What Is a Gardenvania? Exploring Nectarmancer’s Take on Metroidvania
Nectarmancer gameplay featuring a giant plant-like creature in a glowing purple environment
What happens when plant cultivation becomes part of the adventure, rather than just a background activity?
Nectarmancer, developed by The Beauty Cult, describes itself as a “Gardenvania”—a blend of Metroidvania-style exploration and plant-based gameplay. Combining interconnected-world exploration, genetic experimentation, and acrobatic combat, the game puts living plants at the center of how players fight and explore.
But what does this approach look like in practice?
What Is a Gardenvania?
Gardenvania is a term used to describe a blend of Metroidvania-style exploration and gardening or plant cultivation mechanics. In Nectarmancer, this idea connects the discovery and development of plants with the challenges players encounter throughout the game.
Metroidvania games are commonly associated with interconnected environments and exploration that opens up new possibilities as players progress. Nectarmancer brings its own twist to this structure by making plants an important part of combat, equipment, and exploration.
Players can discover plant species, preserve genetic traits, and create hybrids. These plants can serve as weapons, tools, and unique equipment, giving plant cultivation a practical role in the gameplay experience.
Exploring a World Beyond the Walls
Players take on the role of Aisa, a prisoner forced to join a gathering team and sent beyond the walls surrounding the territory controlled by THE THRONE. Her objective is to collect Nectar, a mysterious substance that powers this world.
Beyond the walls lie the Wilds, where spirits run rampant, ecosystems are collapsing, and nature has been transformed through forbidden experiments.
As Aisa ventures deeper into this environment, she begins to uncover a disturbing truth: the world is not on the brink of destruction by chance.
Exploration provides the setting for encountering new plant species, facing threats, and uncovering more about the world beyond the walls.
Growing Plants Into Weapons and Tools
One of Nectarmancer’s defining features is its plant cultivation system.
Players can discover rare plant species, preserve their genetic traits, and experiment with hybrid combinations. The resulting plants can become living weapons, tools, or unique equipment.
This makes plant discovery more than collecting items. Different species and genetic combinations contribute to the options available to players as they progress through the game.
Want to explore this idea further? Read our previous article, “What If You Grew Your Own Weapons?”
Nectarmancer gameplay showing a lush green environment with glowing plants and a village structure
Plant-Based Abilities and Exploration
Plants are connected not only to combat in Nectarmancer, but also to the game’s ability and progression systems.
The game features a living bio-computer called the Substrate, which can be enhanced to unlock Nectar abilities, equipable upgrades, and skill-tree progression.
These systems sit alongside the game’s interconnected environments and plant-based mechanics, connecting character development with continued exploration.
Acrobatic Combat in the Wilds
Nectarmancer also features high-speed, acrobatic combat. Players can dash, jump, attack, and use abilities while facing enemies and powerful bosses.
Alongside plant cultivation and genetic experimentation, combat forms a core part of the game’s action-platforming experience. These elements come together in its Gardenvania approach, combining exploration with the use and development of plant-based abilities and equipment.
Nectarmancer gameplay featuring a bright pink energy attack during action-platforming combat
Discover Nectarmancer
Gardenvania offers a way to describe games that bring plant cultivation into exploration-focused gameplay. In Nectarmancer, this concept is expressed through interconnected environments, genetic experimentation, plant-based equipment, and acrobatic combat.
For players interested in action-platformers with a different approach to exploration and progression, Nectarmancer offers a world where plants are more than scenery. They are part of how players engage with the challenges ahead.
Discover Nectarmancer on Steam here.