Botanica is being made here
We're six people working on Botanica in our spare time. We share new playable versions early, so we can see where players get stuck and what the game is still missing.
Community playtest
Botanica is playable and still taking shape. On Discord, you can talk to us directly about the game. Tell us where you got stuck and what you would like to see improved before your next test. That helps us spot the next problems worth solving.
A 2D top-down colony builder about growing, harvesting and processing plants on an alien planet. The current Windows prototype is still early, which is exactly why we want to test it with our community.
About Wandelblatt
Wandelblatt brings six people, several disciplines and one shared hobby project together.
Game design, art, development and organisation share the same virtual table. Everyone brings their own ideas and experience.
We put new ideas into a playable version as early as we can. Testing soon tells us what holds up and what needs another pass.
Concepts, stories and mechanics do not stay on paper for long. We build them and try them directly in the game.
Art, characters and small details give Botanica its own character. They also show what is happening around the colony.
Botanica's systems are built in Unity. Playing the game tells us which ones are solid and which ones need more work.
Clear communication and tasks that fit around work and everyday life keep the hobby project moving.
Our story
Or: Who Wandelblatt was before the leaf turned.
Today, we're continuing to develop Botanica and working towards regular updates.
Our story is far from over.
If you play Botanica and tell us what works and what still needs attention, you can help shape the next chapter. Here, we look back from where we are today to where it all began.
After plenty of sweat, tears, broken keyboards and spilled coffee, the day finally arrives. We proudly release our prototype on itch.io.
And if they haven't died, they're still working on it today.
Not really, right? Oh yes!
The project changes along with the people. It jumps from genre to genre until the core idea for Botanica finally takes shape in 2022.
A game about growing plants.
Simple. Cosy.
Or is it?
What if we made it hardcore instead?
What if it was science fiction? A post-apocalyptic world where alien plants want to destroy everything and humanity fights for bare survival on a hostile planet?
No, no. That would be too much …
… or would it?
That one question, “What if?”, changes the game into what we now know as “Botanica: Leaf or Die”.
The year is 2020. Daniel and Dajana are looking for more people to join a game project about a robot. But this robot is travelling through a different timeline. And none of it has anything to do with plants yet.
The fabled game in question is … not Botanica. It is something else entirely.
But as so often happens with passion projects, the result ends up looking very different from the original plan.
Over time, people join, leave and return. Some simply get lost and are never seen again.
Long before Wandelblatt, Daniel tinkered with game ideas on his own. First with RPG Maker, maps and small mods, then later with Unity 5.
But the ideas grew bigger. And bigger.
Until Daniel realised: they might be a little too ambitious for one person. Besides, making games together was simply more fun.
How we develop
We do not wait for a perfect version. A playable version and honest feedback tell us more than an idea that only sounds good on paper.
An idea has to prove itself in the game. We make a first version, test it and change it when it does not hold up.
Playing reveals things we can easily miss ourselves. We listen, put the feedback into context and explain our decisions.
Game design, art, development and organisation look at the same game from different angles. That helps when a decision is difficult.
The people working on Botanica
Six people with different roles, making one game together.
We work from different places and bring different experiences to the project. Botanica is where game design, art, development and organisation meet.
Unity developer
Daniel builds Botanica's systems in Unity with a close eye on clean code and performance. He rarely leaves a technical problem alone before it is solved reliably.
Project manager
Dajana keeps track of deadlines, meetings and to-do lists. When things get messy, she brings order back and helps the team find the next useful step.
Game designer
Sarah develops ideas, mechanics and stories for Botanica. She pays particular attention to the small decisions that should feel right in the finished interaction.
Graphic designer
David turns ideas into characters, scenes and animations. His eye for detail gives Botanica's world its visible form.
Visual designer
Julian works on Botanica's visual language and user guidance, bringing atmosphere, detail and readability together.
Unity developer
Maysen builds new mechanics in Unity and takes existing systems apart when they are not quite working. That turns technical ideas into playable features.
Notes from development
The first post is still a draft. Later, this is where we will record concrete changes to the game and decisions from development.
The first post is not public yet, but the draft is already waiting.
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