The Abbess Garden News

[p]I have been interested in games for natural & cultural heritage for a while. When I created MD Studio in 2024, I decided that my first game would be a gardening game with real plants set in Port-Royal des Champs in the 17th century. I knew this abbey very well, as my friend and colleague Sylvain Hilaire had done his PhD on the history of its landscape.[/p][p][/p][p]As The Abbess Garden is our first game and this is a self-funded project, I decided to gather a tiny team and stay focused on the game, without trying to apply for grants or publisher funding.[/p][p][/p][p]Two months ago, I was contacted by indie.io, a company specialising in helping indie games with marketing and distribution. It was very unexpected, so we looked at who they are and what they do (also took a very close look at the contract ;) ). indie.io is based in USA, with team members working remotely from all around the country. They have worked with several nice cozy games, which they have helped reach more gamers.[/p][p][/p][p]They offered to help us notably with marketing (doing the trailers, running ads, reaching out to press and content creators…) and QA testing. I found that very interesting, as I was doing it all myself. It’s not my speciality, so even though I do my best, I cannot replace an experienced team. As you can guess, I liked the idea of focusing on creating the game’s content! [/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]They offer a lot more services, but these are the ones which made me consider their offer seriously. [/p][p]So I talked to the team and decided to join forces with indie.io 🙂 As you can imagine, we are very excited by this opportunity![/p][p]We have already begun working together: you might have noticed a few improvements on our Steam page![/p][p][/p][p]For The Abbess Garden’s release, we discussed it with indie.io as soon as the partnership was established, and I am very proud to announce we decided to go for March 2 2026!!![/p][p][/p][p]We are getting close to the completion of the game, so that leaves us time for QA and polish, and to send preview keys to the press and influencers ahead of the release. It’s actually both far and very close ;)[/p][p]
We have prepared a new trailer to announce it with indie.io, I hope you’ll like it![/p][p][/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p][/p][p]The Women-Led Games Steam Festival just started! It features games where at least 50% team members are women/nb :) The Abbess Garden's demo is in there :) And a lot more cozy games![/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]🌿🌿🌿
[/p][p]Don’t forget we have a Discord (I share regular tiny updates there ;) ) and a newsletter (for in-depth updates), and be sure to wishlist and follow the game to stay up to date with future news! [/p][p][/p][p]I wish you an excellent day, with a lot of sun and flowers 🌸[/p]

[p]Dear players,[/p][p][/p][p]I was invited to the Utopiales festival recently. It was initially mostly about sci-fi, but it has become more open to fiction in general. There is a video game area, and the professional gamedev association my studio is part of (Atlangames) helps with organising it.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]The Utopiales are held in Nantes, the biggest city of my region, which is very pleasant and which I hadn't visited in a while! The weather was nice, so I took a few pictures of the Château des Ducs de Bretagne :) [/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]I participated in a Twitch livestream on the Utopiales channel (hosted by Moustique and Le_Technicien 💖), it was my first and a very good experience! [/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Then I presented The Abbess Garden in a workshop where visitors playtested the game (organised by Chloe, a fellow indie developer of Eode). It was organized in the historical buildings of LU (a brand well known here for their "petit beurre"). Cultural heritage is everywhere ;) [/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]The new part for me was that there were a lot of children, and the game being only in English made me do a lot of live translation ;) It was still very fun and useful![/p][p][/p][p]🌿🌿🌿 [/p][p][/p][p]In the meantime, we are working on finishing the game's content. Giovanni is writing the dialogs while I am modeling, texturing, rendering/drawing (for the icons and book) and integrating the plants in Unity.[/p][p][/p][p]I don't want to spoil to much, so here it's just one plant, one of my favourites (the first plant I bought as a kid ;) ): the columbine! It's probably a bit too much detailed considering it's only seen from afar in the game, but it was very interesting to model![/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Let me know what your favourite plants are![/p][p][/p][p]🌿🌿🌿
[/p][p]I wish you all an excellent day :)[/p]

[p]Dear players!

