Whitethorn Games

Cultivating History: Gender, Power, and Reflection in Cozy Botanical Games

This paper examines how two recent cozy botanical games, Botany Manor and The Abbess Garden, represent historical realities when their emphasis on safety, softness, and nurturing renders the past comfortable.

• The paper argues that cozy botanical games such as Botany Manor and The Abbess Garden use gentle, nurturing design to make historically violent or unequal settings (Victorian England, Grand Siècle France) feel comfortable, with the authors calling cozy games a potential "new mode of doing history in games."
• Rather than dramatizing danger through gameplay, these titles displace historical inequality into letters, books, and dialogue; for example, Botany Manor conveys institutional sexism through correspondence, and The Abbess Garden hints at threats to the abbey through conversation.
• The authors contend this indirect design lets players inhabit historically informed worlds without firsthand peril, which is central to how the games mediate the past.