I am not what anyone would describe as a plant person. Not because I don’t like them — I do. Rather, plants don’t seem to like me. The handful of houseplants scattered around my home exist in a state somewhere between quiet suffering and complete neglect.
So, naturally, when presented with the opportunity to run an entire plant shop in Leafy Corner, I enthusiastically embraced a level of horticultural responsibility I could simply never achieve in real life.
And honestly? It is absolutely lovely. A visually delightful, deeply satisfying, cosy management sim.
Growing Your Little Plant Empire
The premise in Leafy Corner is refreshingly straightforward. You buy pots, choose plants, water them when they need it, wait for them to grow, then sell them to customers. The profits are reinvested into more pots, more plants, more furniture, and before long you’re overseeing a surprisingly successful botanical retail operation.
Progression is simple, too. You complete a variety of objectives which award Leaf Points, which can be spent unlocking new plant varieties, furniture and decorations. Meanwhile, your shop’s reputation gradually increases through six tiers, which unlocks additional space, larger pots and more advanced plants.
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There’s always another goal on the horizon, whether that’s hitting a sales milestone, discovering a new species, or completing customer orders. It creates a satisfying sense of momentum without ever feeling stressful. There’s other parts of running a plant empire that raise the stress levels, but more on that later.
A Store Worth Showing Off
One of Leafy Corner‘s biggest strengths is simply how pleasant it is to look at. The soft colour palette, calming soundtrack and abundance of greenery (naturally) combine to create exactly the sort of cost atmosphere the game is aiming for. The plants themselves are beautifully illustrated as well.
The depth of customisation is excellent as well — you have full reign to design your store how you please, and you’re given a huge selection of furniture and decorations to work with.
There is also a genuine satisfaction in watching your shelves slowly fill out with plants, seeing the tiny seedlings mature into fully grown plants.
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Getting to Know Your Greens
Despite its straightforward premise, there’s a surprising amount of depth when it comes to the plants themselves.
Each plant has different growth times and watering requirements, amongst other characteristics — some are pet-safe, others are easy care. You’ll even encounter variegated plants, which develop from existing specimens rather than being grown directly.
These characteristics form the basis for fulfilling customer requests. Customers — either in store or via the phone — will constantly come to you with specific requests for plants they are after. Some are straightforward enough — someone wants a small succulent, or a large leafy plant, or something their cat won’t accidentally poison itself on. Others are significantly more cryptic, requiring some detective work to interpret.
One of the side-effects of the constant customer fulfilments was actually learning things about everyday houseplants. I finished my time with Leafy Corner knowing significantly more about houseplants than when I started.
The World’s Most Patient Customers
The real stars of the game, however, are the customers. They possess a level of patience that I simply never could. At one point, I had a customer standing in my shop for three in-game days while I grew a new plant from scratch to fulful her order. She never complained. Never left. Never questioned her life choices. Once the plant was finally ready, she parted with her money, thanked me profusely and walked out happily.
And all the customers were the same. Do these people have jobs? Families? Other hobbies?
I was glad for it, though. Knowing that I could take as much time as I wanted in figuring out and delivering on their needs removed what would’ve been a huge layer of stress.
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Watering: When Art Imitates Life
Where Leafy Corner can get stressful is watering. I hate watering plants, both in my actual life and in my Leafy Corner life. In fact, I hate it more in my Leafy Corner life because of the relentless pace I need to operate at to keep all my plants hydrated.
Early on, it is perfectly manageable. A handful of plants, a small shop, no worries. Later — once you’ve filled every available corner with greenery — the watering workload ramps up considerably. At times, it started to feel less like running a plant store and more like working full-time as a plant waterer, where you’re perpetually in a race against time.
There is, of course, a very simple solution: pause the game, water everything, then carry on. I rejected this solution entirely and chose stress instead.
Leafy Corner could also benefit from some additional quality-of-life features, such as being able to search or filter plants by name or characteristics.
Should you play Leafy Corner?
Leafy Corner delivers a cosy, (mostly) relaxing and surprisingly compelling shop-management experience. Between its beautiful presentation, meaningful progression systems and extensive customisation options, it’s the sort of game that quietly consumes an entire evening before you realise what’s happened.
Even if, like me, your real-life plants are suffering at the hands of your neglect, Leafy Corner makes building a thriving plant collection feel effortless.
…just don’t expect me to start tending to my actual plants with the same enthusiasm.
Quest Daily scores Leafy Corner:
8.5/10
Leafy Corner is out on 31 July on Xbox Series X|S, Playstation 5 and PC via Steam.
Early access to Leafy Corner was supplied to Quest Daily for the purposes of this review.