The new demo is out!!! Yay!!! [/p][p][/p][p]It includes a lot of improvements, new content, and a new gardening system, which I want to introduce to you today![/p][p][/p][p]To make the gardening complexity progressive, there are only very easy plants at the beginning of the game. They need an appropriate quantity of water. [/p][p]The more you progress into the game, the more you will be given fussy plants ;) From chapter 3 onwards, in addition to water, you will need to verify that the plants are in an area with the right soil, too.

You can now examine the soil to plant them in the area with appropriate soil, or plant them anywhere and add the specific soil they want. [/p][p][/p][p][/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p][/p][p]There are 4 types of soil (humus, gravel, sand, clay). Some areas will have some of it already, and there are several "surfacing soil" areas that you use to dig up some soil to add to another place. Beware, you cannot remove soil from the ground, and it will remain this way for several months! Like water, you can move the plants, but not the soil.

It is, of course, a simplified simulation system. I hope you'll like it and it will add interesting depth to our gardening systems :) Let us know what you think!

The last system is the proximity system (for the very fussy plants that like to be alone, near a specific plant, etc. ;) ). It will be in the full game![/p][p][/p][p]🌿🌿🌿
[/p][p]I wish you all an excellent day :)[/p]

[p]Hi! [/p][p][/p][p]The last devlog was about the demo release! It went pretty well and we are happy :)[/p][p]359 players tried it so far, and 29 answered our demo survey (very useful, thank you!!!)[/p][p][/p][p]There weren't too many bugs, but I still had to fix some collision and saving issues. I also added a small quality-of-life improvement feature: you can now change the music and sound effects volume in the settings :)[/p][p]
I was on holiday most of the month (rest is important too!!!) and I'm getting back to working on The Abbess Garden today, with a fun event: Back To School 2025![/p][p]https://store.steampowered.com/curator/44695353/sale/BacktoSchoolGamesCelebration2025[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]It's a festival with games for learning and productivity tools! 📖🖊️

There are several themes in the fest. The Abbess Garden is in "Environment and Nature" as it is about gardening real plants in a real setting, with some elements of simulation (water, soil and proximity systems). [/p][p]It could have been in the "History" theme as well, but the 17th century in Port-Royal is not in many schools' curricula ;) (Probably only known to French literature and French history majors nowadays ;) )[/p][p][/p][p]It is organised by the indie devs of Mooncube Games, who created Spirit City :) [/p][p][/p][p]I hope this will inspire you and help you discover new and interesting games![/p][p][/p][p]🌿🌿🌿

I have a lot planned for the end of August and September! Giovanni (our awesome writer) will be cooking the new version of the demo, with 2 more chapters, more plants, and a lot more systems (soil, plant reproduction and harvesting). I also have a long todo list of improvements to implement based on players' feedback 😱 And another festival too 🎉 So it's good that I feel energised ahah ;)[/p][p][/p][p]Please keep playing and sharing our demo 💖 It helps a lot!
[/p][p]If you are going back to school (or work), I wish you an excellent start to the new school year! Learning new things is great for happiness, so I wish you to discover a lot of new knowledge and skills![/p][p][/p][p]Edwige[/p]

[p]This morning, I clicked on the "Released Demo" button, it was a scary and exciting moment! :) And now, the demo is here![/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]It has improved UI, new character animations, new music and sounds effects... (+ a lot of bugfixes ;) ) So July had been a very busy month, trying to improve the game as much as possible based on the beta tests feedback :)[/p][p][/p][p]We hope you'll enjoy it!!![/p][p][/p][p]Several content creators picked it up already! We are so excited![/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]If you want to stay informed, you can still wishlist and follow our Steam page, or subscribe to our newsletter :) https://theabbessgarden.eo.page/newsletter[/p][p]
We also have a Discord server now (very fresh, opened a week ago) https://discord.gg/zbsHNuAF[/p][p][/p][p]Have a nice day! [/p][p][/p][p]Edwige[/p]