The Inspiration Behind Wild Gardens
What Inspired Wild Gardens?
When 2020 began I had given myself the mission to take time to connect with my local community. I volunteered with a local campaign, opened my home to the effort and quickly started to make friends. I had hoped these friends would become a part of my life for years to come.
Unfortunately, when the world shut down later that year, it cut me off to those friendships. I was forced, like many others, to live a confined life within my home. As a person with a preexisting condition, 2020 became a period of solitude, instead of the period of community connection I was hoping for.
When 2020 began I had given myself the mission to take time to connect with my local community. I volunteered with a local campaign, opened my home to the effort and quickly started to make friends. I had hoped these friends would become a part of my life for years to come.
Unfortunately, when the world shut down later that year, it cut me off to those friendships. I was forced, like many others, to live a confined life within my home. As a person with a preexisting condition, 2020 became a period of solitude, instead of the period of community connection I was hoping for.
That time was incredibly hard for me. However, in that period I found ways to cope that helped me find joy and connection in my seclusion. Part of that joy came from the unexpected creators on tiktok and youtube.
Creators like @alexisnikole, @chaoticforager, @homegrown_handgathered, @redleafranch, @theloreofnature, & @kenapeay shared their love of foraging, food, plants, and trails with me. They inspired me with their passion, and flooded me with moments of joy, education, and positivity. Something that I desperately needed at the time.
As I continued to follow their journeys, I found myself changing. I spent time learning about and caring for plants. I took time to learn to cook different recipes. I explored and discovered ingredients to forage on walks. And while I messed up and found frustrations along the way, I still dreamt of world where this could be my reality.
As I learned more about the skills of foraging and cooking, I found myself wanting to share this with others, and thought of ways in which I could connect to this world in my own way. So naturally I turned to my more honed talent of designing games. After a long time dreaming about how I could connect the theme to the gameplay, I finally, in one great push took pencil to paper and began to create what would eventually become Wild Gardens.
While the initial design was good, I knew it could be better, and over the course of a year and a half we developed it into what Wild Gardens has a become today. An introduction to the wonderful world of foraging, learning, cooking, and sharing meals. This game is a love letter to the creators that inspired me.
With Wild Gardens my hope is that more people can experience these joys that were passed to me. That it can provide a medium to further the message of those creators, and that it can bring forth more opportunities to connect with others across the table.
As my quest for connection continues, and I now feel comfortable enough to open myself and my home again to my local community. I am so excited to share Wild Gardens and things that it stands for with them. I’m still learning, and am by no means an expert, but I incredibly excited for the journey and friends waiting ahead.
Thank you to all the content creators that helped inspire this game! Here is a big list of everyone that I would like to shout out. You should definitely go follow them!
@alexisnikole
@alexisnikole