The first chapter was released on January 6, 2023, with a second chapter (treated by the devs as a separate game, Garten of Banban II) released on March 3, 2023, a third chapter (treated as a separate game, Garten of Banban III) released on May 5, 2023, a fourth chapter (treated as a separate game, Garten of Banban IV) released on August 11, 2023, a fifth chapter (treated as a separate game, Garten of Banban VI) released on December 20, 2023, and a sixth chapter (treated as a separate game, Garten of Banban VII) released on May 10, 2024.
The game involves a parent searching for their missing children at the mysterious Banban's Kindergarten while battling corrupted versions of the building's mascots.
Garten of Banban provides examples of:
- 20 Bear Asses: Each game has a collection quest (often labeled "(insert character here) Mission") to complete.
- Chapter 1 has the player find six of Opila's eggs.
- Chapter 2 has the player find eight of Stinger Flynn's shells.
- Chapter 3 has the player find ten googly-eyed bucket criminals to lock in Sheriff Toadster's jail.
- Chapter 4 has the player find eight amethyst crystals for Bouncelia's throne.
- Chapter 6 has the player find eight lollipops for Syringeon's patients.
- Alien Blood: The mascots that are shown to bleed seem to have a turquoise blood with greenish-purple sheen to it. Their blood is referred to in research notes as "givanium". One of the secret tapes reveals it is actually what brings the mascot beings to life — by combining plasticine models with donated genetic material and injecting them with givanium.
- Aliens in Cardiff: The plane tickets that can be found seem to indicate that the game is set in Montreal, Canada. The mascots also appear to have French Canadian accents, further supporting this.
- Apocalyptic Log:
- Although the status of their writers is unclear, the player can sometimes find crude hand-written notes from children at the kindergarten about how the monsters scare them. Once an Episode, there is a letter from a young child sends a message to his mother about him and his crush, a little girl named Claire. A tape record can also be found that seemingly indicates that the kids were attacked by Jumbo Josh while taking the elevator down.
- In the second game, the log states that the little boy found his crush and they were protected by Stinger Flynn.
- Ambiguously Evil:
- Banban claims to be on the side of the protagonist and helps guide them through the facility, however it's unknown whether he is being sincere.
- A drawing by a child says Stinger Flynn helped save them from Banban and the Opila bird, but a QR code says to not trust the Jellyfish. The third part shows that he doesn't exactly have the protagonist's best interests in mind.
- Anachronic Order: The games were released in the order of Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, and Chapter 6, skipping Chapter 5. The trailer for Chapter 6 lampshades it by having the "V" show up first, then the "I" fades in after.
- And Now for Someone Completely Different: At some points in the third chapter, the perspective shifts from the nameless protagonist to Stinger Flynn in sequences that appear to have no connection to the rest of the chapter and which may be flashbacks to Flynn's past.
- Apologetic Attacker: Banban tricks the player and attacks them while they are distracted. Banban later apologizes and says he would have used sedatives instead if he had any.
- Arc Villain:
- Opila Bird in the first chapter is the only monster visible on the kindergarten's surface (while Jumbo Josh is present in the game's icon, he only appears at the end of the chapter as the player uses the elevator), and is shown to be the one who is currently guarding the missing children. Peaceful towards the children, but hostile to adults, Opila stalks the player throughout the building and tries to ambush them as they start to investigate the place.
- Multiple monsters serve as brief antagonists for the player to confront through the chapter. Although Banban later reveals he wants to help the player find their children, he first manipulates them into getting a keycard from the maintenance room which Nabnab guards. Opila Bird chases the player after emerging from the dark room at the end of the testing sector before guarding the exit to the room where the player puts her chicks in their nest. Slow Seline, heard briefly during Banbaleena's lecture, appears in the testing sector after the player escapes from Opila the second time to slowly pursue the player. Of these enemies, however, Banbaleena is the most prevalent. Although she helps the player escape their first encounter with Opila, her macabre teaching encourages the player to slip away, and she (alongside Jumbo Josh, who attempts to punch through walls to reach the player) chases the player for being a bad student as the chapter's final antagonist.
- Stinger Flynn is the overarching threat in the third chapter. Taking the children from Opila Bird with plans to use them for his mental refinement and forcing the player to make an uneasy alliance with Opila and Tarta Bird to confront him, he tries to get the player to leave and subjects them to hallucinations before forcing Banban to attack them in his hostile form. A few minor threats also are encountered by the player. Nabnab returns to the aquatic sector, with Banban tasking the player with operating on Nabnaleena so she can pacify Nabnab. Jumbo Josh, who captured Banbaleena previously, then captures Nabnab and the player and brings them to his lounge, where the player works with Banbaleena to escape the room. Tamataki and Chamataki, the first hostile mutants, serve as a brief boss fight during the player's mission to acquire Mr. Kabob Man's party hats.
