Summary
Horticular is a fairly open-ended, cozy game that lets you move at your own pace and build habitats as you please. It provides you with specific goals to strive for, but you really don’t have to achieve most of them if you want to keep pushing the game forward.
However, if you are aiming for substantial story progress and you want to build the best garden and ecosystem that you can, you should be picky with what abilities you upgrade. Not all upgrades are alike, and some are certain to make your life much easier and steadily move the game along.
10Digger
Dig Your Ground Faster
Trying to build out a big habitat can be a bit of a pain, as you need to wait day and night for it to finish - even with the night’s fast-forward. If you’re on a time limit for Hortic Day, then you’re probably desperately wishing that the ground would dig up and replace itself faster.
As such, investing in the Digger ability upgrade is an absolute necessity. It’s one of the better quality-of-life upgrades in the game that you’re able to get early on. Not to mention, this upgrade helps to keep you from waiting around and feeling like the game ismore of an idle gamethan it actually is.
9Geologist
Break Through Harder Ground
At certain points, you will find ground that you simply cannot dig up and replace while building your habitats. At that point, you will need to get the Geologist upgrade so you can continue to do as you please with your garden.
With each Geologist ability upgrade, you increase the Mohs hardness level that your shovel can bust through, meaning that instead of working around the land, you can make it work with you. This is one of the few upgrades that is a necessity, instead of a simple quality-of-life upgrade that makes the game easier.
8Treasure Hunter
Find More Treasure When Digging
It is almost horrifyingly easy to run out of money while you’re working in Horticular, which means you spend the rest of the day doing minor repairs and upkeep, rather than expanding and maximizing habitat size. The Treasure Hunter ability upgrade helps to keep you in top shape, however, by increasing the amount of money that you may run into while you’re digging up various plots throughout your garden.
You won’t make a fortune with this upgrade, but any income is good income when you’re low on funds.
7Landscaper
Adds Permanent Love
If you’re looking to increase your level, make your garden more desirable to visitors, and generally do well on the next Hortic Day, you should look into the Landscaper ability. This ability increases the amount of permanent love your garden obtains with every upgrade.
Sure, you could forgo it and go about gathering love the hard way, but why stress yourself over maintaining that love? Go ahead andmake your game just a little bit cozier and more comfortableby giving yourself a nice cushion of permanent love to fall back on, just in case.
6Declarer
Reduce Expansion Upkeep
Although you might not feel the burden of upkeep during the early phases of Horticular, you will start to feel it as you gain more plots, more inhabitants, and more habitats overall. Your Keepers may be doing a fantastic job, but there’s only so much that they can do with the addition of each expansion.
To save yourself the hassle and the strain on resources, you should invest in the Declarer ability upgrades. With each purchase of the Declarer ability, you reduce the amount it costs to upkeep and maintain every single one of your expansions.
5Reuser
Reclaims More Item Value
Although you don’t need the Reuser ability to make money, if you plan on farming your adapted materials for some much-needed coin for expansions or future habitats, you should invest in it. The Reuser ability upgrades make it so thatany item you reclaim or farm for profitwill net you more money.
Given that it’s also one of the cheaper abilities that you’re able to get your hands on, there really isn’t much reason to avoid adding it to your repertoire. No matter how you look at the Reuser upgrade, it’s a win-win situation that really benefits you in both the short term and the long term.
4Banish
Drive Away Your Enemies
To be completely honest, if you’re playing on relaxed, the Banish ability upgrade probably isn’t something that you need to overly concern yourself with until the later stages of Horticular. However, if you’re playing on any of the other difficulties, especially the hardest one, then you need to get your hands on this ability as soon as possible.
By banishing your enemies faster you can mitigate the amount of damage that you’re doing and, hopefully, stamp out invasions before they become too costly for your garden.
3Runner
Keepers Move Faster
If you’re trying to mitigate the number of Keepers that you have on hand, the Runner ability upgrade is absolutely one that you need to angle for. This upgrade helps your Keepers to run faster with every level, meaning that you don’t need to have a plethora of them to keep the garden maintained.
Knowing that your Keepers will almost always be on top of decay and general maintenance makes it a lot easier to focus on building out your habitats and protecting your guardian from the various threats that it might face.
2Caster
Keepers Work Faster
Having a metric ton of Keepers is fine and dandy, but they take up a lot of resources, even if you have them spaced out properly. Not to mention that your spells technically work faster than the Keepers do to maintain your garden.
So, in order to bridge the gap between you and your helpers, you should consider investing in the Caster ability upgrade. This ability upgrade increases the working speed of your Keepers, which is a great ability to have after an invasion or a natural disaster.
1Explorer
Expansion Are Cheaper
Whether you’re in the early stages of Horticular or in the later parts, the Explorer upgrade is an absolute necessity. While not every plot is outrageously expensive, there are some that make question whether or not you can build up that amount of money in time for the next Hortic Day.
This ability upgrade only becomes more necessary if your goal for Horticular Day is to buy as many expansions as possible, taking up a lot of money that could otherwise be spent trying to improve your different habitats and maximize capacity.
