Not my thing at all, but a very cool idea with some phenomenal art. I definitely feel like there's something here, even if it doesn't quite pique my interest. Since I'm not the target audience, I'm not sure how valuable my feedback is, but I'll try my best.
Suggestions in no particular order:
- Give the player more notes early on and let them take more specific notes. I figured out how to make a few things but can only really record the 4 shapes, and even doing that takes a while as you have to buy extra books and figure out how to pay for them. I need notes on how to make the various plants as well.
- Reduce the amount of clutter management. Having to manage plants, coins, books while maintaining any sort of order and keeping up with the garden felt really tedious to me. I'd rather focus on figuring out what customers want and how to make it. Maybe allowing the player to have boxes they can drop things into, even if it's something you have to unlock would be good.
- Make it more clear whether or not I gave the customer what they actually wanted. I was able to hand them a shape or a coin and they would always leave no matter what they said. I couldn't really tell if I was right or not. I think it would be better if they got angry or refused to leave if you give them the wrong thing. I may not understand what they're saying, but if I hand someone a square when they wanted a triangle a frown would tell me quite a bit.
- Allow me to chose what I'm growing in my garden. In it's current iteration it's possible to get stuck for some time just waiting on the right plant to grow. I was waiting on the red four leaf for a while, I finally got one, and then ended up waiting on another one.