Plantera is a neat, although simple idle game where there is much less automation than in other games of that genre. You plant different kind of fruits and vegetables, wait a bit, then collect them to get money, which is used to plant more stuff, expand your garden, buy animals and upgrades and repeat, seemingly forever. I had some fun with it, even if the UI was a bit difficult to use at times and if ultimately I lost interest when I had unlocked all kinds of things you could buy and figured out it would be value upgrades from now on. Unlocking new mechanics and doodads in idle games is a fun thing and slapping a new game + system is always a good way to have the player go through the whole thing a few more times, but Plantera didn't have any of that.
You start at level 1 with only carrots and one helper. You plant the carrot patch, wait for a bit and collect them (or wait for your helper to do so) then buy more carrots to collect. There are four kind of things you can buy to make money, plants growing underground, bushes and trees. You also have animals that produce different things - with chicken laying eggs and pigs digging random items from the ground - that get unlocked as you go up in level, which seems to be tied to the money you make. You have a limited number of spots too, and the price of your plants go up as you buy more of the same one, so you have to diversify and that sometimes means destroying old ones. I find the UI to delete plants a bit clunky, one or two button presses too much.
At maximum level, there are no new plants to unlock. You just upgrade the ones you already have in order, so they're worth a bit more. I wish there were more things to unlock by leveling up, such as having better helpers or plants growing quicker or allowing you to vacuum stuff in with your mouse instead of having to click on everything. This game gets hectic quick, there are fruits and vegetables to be clicked everywhere and the helpers just don't suffice for the job. You have to click to harvest and click to collect, and you could just go back and forth in your garden, clicking nonstop on everything.
There are sometimes animals you need to click on, otherwise they'll steal your plants and scare your animals into not producing anything for a while. Scarecrows and guard dogs are upgrades you buy to counteract those. There are also sometimes special knights that run across your field and each time you tap them, they give some money. Plantera isn't an idle game where you have too much free time, there's always something to click on.
You get some money when you're not playing and this can be upgraded, alongside a simple money multiplier. I think special upgrades should've been tied to a currency you get by resetting the game with a few bonuses, but Plantera is a simpler idle game, and that's not entirely a bad thing. You can play it for a few hours and get satisfied with your time and it won't suck you in for thousand of hours like I have with other games of that genre. I think it's a real neat little game and for its low price, it's worth checking out!
