Fantasy life simulation RPG Mandrake announced for PC

Failbetter Games has announced Mandrake, a fantasy life simulation RPG coming to PC via Steam. A release date was not announced.

Here is an overview of the game, via its Steam page:

About

You are the last of the Mandrakes, a sorcerous line of gardeners. At long last, you’ve returned to your family’s abandoned home. Make friends, tend your gardens, and put down roots. Fish, gather and delve in the wilds. Make a place for yourself, and uncover the mysteries your family left behind.

The Lost Arts of Horticulture

Horticulture is a cursed and forbidden practice… except to you. You come from a long line of sorcerers who practiced the green and growing arts, and you’re able to grow such marvels as: runner beans! Cherry trees! The humble turnip!

And as your skills grow, you’ll be able to plant stranger seeds, like thunder-calling taran, or rhewyn, which waters your gardens for you. Perhaps you’ll even grow a goose-tree! (Where did you think geese came from? Other geese? Preposterous.)

Place beds, decorations and resting spots. Find, plant, nurture, grow and harvest plants both mundane and magical, and gradually expand your gardens into the tangled grounds of your family’s abandoned castle.

A World to Inhabit

Discover a beguiling new world inspired by British history and folklore. A world of old, wild powers, of uncanny spirits that reside in those places mortals dare not go; of deep histories, and deeper mysteries.

You won’t just work in your gardens. Forage for resources in the nearby woods and along the beach. Go fishing (but take care not to be cursed by the river). Delve into dangerous mines in search of bright minerals and stolen secrets.

Breathe life into the Mandrake lodge with your choice of furnishings and renovations; acquire old books, and spend the evenings reading in the candlelit comfort of your study. Learn to cook. Meet your neighbors, become entangled in their lives, give them gifts and learn their stories.

Fireside Menace

Long ago, the world changed. The Covenant of the Hearth decreed that the day belonged to humanity, but the night… the night belonged to other things. Now, all earthly lights save hearthfires go out when the sun sets, and the Mara ride the night-winds. Don’t go out after dark—the night is not for you.

For now. (After all, what self-respecting sorcerer follows the rules?)

Human, Humble Magic

Magic in Mandrake isn’t about flashy fireballs and shimmering shields, but about folkloric ingenuity, whimsy and patience. Grow a cherry tree from seedling to maturity in seven days rather than seven years, then fashion your sorcerer’s staff from its wood. Befriend a river. Eavesdrop on the dead. Spend a haunted night at the Butcher’s Oak. Drink tea with the god who lives in your chimney.

A Host of Lavishly-Realized Characters

Welcome to the village of Chandley. It’s small, it’s complicated, and everyone’s got their own story.

Meet Rosen—bee-keeper, candlemaker, rook-speaker—the even-handed village leader charged with steering this troublesome community of eccentrics. Or Gideon, the somber hunter who makes pacts with the wild powers of the woods.

Befriend Nessa, the village smith, whose kindness conceals the scars of an old tragedy; and Thackery, the effusive Voicer, who keeps technology that no-one—least of all he—fully understands.

Visit the lighthouse, where Jory and Ruan Vicory live with young Tamsyn: the girl they saved from the sea, and who still hears voices calling to her from beneath the waves…

Chandley may be small, but it’s old, thick with secrets, and set in its ways. Is it ready for the return of a Mandrake?

Beyond the Firelight

Encounter the spirits, gods and bogles that live alongside the people of Chandley: the smiling revenant imprisoned in a tree, who claims he knows you (even though he’s hundreds of years dead). Lonely, long-armed Granny Jakes in her hidden orchard, who offers you a sip of a drink that the world has forgotten how to make. The Regent of the Woods, bearer of a white crown. The shy thing that whistles an old tune in the depths of a mine no-one has worked in decades. Hroame, who is sometimes stone and sometimes not.

Watch a new trailer below.

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