This is the two hundred eighth entry in the Scratching That Itch series, wherein I randomly select and write about one of the 1741 games and game-related things included in the itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality. The Bundle raised $8,149,829.66 split evenly between the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund and Community Bail Fund, but don’t worry if you missed it. There are plenty of ways you can help support the vital cause of racial justice; try here for a start. Lastly, as always, you may click on images to view larger versions.

Our two hundred seventh random selection from the itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality would like to help us take care of our bonsai tree. It’s 盆栽 カレンダー (BONSAI CALENDAR), by Josh Benavente, and its tagline in the bundle reads:

A piece of software that helps one take good care of his/her bonsai tree.

I do not own a bonsai tree. Please keep that in mind, reader.

Bonsai Calendar was made for A Game By Its Cover 2016, a game jam in which contestants make games based on art from the Famicase project (that link is to the 2016 entries). I love Famicase. It asks artists to imagine the art that might adorn a fictional video game cartridge, often (but not always) a Famicom cartridge. Readers who are following my Console History series will be aware of my interest in the hardware in older consoles, and the cartridges are a part of that. As a kid I mostly encountered the differently-shaped cartridges for the Nintendo Entertainment System (the rebranded Famicom released in the US), but I still remember the artwork that adorned them, which tried to convey what the game is like in a very small space. Famicase offers galleries full of such cartridge art, each with a little blurb describing the game. A Game By Its Cover tasks participants with picking one of these and actually making that imagined game.

The inspiration for Bonsai Calendar is a fictional cartridge by Maciej Melcher, and the description on its itch.io page is simply Melcher’s blurb from Famicase. It describes software that reminds people when to water and trim their bonsai tree, as well as information about good temperature and soil conditions for different varieties of bonsai. But Bonsai Calendar does not actually do this… or at least, it doesn’t for me. But the itch.io comments are from similarly perplexed players, who suspect that Bonsai Calendar does not currently work as intended. Upon launching it, I watched a short animated sequence that progressed through the four seasons, each depicted with gorgeous, stylized art based on the cartridge cover. There’s music with tinkly piano and synth pads to go with it (credited to Kakurenbo). But after this sequence I was left at a blank screen, with no way to interact. The music kept playing, though.

Did Bonsai Calendar do more than this, at one time? Perhaps. Or perhaps this sequence is as far as Josh Benavente got, never fully realizing the original Famicase description. I suspect there was supposed to be something more after this introductory sequence, but I’m not sure, as all displayed text is in Japanese. It is a cool sequence, though, and Bonsai Calendar is offered for free even to those who didn’t nab the bundle, so if you like the art it’s worth a quick look. Just don’t expect the bonsai owner’s guide that’s advertised.

That’s 208 down, and only 1533 to go!