Last updated on December 17th, 2025 at 12:03 am
Garden Joy: Design Game – Simulation Game Review
Garden Joy: Design Game is a Simulation game from Scopely, Inc., first launched in 23rd March 2023.
It’s rated 4+ and currently has 19,820+ ratings on the App Store.
What Makes Garden Joy: Design Game Stand Out
Design gardens and style patios of beautiful homes. Choose from decor to exotic flowers and plants in the #1 Outdoor Design Game.
In this cozy landscaping and gardening simulation, you will:
- Design the perfect home garden, terrace or patio
- Grow hundreds of flowers & plants for your designs
- Express yourself in garden-makeover challenges
- Play the game and trees will be planted in the real world!
- Learn fun and interesting facts about plants
- Relax in a cozy home landscaping game
- Pick from an array of stylish furniture for your designs
- Collect seeds packs and trade them to grow your plants collection!
Become a creative landscaper
Dive into the landscaping world to turn home gardens into havens with Garden Joy – the ultimate virtual gardening game. Leave interior design to embrace the great outdoors! Play your cards right to transform a house yard into the garden of your dreams. It’s time to give a complete landscape makeover to outdoor spaces!
Grow your collection
Collect and grow plants, trees, flowers or bushes with seed packs. Trade the seeds packs to enrich your collection of plants. Collect stylish outdoor furniture such as sofa, bench, parasol, coffee table, etc. Be creative with your collection to design and decorate the garden of countless houses and homey residencies, make’em look royal!
Redecorate many house gardens
As a landscaping and home design aficionado, your mission is to decorate the garden of various houses, from beach houses to English cottages, Mediterranean villas to mountain chalets. Use your senses for interior design to beautify outdoor spaces. New challenges are added every day!
It’s a complete makeover!
Use your creativity and your collection of plants and furniture to come up with the best landscaping design of your life! Find the best match to design the gardens of your dreams.
Team up in multiplayer events.
Partner with up to 3 people for limited-time events to create stunning bouquets. Use the flower tokens from completing challenges to build these beautiful floral arrangements. The more tokens collected, the bigger the bouquet, the greater the rewards! Additionally, seasonal events will allow you to cooperate with other players.
Protect our planet earth
Because ecology and preservation of the ecosystem matters more now than ever, you can do your part while playing Garden Joy. Garden Joy and One Tree Planted come together in this an eco-friendly game to give you the option to plant real trees just by playing the game.
Learn about the plants
Learn real details about flowers, plants, and trees while decorating. How much water, or sunlight do they need? Where do they originate from? Plants will no longer keep any secret from you.
Share with the world
Showcase your latest garden makeover projects and receive valuable feedback from fellow landscapers through voting. Do your magic! It's time to inspire dreams with all the plant gatherings you've been doing! Your friends will have no words when they see your work.
Design like a Pro
Better Homes & Gardens branded challenges are here! From the authority on all things design and gardening, help sharpen your design chops and creativity by designing gorgeous gardens around the world using fabulous decor and amazing flora!
If you like cozy games and interior design games, Garden Joy will be the breath of fresh air you need!
Unlock your inner designer with Garden Joy! Bring your outdoor design dreams to life as you decorate terraces, plant and collect new flowers, discover new furniture, and create heavenly garden designs for your dream home. Garden Joy is a realistic lifestyle simulation featuring endless makeover possibilities. Craft charming garden designs and learn about plants with the in-game encyclopedia and contribute to saving the Earth while you play.
This Simulation game offers engaging gameplay and regular updates for mobile players.
Player Feedback
As a newer release, Garden Joy: Design Game is building its player community. Early feedback suggests .
Recent Updates & Development
Latest Update: 3rd November 2025
Recent improvements include:
Let's grow! There's lots happening in the latest update:
We have beautiful new plants and decor and of course new Challenges added every day!
Various bug fixes and enhancements
Download & Availability
Garden Joy: Design Game is available through the official App Store for iOS devices.
Get Garden Joy: Design Game on App Store
Requirements: Requires iPhone 5s / iPad Air / iPad Air (Cellular) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina, Cellular) / iPhone 6 / iPhone 6 Plus / iPad Air 2 / iPad Air 2 (Cellular) / iPad Mini 3 or later.
Compatible with iPhone and iPad devices.
Player Experience Highlights
Community Insight:
Absolutely the best game we ever downloaded!! We have a medical condition which causes us to always be stressed.. And this game is the best, lowers our stress level, no matter whats on our mind. We HIGHLY recommend.. This game is the best, thank you garden joy.
This game is so therapeutic! Its also addictive & fun.
Nice and relaxing, we are actually enjoying this.
We appreciate that you learn along the way. Many opportunities to earn free game play. Not expensive for extras though. One thing we would change is generic photos because we have seen way too many inappropriate photos and no way to report. Not for kids to vote, designing okay with supervision.
Its relaxing and its a good game.
We have been playing for a while now. We love it. Best part there are no adds. We play everyday to rack up our diamonds. If you are into designing games this one is great.
