It's been just under a month since we opened up our greenhouse and unveiled our silly little horticultural combat game, Planted!. As our very first original game, please forgive us as we take a moment to say... cripes, what a start to our journey so far! There have been heaps of emotions now we're out in the wild. Screaming, crying, throwing up, you know, the usual when you first unveil a game.
Planted! has been a sponge for all of our silly ideas over the past few years here at Cloth Cat Games, so to have folks already enjoying what we have has honestly been humbling. We've had a tonne of great feedback as well as some great interest in what we've got growing.
To kick things off, just a week after our announcement, we were incredibly fortunate to be selected to showcase at London Games Festival's New Game Plus event as one of the Indie Selects 2026.
We want to continue to share little tidbits and ancedotes from our development journey, as well as give you the opportunity to provide feedback that helps us shape the final game. Whilst we're the ones making the game, we're making it for you, and you...and YOU! So, join us on this horticultural adventure, won't you?
Moving forward, we'll be posting regular content blasts to keep you in the loop with how development is progressing with an aim of a Devlog every 3 weeks (Trust us, some days are just boring admin stuff) We're also going to be looking at experimenting with a few formats - from written, through to a couple of videos here and there. We'd be super keen to hear which you'd prefer, but also whether there's any topics you'd love to hear about.
One of the things we love about having a platform like Steam is that we can take you on a bit of a journey with us and share a little bit more about the games development as it's happening. Stuff that you don't usually get to hear about. Our publisher are also pretty cool with this stuff, so are very happy with us to share :)
So, without further ado, what's going on in development right now? Answer: A lot. Here's a quick summary
We've just recently finished work on all of our biomes - hoorah! Everything is more or less setdressed and ready for us to unleash mayhem
Our initial character roster is locked and art is more or less complete (But we'll be keeping the full list a little under wraps in the name of "Marketing" 😉)
We *think* we've now locked in our powerups? Maybe? Depends how our designers feel tomorrow as there's an ever growing list of cool ideas that are firmly in the "If we have time" pile.
Early online multiplayer testing has begun - with Photon serving as its backbone, leading the way to future crossplay integration!
Our console ports are being developed simultaneously to main development
Singleplayer has had a lot of love these past few weeks too - with our silly little story beats now locked :) Yes, Planted is more than just a party game! More to share in the future!
Speaking of feedback, we also wanted to share that as a result of some conversations at New Game Plus, we're already making some tweaks. One point was the accessibility of 'button tapping' when stealing from your opponents - we're currently trialing a "button hold" system. We may take a second look at this to see if there's scope to include a toggle - but for now - Button holds are a-go!
TL:DR: Still plenty to get done, but we're still well on track to hit our late 2026 launch window!
We've also had a few questions pop-up along the way around what the gampleay loop of Planted actually is. Maybe they haven't read our steam page? Maybe our trailer isn't clear enough? Let's take a quick look!
Planted!, at its core, is a game about gardening. Onions, carrots, watermelons, experimental clones, you name it, you can grow it.
There are 8 core biomes in Planted!, with each biome providing a unique spin on the games core horticultural combat, but they all share one aspect in common; producing produce!
The first step in achieving your green thumbed throne is to dig your patch. Grab a spade, resist the urge to hurl it at your opponents, and start digging. You’ll start to notice small boxes matching your character’s colour pop up, primed and ready to begin planting.
Next, race the competition to grab the nearest bag of seeds and carefully drop them into the dirt to begin your patch of profit...er...plants! You’ll only get five seeds per bag so be sure to grab plenty. Occasionally you’ll be prompted to grow certain vegetation for extra points, so it’s always best to have a healthy mix on the go.
Next it’s time to nurture those tiny seeds into profitable produce. Be sure to water and add fertiliser to the patches - one or the other is fine for a quick buck - but you'll have to add both for the truly prize winning pineapples (they're bigger, they're worth more!)
But wait, that sounds simple? Sure. But then try throwing in 3 opponents, random environmental hazards as well as power-ups, and you'll hopefully start to see where the core chaos starts coming from. (5-finger discounts may also come into play too 😉)
And that’s everything! You’re well on your way to becoming the next Viscount of Vegetables.
Are we doing Game Dev right by putting a teaser at the bottom? You tell us. All we're going to say for now is... for a game like Planted!, we want to ensure that we're hitting the expectations of a silly, crazy, fun lil' party game that you want to play with your friends. To get there, there's plenty that will need testing and we might have a little more to share on that, very, very soon.
For now, though, to keep up to date on all the news, keep an eye out right here and check us out on socials! We'll also have some news on a Discord super soon :)
- Team Cloth Cat 🧅