Iceberg InteractiveOne strange thing that happens when you work retail or service industry jobs is that people start to imagine you’re borderline psychic. They want you to get them what they had last time, or that thing with the coffee and flavoring they can’t quite remember, or the book with the blue cover, you know the one. It turns your day into the world’s worst puzzle game, but one actual puzzle game makes that strange quirk of customer psychology into a satisfying mystery to solve.In Strange Horticulture, you play as the owner of a plant shop fulfilling customer requests by figuring out exactly what kind of plan suits their needs. That might make it sound like a cute and cozy life sim, until your work starts putting you in contact with a mysterious cult in the woods and you find out that you can just as easily poison your patrons as help them out. Released to rave reviews in 2022, Strange Horticulture is now free on the Epic Games Store until August 28.Fortunately, deciphering the needs of your customers is way more enjoyable in Strange Horticulture than it is reality. The game quickly establishes a familiar loop: a customer comes in with some notion of what they want, typically only knowing what the plant they need looks or smells like, or what effect they want to get from it. Then it’s up to you to use your shop’s tools and knowledge you gain as you play to make the right selection. You can examine each plant in your possession closely, feeling the leaves, checking the shape of its bulbs, and compare that to notes you’ve gathered from previous encounters. You’ll know immediately if you gave the customer the right plant, though the immediate consequences of wrong answers are quite small, mostly just that you need to succeed on a quick minigame to recover if you answer incorrectly multiple times in a day.Poring over your stock and your notes to figure out each person’s needs is slow, methodical work, and it’s also what makes Strange Horticulture a joy. As you piece together more botanical knowledge throughout the game and get better at solving more challenging mysteries, there’s a real sense that you’re becoming an expert, the kind of person who can be relied on to solve the town’s woes. More than just solving puzzles, it really does feel like turning into a seasoned arcane researcher.Occasionally, the game takes you outside your shop. Customers and strange messages delivered after dark will sometimes point you to new locations in and around the town your shop is located in to follow up on another mystery. There, you can find new plants to add to your collection, thus letting you fulfill even more requests later, or advancing the game’s larger story.Half the fun of Strange Horticulture is just poring over books about plants. | Iceberg InteractiveWhile the main joy of Strange Horticulture is in your flexing your research abilities and choosing which plants to offer customers, you can also influence a larger plot that’s unfolding in the background. A dark power grows on the outskirts of the town, and your humble shopkeeper has the ability to stop or aid it in small ways throughout the game. At times, you’ll be asked to side with hunters, cultists, and other mysterious strangers with a stake in the occult happenings, where your herbal remedies and poisons can make all the difference.Now is a particularly good time to check out Strange Horticulture if you haven’t yet. On September 17, developer Bad Viking releases Strange Antiquities, a sequel that puts you in charge of a collection of curious occult relics like broaches and carvings instead of plants, but with a similar structure to Strange Horticulture.It doesn’t look like a typical detective game, but that’s what Strange Horticulture is in essence. Every day you’re given small cases to crack, and relying on your own knowledge and instincts is the only way through. The life of a plant seller may seem chill, but in Strange Horticulture, it’s full of thrilling mysteries that just might decide the fate of the world.Strange Horticulture is available now on Nintendo Switch, Android, iOS, and PC. It’s free on Epic Games Store until August 28.