- Bittergiggle serves as the main one for the fourth chapter, driven by his desire as a jester to make his ruler Queen Bouncelia laugh, even though doing so will unleash the Naughty Ones. He stalks and confronts the player while working towards this goal, even unleashing Kittysaurus as another boss and trapping the player in a room. The player and Opila's chick, now named Little Beak, also briefly encounter Tamataki and Chamataki, who chases them at the start of the chapter. Nabnab stalks the vents while the player, Sheriff Toadster, and the chick try to reach the first elevator part, then subsequently steals Mr. Kabob Man during the player's and Banban's quest for the second elevator part.
- The sixth chapter has Sir Dadadoo, the most dangerous of the monsters in the series, by virtue of being the leader of the Naughty Ones. Having escaped from Queen Bouncelia's pouch, he and the Naughty Ones cause mayhem in the darkness of the kindergarten, and prove to be so dangerous that even Bittergiggle, Kittysaurus, and Nabnab end up allying with the player in an effort to stop the Naughty Ones, and ends the chapter victorious by taking control of Banbaleena, Opila, Nabnaleena, Tarta, Tamataki and Chamataki, Bittergiggle, and Kittysaurus. There is also a boss fight with Little Beak, who was mutated in a givanium barrel in the previous chapter, and has become a feral monster that the player and Banban are forced to trap, but ends up having all the givanium crushed out of them, turning them back into a normal chick.
- Arc Words: "For a parent searching for their missing child, time is a delicate matter."
- Ascended Meme:
- Sheriff Toadster yells "Prepare to get Toadsted!" when he throws one of his toadstars at Bittergiggle, possibly as a nod towards "It's Banbanin' time" and other Morbius-esque memes
- Mr. Kabob Man straight up says "Bird Up!" in Banban VI.
- Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: During one part of Chapter 3, while trying to get out of a room, Banbaleena will ask the player to help her solve a non-sequitur equation. They can easily rub it off the chalkboard, making her realize that she's just getting sidetracked, and that education can wait until later.
- Big Red Button: The player must progress throughout the game by pressing buttons of this nature, which is done by directing the drone to bump into them.
- Big Red Devil: Banban appears to be one, being a red creature with two pointed horns and his alias on the case update is "The Devil".
- Bolivian Army Cliffhanger: The sixth chapter ends with Banban fighting Sir Dadadoo and his army of Brainwashed and Crazy mascots to give the player time to escape and look for Syringeon. The fight isn't seen, and all that's heard of it is the various screams and roars of the brainwashed mascots.
- The Cameo: Charles appears briefly in a flashback Stinger Flynn shows you in the fourth chapter.
- Developer's Foresight:
- Hacking to go out of bounds in the starting room of the second game reveals a hidden message on the outside of the wall put out by the Euphoric Brothers, aware that people would fly out of bounds, "You can fly?! Teach me!"
- Toadster has different responses for each yes or no question you give him. In addition to these, answering yes to his questions about seeing every monster will lead to him remarking that the player is a bounty hunter who caught nobody, and if they say yes to the question about having seen him before in addition to all the previous ones, he says he's never seen you before. The question asked about Bittergiggle, however, influences additional lines of dialogue. When Toadster mentions Bittergiggle going rogue, having said yes to encountering him will lead to Toadster mentioning the player claiming to have seen him in the same sentence. After Toadster chases off Bittergiggle with a Toadstar, saying yes causes Toadster to wonder if the jester recognizes the player, rather than mentioning that Bittergiggle was the jester he mentioned before if they said no earlier.
- Another hidden message is revealed in the "sixth" game when flying out of bounds, "Your flying skills are... Impressive!"
- Drone Deployer: A major gimmick is the player character uses a drone to navigate the area.
- Egopolis: In Chapter VII, a major location from the trailer is Citynegeon, named similarly to Syringeon.
- Eldritch Location: Banban's Kindergarten seems to be impossibly large, especially in later games. Justified, as it's lower levels were used as testing ground and research facility for purpose of creating living mascots.
- Electric Jellyfish: When playing as Stinger Flynn in the third chapter, the player is able to fire bolts of electricity from his tentacles, allowing for buttons to be 'pressed' in the absence of a drone.
