• Game - Journey of the Garden Rose

  • Dev - Renegade Sector Games

  • Date - 15-03-2026

  • Price - £7.99

  • Steam

  • Itch.io


Edit: ~ club notes

This game has good roots ( pun intended )
But it’s difficult to recommend as it stands.

I thoroughly enjoyed the:

  • Writing between the characters.

  • Characters and Environment art.

  • Intertwined level design.

  • Some of the later dungeon/puzzles.


But unfortunately the game had quite a few thorns.

  • The player controller/attacks are awkward and janky to control.

  • The AI was lacking. (no path-finding / attack prediction)

  • I personally found navigating the game between sessions quite hard (but consider I played in 30 minute sessions on the tram in the morning with 24 hours in-between each session) so I would lose my mental mapping of the level.

  • The opening was far from ideal. I think they could have dropped the enemy count by around 40-50% while players are still getting used to the gameplay.

  • It was quite a shame that the winning strategy with basically all the encounters was just lock-on and hold move left then attack after they miss.

Trailing notes:
I really believe that this game could have done with investing N weeks of time dedicated to rounding off the attack/movement Jank and figuring out some basic path-finding for enemies.

The AI alone would go a really long way for this project and beyond.

Playtime: - 3h 30m - Completed main story.