A Plant Named Patience
Overview
A Plant Named Patience is a gentle narrative game about a teen, a Tube channel, and a leafy little gift from Grandma, all within a fortnight.
Each day, you choose: nurture your growing plant or chase YouTube fame. Some days feel quiet. Some feel chaotic. But in the space between watering and uploading, you’ll discover what it means to care for something, for someone, and maybe even for yourself.
It’s not about winning. It’s about growing slowly, quietly, honestly.
Because some things don’t go viral. They just take root.
Team:
Development, graphics and testing: APel & PGad
Music and testing: Instrumetal
Submission For Narrative Design Awards 2025
Genre: Narrative choice-based, slice-of-life
Tone: Warm, introspective, gently emotional with lighthearted moments
Estimated Playtime: 10 - 15 mins per playthrough
Branching narratives: 3 distinct narrative paths with subtle variations
Replayability: High
Attribution:
- Caw sound: zeroisnotnull (CC0 license) link
- Meow sound: IgnasD (CC0 license) link
- Font: Blokletters Potlood
- Colour palette: Verdant valley
- All the images were designed by our team.
Controls: Point-and-click using mouse.
Core Themes
- Care takes time: Growth can’t be rushed
- Digital identity vs. real self: Where do we perform, and where are we honest?
- Memory and legacy: The plant is not just a plant it carries memory, connection, and presence.
- Balance and burnout: Is it possible to do everything without losing yourself?
Narrative Goals
- Encourage emotional reflection through small, everyday choices
- Build empathy by connecting mundane actions to long-term meaning
- Ending leave players feeling something … whether it’s warmth, nostalgia, or gentle ache
Narrative Mechanics
The game takes place over 14 in-game days, each beginning with a binary choice:
- A plant-related action (e.g., watering, observing, playing music for plant)
- A Tube-related action (e.g. creating music for Tube)
Each day contains branching decisions that determine the trajectory of the player’s path. These critical junctures are based on:
- The consistency and depth of plant interaction
- The nature and intensity of YouTube activity
- Occasional hybrid actions that test the balance
Branching Paths : Character development (Spoiler-Free Summary)
- Path 1: The Caretaker : The player devotes themselves to the plant. This path rewards emotional investment, reflection, and slowness. The narrative becomes inward, poetic, and tied to nature, Granny, and quiet meaning.
- Path 2: The Creator: The player prioritizes content, performance, and growth. The story here is louder, faster, and increasingly artificial until moments of vulnerability begin to peek through. It explores success, disconnection, and the cost of “keeping up.”
- Path 3: The Balancer: A difficult path to reach; this narrative unfolds when the player manages to meaningfully engage with both the plant and the channel. It highlights self-awareness, compromise, and creative alignment. It’s less about perfection and more about authenticity.
Character Design
- The Player (Protagonist): You role play a teenager. Curious, creative, torn between expression and responsibility.
- Granny (Offscreen Presence): A gentle, grounding influence. Appears through memories and letter. Her presence is subtle but emotionally strong.
- The Plant: Symbolic and responsive. Its state visually changes over time, echoing the player’s emotional arc.
- Fans/Subscribers (e.g., Rin): Represent external feedback and inner doubts. Their messages add reflection and emotional texture.
- Future Self (in one path): A narrative tool for closure and affirmation.
Environmental Narrative
- The Plant’s Visual State: Non-verbal storytelling through growth, color, posture.
- The computer Interface: Reflects creative success and chaos evolving over time, provides tasks to the player and email as a feedback.
Replayability
- 3 main narrative paths encourage replay to explore all outcomes
- Unique visual states for the plant tied to emotional progress
- Random interactions with environment
Environmental interactive elements
- Granny's photo
- Cat
- Birds in the sky
- Guitar in the corner
- Coffee cup
Inner workings (for game engine geeks!)
This game uses a concept of finite state machine. Read more.
- Press 'D' to see how the game handles calculations.
- STATE shows the finite engine state
- Plant shows what plant state plant is in
- Plantlevel shows player's level
- IsGreen boolean tells if the plant is green or dried
- IsDayEnd boolean tells if day has ended.
- The text input can be used to go to a specific state. Try entering DAY12
- Press 'S' to hide the calculations.
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