- Evil Teacher: In the second chapter, Banbaleena acts as a teacher in one of the kindergarten's classrooms, with the player forced to attend one of her classes as a student. She is quickly shown to have a rather warped view of schooling, having established a system of 'unpopular kids', 'cool kids' and 'mean kids', and killing the player if they answer one of her questions incorrectly.
- Fission Mailed: Early on in the sixth chapter, the player grabs a light on a table that locks them in place and causes the Nanny to slowly move towards them and attack with an unavoidable Jump Scare. After respawning, however, the game continues on like normal; the light moves to another spot in the room and the Nanny isn't encountered again.
- Foul Ball Pit: The surface floor of Banban's Kindergarten contained a very large and unnecessarily deep ball pit that, at some point before the player arrived, had collapsed and led to many children being either heavily injured or outright killed.
- From Bad to Worse: The sixth chapter starts where the fourth chapter left off; The Naughty Ones have been unleashed and now the player and Sheriff Toadster are off to go find the only thing that will stop them, Queen Bouncelia's scepter. By the end of the sixth chapter, Toadster has cut ties with the player and run off to parts unknown, Sir Dadadoo, the Naughty Ones' leader, not only finds the scepter (which is missing a piece), but also now has a large amount of the mascots brainwashed under his control, and the player's only known ally remaining, Banban, attempts to hold off Sir Dadadoo's army to give the player time to escape.
- HA HA HA—No: An Inversion at the end of the fourth chapter. Queen Bouncelia responds to Bittergiggle's joke with a firm "that was terrible" before letting out a literal belly-bursting laugh that releases a beam of light heralding the release of the "Naughty Ones".
- Happy Place: In the third chapter, after waking Stinger Flynn, the player is apparently transported into one of these in Stinger Flynn's mind, a beach island where Flynn retreats to periodically to cope with the stresses of life in the facility and doubt over whether his actions are correct.
- Hope Spot: After a chapter of the player being warned that Queen Bouncelia laughing will release dangerous monsters from her pouch, the climax of the chapter has Bittergiggle finally make it to her throne room and tell his joke. The player is given just enough time to believe the queen thought the joke was unfunny before she bursts into laughter anyway, forcing the player and Sheriff Toadster to retreat to the elevator.
- Humans Are the Real Monsters: While the seeming antagonistic force of the game are the living mascots of the kindergarten, the player can find records of two plane tickets to Madrid of two staffers on the same day that the presumed disaster happened. This would imply that these two humans were the cause of the events that occurred at the establishment. A note found in a secret room confirms this, as one of the two people working for the establishment reveals to another that a disaster is soon to follow due to a structural flaw, but instead of warning anyone about it they decide to pack their things and escape. Toadster also has an extremely negative opinion of humans, given how they deemed him a failure and threw him into the depths of the facility.
- Jump Scare: If the player gets too close to a hostile monster, they get one of these.
- Chapter 1 has Opila Bird provide one when it goes across the lift (and attacks the player if they are too close)
- Chapter 2 has Opila Bird provide another one, as can Banbaleena, Nabnab, and Slow Selene.
- Chapter 3 has jumpscares from Nabnab, Nabnaleena, Jumbo Josh, Tamataki and Chamataki, Opila Bird, Tarta Bird, and Corrupted Banban at various points.
- Chapter 4 has jumpscares from Bittergiggle, Nabnab, and Kittysaurus.
- Chapter 6 has an unavoidable one from the Cow Nanny, Sir Dadadoo, the Naughty Ones, and Little Beak.
- Large Ham: Bittergiggle (not to mention the other creatures who look like him) has a much more expressive tone of voice than anyone else in the game barring Sheriff Toadster and possibly Bouncelia, even outright shouting a few times during his monologues, befitting his intended purpose.
- Missing Child: The crux of the game is a parent (the player character) searching for their missing child at Banban's Kindergarten. Banban confirms that the player has at least two missing children near the end of Chapter 2.
- Monster Is a Mommy: The Opila Bird is a violent creature, but if it hears its chicks chirping in its nest, it will leave to care for them, only becoming enraged if the player is too close.
- No OSHA Compliance: The laboratory underneath the kindergarten is a massive pit with little structure holding it up. A note states that it is a miracle it hasn't collapsed on itself yet.
- Nothing Is Scarier: What happened to the missing kids is not (yet) explained. Recordings and notes seem to imply that at some point they were herded into the elevator alongside Opila Bird (with one kid being left behind) and were attacked by Jumbo Josh. Even before this reveal, the sounds of a kindergarten suddenly going silent is creepy.
