Herbarium as Occult Archive: Feminine Botanical Knowledge in Digital Games

Abstract

Throughout the nineteenth century, herbariums functioned as occult archives, or spaces where botanical knowledge operated as both scientific object and enchantment. While magical properties might appear at odds with scientific ones, this dual nature created productive tensions rather than simple contradictions. Twenty-first-century game design teams, including the creative forces behind Strange Horticulture (Bad Viking 2022), Botany Manor (Balloon Studios 2024), and Potion Craft (niceplay games 2021), have focused on this liminal cultural space of enchantment and empiricism. But before analyzing how these games do so, I would like to address more of the cultural context that makes their existence possible.