Recently, I got into Garden Diary - a mobile application game by Windbell. I actually played Dungeon Diary by the same creator, so the mechanics were actually quite similar.
When you first started the game, you will be prompted to create your main character (in terms of his/her appearance and name). This character will be the only character that is the most loyal - completing achievements in game will allow you to create another character to accompany your main character, but they will have a loyalty bar that either increases or drops whenever you finish or fail a quest respectively. Allies hired from pubs will presumeably have the same features as your other characters, but they're too costly to hire for a stingy gamer such as I. Something might happen once the loyalty bar hits 0, but I am not looking forward to find out!
The game features dungeons you can send your characters too (currently I only have two characters and Reborn Forest available for me). There are few types of dungeons; namely Free Quest, Collection, Escort and Extermination. Free Quests would be the one done more often to farm - and when it looks easy or possible to overcome, Escort and even Extermination (Extermination is the hardest). The dungeons may have multiple areas, increasing in difficulty in tandem with a higher area number selected to explore.
Once every dungeon exploration is complete, your characters will obtain stat points which you can invest. My character named Thanathos is purely wisdom based (as I have obtained a rule which allows him to cast spells with an 83% probability). Aeon, on the other hand is purely strength - explaining his high health (heart symbol) and physical attack (the sword symbol) compared to Thanathos' high magical attack (cane symbol). The shoe symbol indicates speed, which might influence the speed of which the dungeon is completed (Exploring to AREA 3 takes 1 hour). The blue star symbol indicates stress level, which increases if the character dies in battle. If you look closely, you can see the loyalty sign next to Aeon.
When the dungeon is completed successfully, items can be obtained. Most of the time, I sell these items as they have not much use for me currently. At the beginning of the game, I collected some wood to craft weapons for my characters, but now I just sell them. I keep the seemingly important stuff given to me by escorted NPCs, seeds that can be used to beautify my garden and eggs - but thats it.
You get to have your own garden, in which the land are bought by using tickets of real estates. Seeds you obtain from completing dungeons can be planted here, but so far I still do not know the purpose of the growth besides making the garden look more pleasant to the eyes. You can dig for stuff in your garden and even hatch an egg here (I hatched a chicken but it ran away, IKR. Such randomness). You can give LOVE to your flowers and chickens once per day even if they are at a baby stage, and the dialogue is very funny to look at. "Some Seed Laughed", "Egg is Pleased" etc.
You get to pay to go into the Pub every day for free daily items (source of rule lottery ticket for your rules and free character tickets and other stuff). The more money you use to go into the Pub, the more the Pub earns - and that allows it to upgrade the spaces for allies that you can see inside the Pub and other (still unknown to me) stuff.
Gameplay wise, I give this game a 7/10 because it is that unique. I know of many games by Windbell, and the art is very cute and entertaining. The UI or User Interface to the game is also very friendly to first time players, if you know what you are doing. Although the translation done on the game is only so, so - it is basically still understandable and adds to the laughs. The ads are also pleasant - the game does not play video ads without permission like some other apps and leave advertisments in small windows that do not disrupt gameplay.
Looking forward to more from Windbell, Garden Diary has indeed captured my heart.
XOXO
KiiKii the Yu
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