Purcitop Garden

Lost in shrubbery.

Here’s a game about solving mazes, which takes place in the biggest garden this side of Babylon – so vast it’s split up into several procedurally generated levels. You’re there to meet your uncle – the inventor Professor Eustace – but first you have to fathom your way around his sprawling garden.

From a top-down perspective, you’ll trudge through a series of mazes hitting dead ends and doubling back on yourself, before finally acquiring the key to each exit and moving on. This simple act of orienteering is soon expanded with NPCs, acquirable tools including hedge trimmers, and occasional minigames in a variety of genres. There’s bags of content here, and it’s all whimsical, giving off the vibe of a cosy old children’s novel set in the English countryside. You’ll talk to foxes, race snails, and insult gnomes. Purcitop throws everything up the garden path to make its mazes more interesting.

TOM SYKES

If you can put up with a bit of gruel, there’s an excess of charm inside this weird and whimsical garden.