Rose: For someone who has never heard of your game, how would you describe it without using the usual genre labels?
Tiny Desk Pot is as literal as it comes. This idle game features a little 3D flower pot that sits in the bottom of your desktop while you work, play with friends or doomscroll, keeping you company and adding a touch of green to your screen.
Rose: Where did the idea for this game come from?
We wanted to make a desktop idle game for a while and since we jumped from our first commercial game, Tiny Garden, to a completely different genre with Die or Die, we thought of giving a small cozy game to our cool community. They helped us A LOT when we needed them back in the day during our Kickstarter campaign and we made this little game as an extra thank you to all of them. The thing is that we are a really small team and it took a while to give this the attention we wanted, while developing Die or Die and trying to survive the current state of the industry.
Rose: What makes your game different from other games in the same space?
I think this genre, started by Mr.Morris Games with Rusty’s Retirement, if I’m not wrong, is a very kind space to be and it accepts a lot of different approaches. Same as we did with Tiny Garden, we wanted to approach farming games from a minimal take. Don’t create a vast terrain with hundreds of vegetables, just focus on this one in front of you. Pay attention to it, wait for it to grow and flourish, let it be around you decorating your desktop and breathing life into it. We wanted to give the player the slow yet rewarding sensation of taking care of just one small plant at a time, mixing the farming genre with a Tamagotchi, so to say.
Rose: Was there anything you had to cut that you still secretly wish you could put back?
Oh of course! How many more vegetables and flower pots you think we would like to add? Hahah. Ah and the garden gnome house customization mode. Remember the secret bases from Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire…? :P
Rose: What is something players probably won't realize took an absurd amount of work?
The game is done since almost a year, but ironically what took a huge amount of time for us was finding enough time to start promoting it and developing a clear roadmap to publish it.
Rose: What is the weirdest bug you've encountered that you almost wanted to keep?
Got to be sincere, the golden vegetables are here because they were a visual bug in the beginning.
Rose: Is there a particular emotion you wanted players to walk away with from your game?
The sensation of taking care of a plant. Quietness, contemplation, comfort.
Rose: What's one piece of advice you wish you'd had before starting?
Being a tiny team is tough and it’s going to be hard for you to find enough time for promoting your game, so just start promoting your game earlier!
Rose: Five years from now, what do you hope people remember about this game?
We don’t aspire Tiny Desk Pot to be a long-lasting memory. We simply want to make people company somehow and to help them heal and be calm while they face the heavy day-by-day duties.
Rose: Why should someone reading/watching this go play your game today?
You know what? It is cute, it is cheap and it’s a cool revival of the classic 90s-00s Pc screensavers. You don’t have to do a thing if you don’t want to, just let that cute bunch of flowers grow and decorate your boring computer screen <3
Rose: Finally, the question we ask every developer: After everything you’ve told us, can you officially confirm that your game is, in fact, probably a game? Why should we believe you?
It is probably a game, indeed. Not 100% sure hahaha, players have still to try it themselves! You should believing someone who loves taking care of plants and has a little garden. That is probably a game too. A slow-pathed and a rewarding one, though. No dopamine, no huge numbers going Brrrrrrrr!, just a calm and silent game where the goal is clear and the path is as important as the objective itself.