Grow a Garden players are expressing disappointment with the Summer Update that was released on June 21. The multiplayer idle game became available on Roblox in March 2025 and quickly attracted fans of farming-themed idle games. As expected, Grow a Garden offers a relaxing environment in which to build a farm, grow increasingly exotic plants, harvest crops, and sell produce. Players can also collect interesting pets like a Starfish, Golden Lab, and bear in a bee costume.
Upon the release of the Summer Update for Grow a Garden, the game reached a record concurrent user number of over 20 million as players flocked to enjoy the new plants, pets, and summer-themed cosmetics. A central draw of the Summer Update is the summer harvest event, when players come together to collect as many summer fruits as possible within 10 minutes. The update also added weather events that have a chance to give crops unique mutations that change their appearance and can increase their value.
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Despite the draw of the Summer Update, which caused Grow a Garden to break Fortnite's concurrent count record, some players are not fully satisfied. On the game’s subreddit, user Tough_Ad_5251 pointed out some of the perceived weak points of the update. The Summer Update is centered around teamwork, and the summer harvest event is an example of that. One of the biggest problems, according to the Redditor, is that the ability to steal from one another is still active, rendering many players leery of participating.
Grow a Garden's Summer Update Misses the Mark for Some Players
Additionally, it takes about an hour to even reach the stage of the summer harvest event, which itself only lasts 10 minutes. This prevents casual players or people with limited free time from joining in. And once the event begins, there is uncertainty about which plants count as “summer fruits.” For example, Grow a Garden strawberries, blueberries, and watermelon appear on the summer event wagon, yet don’t count as summer fruits.
Replies to the Tough_Ad_5251’s post seem to agree, with some pointing out other issues. One of these is that the Summer Seed Pack added in the Summer Update must be purchased, and even then, some of the seeds can only be used once. This adds a pay-to-win element to Grow a Garden that many players don’t appreciate, as it seems to cater to content creators with the money and time to invest in the update that average players don’t have.
Grow a Garden was originally created by a 16-year-old who may not have experience creating updates or considering various quality-of-life factors like these. Two game development studios, Splitting Point and Do Big, have purchased shares in the game to contribute their expertise. Even so, Grow a Garden is currently less than three months old and has experienced record-breaking and, at least initially, probably unexpected growth. There will be growing pains as the developers familiarize themselves with community demands and strive to keep up with an exponentially growing player base.
OpenCritic Reviews
- Released
- September 1, 2006
- ESRB
- Teen / Diverse Content: Discretion Advised, In-Game Purchases (Includes Random Items), Users Interact
- Developer(s)
- Roblox Corporation
- Publisher(s)
- Roblox Corporation
WHERE TO PLAY
- Genre(s)
- Game Creation System