Its nice that this game isnt hard to navigate or make sense of along with not having to spend means to enjoy it! If you love gardening and or just designing beautiful spaces this game is pretty swell for that.
Really good and cool but sometimes it annoys us bc we dont have enough diamonds to do anything and theres a limit on voting money and theres only like 15 or 30 diamonds from watching a vid and ur daily vid is only like 15 but like once or twice it was 30 and idk we just like it when its at least possible but overall it has good vibes and a great aesthetic so yeah its pretty cool. Great game.
We absolutely LOVE playing Garden Joy and Im definitely NOT a game person! This game has the cutest places for us to design, has cute bonus games to play, and territories of plants to grow, sill to win coins, gifts and diamonds, but Im disappointed that the Rare & Uncommon plants are WAY too Hard to acquire! Even with the plant exchange parties, its STILL TOO HARD, Especially if your friends list is full, not to mention they are truly NEVER given out during the game play! There NEEDS to be another way to get diamonds, because EVERY ITEM thats cute takes A LOT of diamonds to buy! Other than that, Ive been playing Garden Joy for a year and its the ONLY game Ive played consistently and have ever spent money on! Ive also enjoyed learning about different plants, trees, flowers and other stuff, that we wouldve never learned in our own we actually find ourselves identifying flowers and trees, from the game, during our everyday activities!! JOIN US!! THIS GAME IS SUPER CUTE &we HIGHLY RECOMMEND YOU TRYING IT.
Ive spent a lot of money on this game and its very upsetting that we have 500,000 stars, but you cant stop use them for the accessories so you have to continue to purchase diamonds. You should at least be able to convert stars into diamonds.
Be Aware that when GJ asks you to watch a Venue Ad for -You won't get them! We not only watched and downloaded it and then GJ disappeared it out of our Inbox and Zero ! So much for working out the in the new update… And ps: Is GJ ever going to get faster w/ Results? 2-3 days for Results is ridiculous, boring and old school in a bad way.
We enjoy doing these landscaping and gardening designs. They help us rid the day of frustrations. Great way to relax and wash the work day away.
We were upset with the black screen for a few days. What you should knowmake sure to create an account when you join the game. But once in..it is amazing! We are addicted. We do get frustrated when our designs are 99% identical to a 5 star rated but we receive a 3 or below. We feel cheated. But overall we adore this game and the ability to design.
As a retired florist, we miss using our creativity. This game dips into that and we just love it.
Fun, relaxing & also educational with the different plant species.
We love to decorate we also have a passion to make things beautiful and fantastic. Trying us. We know you love what we do because we know what Im doing.
We come from work and just relax playing this game. Its so fun decorating with varieties of flowers and plant, scrubs. Lots of color. We wish they were more ways to earn diamonds.
Its such a relaxing game super fun.
We really like this one and we really love it.
Relaxing and enjoying one of our new favorites.
The plants and decor are really realistic and beautiful. We like when you check the results, it tells you some information about the actual plant.
Such a fun game with generous freebies.
We love the game but we wish there was a way to get more gifts for friends. Its fun to randomly send friends gifts. Also,we wish there was a way to add more friends or refresh friends list to add new for friends you dont interact with.
Okay so Im actually enjoying this game way more than we should. It doesnt have interrupting ads every 5 seconds, you can take your time and its easy to place desired plants. No dragging and clicking or holding to move it. Simple click and it shows options so easily. We love how care free it feels even with requirements. When you finish designing and area, it will show you all the information about what plants you used in youre landscaping design! It feels like a moving puzzle that is very relaxing and easy to use. We enjoy that it does rely on needing a currency to use the game. Sure you can get stuff that looks nicer to you, but it wont prevent you from having a good time if you dont want to spend real money or time to get diamonds and use the game. Highly recommend for anyone who loves plants and gardening. Feels like we have our own lil gardens to decorate and play around with.
We like that there is info on the plants, as well.
Super fun and relaxing way to unwind and tap into creativity.
Love this game! Need a moment to relax and exercise some creative energy? Then this is the game for you! Daily challenges, international landscapes to curate with amazing garden flora – super fun! Earn bonuses with your flair for design. Whats not to love.
Amazing game love how it is so realistic and it is SO refreshing to find a game that isnt in your face about buying extra stuff.
Very Relaxing; virtually surrounded by LIVE greenery.
We cant wait for the winter/Christmas series, sooo much fun.
We just wish you could collect diamonds easier.
This is the perfect game for our artistic soul. Im also a huge plant lover and we find new plants we love and learn about through this game. We cant say enough. We have played this game for almost a year and we wont stop anytime soon. Its so fun and just such a great way to design and get new ideas for your own home and garden.
If you love, gardening and landscaping well, this game is definitely a game you will love. Relaxing and beautiful colors to complete your designs.
Did the update but now stuck on loading. Please fix; this is a 5 star game.
Love design home finally we can furnish our garden at our virtual house.
