Limited gardens, how they work, and why do we need them?

What are Limited Gardens?

Limited gardens are like little gardens with one in each trap area, but with a few limitations.

Limitations:

1. The player will not able to raise the height of the terrain with the shovel
2. The player will only be able to place items that match the theme of the area (e.g Arctic, Desert, Jungle, ...)
   
3. The player will only able to place packets that correspond to the area
   
4. The player isn't able to trap pinatas directly in the limited garden
5. The limited garden area is only the size of the first main garden upgrade

What the player can do:

1. The player can attract some pinatas to the limited garden and tame them directly inside the limited garden
2. The player can still access some shops like Lottie to buy items (Limited to theme)
3. The player can have pinata buildings in the limited gardens so long as the pinata is obtainable in the Trap area.
   
4. The player can grow and harvest biome themed plants in the limited gardens and potentially have to bonus applied due to the plant growing it perfect conditions
5. The player can still hire helpers in the limited gardens allowing the player to use the Mine and get evolutions of the dragon pinata based on the limited garden the egg comes from

Why do we need Limited Gardens? Isn't it just scope creep?

We believe even with those limitations, limited gardens will still be extremely useful. As of January 2025 we have exactly 360 piñatas planned. With that many pinatas, you could wonder how the player is going to manage all of them and their requirements. We believe that with the limited gardens acting as a sort of themed storage, increasing immersion instead of just using crates like players would have done in the original games. Since the player is able to put their trap area pinata somewhere other than the main gardens, it allows less maintenance.