagonist, who initially doesn’t want to be a gardener. But the developer doesn’t make you live every minute of the protagonist’s life: you don’t actually have to spend a lot of time picking berries to see how the story ends.


If you’ve played other games by NPCKC, you are probably expecting this game to have a lot of LGBTQ characters, and in that regard the author does not disappoint. However, this is not a story about being queer: it’s just a story where all the characters happen to be queer.

The story is mostly linear. You can choose in which order to do some quests, but the plot isn’t affected by your choice in that regard. There are five endings, but which one you get is determined entirely by a single choice at the end. You can replay the ending from the “gallery,” so you can see all five endings without playing through the full game again. I wish there was an option to view other cutscenes in the gallery too.

There is also no meaningful character customization. The protagonist has a set appearance, personality, gender, and name (although it takes awhile before we hear his name, which is why I’ve left it out of this review.)

An older version of this game was released on Itch and Google Play in 2019. This is an upgraded version that was released on consoles in 2020. If you already have the original, what are you getting with this one? The first change you’ll notice is the addition of FHD graphics, though they retain the abstract hand-drawn style of the original.

Also added is an “endless mode,” unlocked when you beat the game, that allows you to continue collecting berries without any more story. In the developer’s newsletter, she said she “had a lot of people requesting this.” However, if you are like me and don’t like clicker games, then this mode doesn’t really add any value.

The gallery has a new section that includes the sounds from throughout the game, as well as some sketch pictures. However, as mentioned above, there is no option to replay cutscenes from the middle of the game.

Nothing new was added to the story compared to the original version. I think that is my biggest disappointment in this version of the game. While the protagonist's story wraps up nicely, I would have liked to see more of some of the side characters. Maybe someday we'll get a sequel.


All in all, I’m glad I replayed this game.