The prizes are good and you can have good designs without purchasing, but we like all the new stuff & its reasonably priced so we dont mind spending a little $.
We wish we had more diamonds but it's still fun it's chill and a nice little break from our crazy lives, no ads and just like the ad for the game. Have fun.
This game is our morning addiction. There are a few things that need improvement. #1 Your Christmas designs and components are poor and very limited, which prevents us from playing. #2 In regular play, we need more choices for both rugs and climbers. Colors are limited in both. #3 The temporary components should be offered full time. The colors are better and add more interest to the designs. #4 It would be nice to have the opportunity to trade in components we know Ill never use. You could use a 2:1 or 3:1 ratio. Other than those points, we love the game and it is the only app we spend money on.
Ive been playing this game for a couple months now and Im obsessed. Its almost perfect. Only complaint is that some of the new items have a weird shadowy look, like theyre AI generated or something. And the items have gotten more expensive already. For example, the new flooring items are almost 3,000 diamonds now. Thats way too much and makes it hard to play the game. But we really enjoy it, its so much fun.
Love this design app, just wish it was easier to earn diamonds to make purchases. Shouldnt have to invest a small fortune to get design items you would like to use. Otherwise, love being able to design areas.
We loved this game from the get go design a garden, plant a tree where its needed. Who wouldnt love that? Seems like the game forgot why it was created. And why change the tap joy Store? Now its ridiculous with its spam grabbers. The surveys are designed to grab your info and spam you relentlessly.. Half the time the surveys are designed Im trying to take bumps us into a new set of questions, which then bumps us into ANOTHER set of questions, all designed to phish your info and spam you relentlessly when you arent playing the game. Its disappointing how capitalism has tainted yet another fun game. We will be uninstalling soon, and you will get no more of our money.
These past several days we haven't been able to finish a design without it crashing over and over. We've tried everything we know to keep it from doing that, but nothing works. Developers, you need to fix this issue. We can't keep spending an hour or more working on one design.
After the last update, our game has run unplayably slow. Ive reached out to support (support is quite fast to reply). They told us to reinstall the game after linking to facebook or Apple account. No Facebook and selecting link-to-Apple caused it to start a brand new game at level 1 instead of linking our existing game. Took days for support to get our original game back, which they did, but still too slow. Adding a brief addition to our review: we more than dont care for the partner events. We HATE the partner events. Why do players join up with someone then never significantly contribute to the event? If you cant contribute half-ish to the partnership, DONT SIGN UP! We cant earn enough tokens to carry 2 of the 3 of the players to the finish line on our own. Im currently playing our second partner event and not enjoying it any better than the first one. Devs, please do away with the partner events. Or award prizes based on individual performance. The game is fun to play, we like the staging and plant/furniture/decor choices. Its pretty easy to navigate. We also like the ability to grow plants from the seed packs. However, all the decor and paint, and best floors/plants/furniture are diamond purchase only. It would be nice if there were a few things in every category that could be purchased with in-game cash like other items. To get the highest scoring designs, you really need to use LOTS of diamonds which run out way to quickly with few ways to get the quantity needed – unless you spend real money to buy them. Sometimes the placement of plants is weird – a set of itty-bitty plants in a straight row in the middle of the grass. Landscapers would never do that (we worked as a landscape designer for many years). Sometimes the plants that can be selected dont seem to be mature plants, causing the design to look bare and incomplete. The voting results can be strange. Most of our designs get at least 4+, but a couple times they were low 3s – yet looked exactly the same as the top design scores (same floors, walls, furniture, plants and decor!). We dont care for the partner events. For one, we contributed 4/5 of the requirements for 2 partners. The third partner we couldnt get for 4 days, so we asked a daughter to download the game and friend us just so we could complete the competition (she knew she didnt have to spend money or play beyond pairing up). We will continue to play the game for now, but in a couple months we will get bored with the game and spend our money elsewhere.
Just started playing, but so far its a really neat & fun game.
We love this game to pieces. Its such a relaxing way to wind down after work. Plus its so chic.
This game is great no ADDS or anything else annoying great for the kids who love plant facts and Ive been enjoying it and you should try it too.
When Im needing to decompress from a long day, we find comfort in this game.
Scores mean nothing its the pure enjoyment of creating with what youve got to work with. Do Not try to understand the scoring and enjoy.
The game is fun and relaxing. We enjoy the variety, too. It does sometimes feel difficult to get diamonds without paying, but its not impossible.
User feedback from Apple App Store
App Details
- Version: 1.46.24
- Size: 362.07 MB
- iOS: 12.0 or later
- Languages: SQ, AR, BG, CS, DA, NL, EN, FI, FR, KA, DE, HE, HU, ID, IT, JA, KO, NB, FA, PL, PT, RO, RU, SR, ZH, SK, ES, SV, TH, ZH, TR, UK, VI, XH, ZU
- Content Advisory:
- Developer: Scopely, Inc.
Last updated: 3rd November 2025 | Genre: Simulation | Developer: Scopely, Inc.