- Not Quite Dead:
- Jumbo Josh is seemingly crushed by the elevator at the end of the first chapter, but promotional material for the second chapter seems to indicate he survived. In fact, he not only has, but he is part of the 2nd chapter's climax, causing hindrance to the player as they are chased by Banbaleena. He returns again for Chapter 3 when the player and Banbaleena have to get out of his room carefully without him spotting them. In the climax, he returns once more to take down both the Brainwashed and Crazy Banban and Stinger Flynn.
- The climax of the third chapter shows a massive fight between Banban, Jumbo Josh and Stinger Flynn. This conflict also knocks Tarta Bird off of his perch, and Opila Bird jumps off after him. By Chapter IV, none of these result in casualities.
- Not-So-Fake Prop Weapon: The 'prop cannons', which are used by the protagonist and hinted to be used by the facility staff.
- Organ Theft: A drawing of Banban says that sharing is caring, and for someone to give him their pancreas. His Brainwashed and Crazy incarnation happens to be bloodthirsty for just that. In Chapter VI, he tells Dadadoo he's not interested in eating him because leeches don't have a pancreas.
- Playing the Heart Strings: All trailers for both chapters feature a score entirely of ominous but mournful violin strings. Chapter VI has a mournful cello theme in the main hub.
- Poe's Law: The game draws heavily from other indie mascot horror games to the point of heavy criticism from many online. The game and its promotion are still treated entirely seriously, but the developers have occasionally joked
about these similarities sometimes, making it unclear whether the game is specifically intended to be a parody of such games. The third and fourth games have given credence to the parody angle as well, leaning more into the ridiculousness of the concept and having many more humorous moments throughout. - Red Eyes, Take Warning: When Banbaleena is Ax-Crazy, her eyes are bloodshot red, and the Opila Bird also has glowing eyes when it is enraged.
- Ridiculously Cute Critter: The Opila chicks are adorable baby versions of the Opila bird. The player has to pick them up and return them to their nest and they exhibit no hostility.
- Sad Battle Music: The chase against Feral Banban in Chapter 3 plays a bit more of a sad tone, considering that you were both close before the whole event. Fortunately, Banban gets better come Chapter 4. Similar sadder music plays during Chapter 6 and the fight with Little Beak, whom the player was taking care of.
- Sadist Teacher: Banbaleena has the tone of a kindergarten teacher, however she makes nonchalant remarks about how she will violently rip apart her students if they get the answers wrong. She also insults the "unpopular kids" calling them ugly.
- Shout-Out: The car dream sequence in the third chapter opens with Banban saying to the player "Hey you, you're finally awake."
- Speedy Snail: Slow Seline is a yellow snail that usually moves slowly but can immediately rush to the protagonist if they move when her eyes are closer together. In a video during Chapter VI, she lunges with incredibly speed as she escapes from a holding cell.
- Spotting the Thread: Jumbo Josh's Lounge requires the player to carefully put everything back in its place whenever Jumbo Josh checks on them, as Banbaleena warns. If even a single cube is out of place, Game Over. Jumbo Josh can also spot the drone, and attacks if it sees it.
- Story Breadcrumbs: One of the main plot points of the game is a mysterious incident that led to the disappearance of all of the employees and children at Banban's Kindergarten; most of the insight on this comes from various notes, audio tapes, and video tapes hidden throughout the facility.
- Subverted Kids' Show: The setting is a kids' daycare that has become corrupted with all the children gone. In addition, some of the quotes from the mascots on the walls have turned into gruesome ones, in addition to the living mascots themselves now stalking the halls.
- Teamwork Puzzle Game:
- The final chase sequence of the third chapter has this in spades; the protagonist is riding Tarta Bird while Opila Bird is carrying one of their chicks. To keep moving, Tarta's speed should be adjusted to speed up or slow down: The puzzle has different colored lights that require either Tarta or Opila to pass first, so it's advised that the player remain close to Opila's speed, as Tarta doesn't slow down or speed up on a dime.
- The fourth chapter has a baby Opila chick who has to stand on platforms.
- Wall Crawl: Nabnab the spider will crawl along the ceiling to get at the player. Nabnaleena is also capable of doing this, though she's only brought to life to give Nabnab some companionship and render him non-hostile.
- Wham Line: Subverted: In the fourth chapter, Banban takes the moment to introduce himself... as Uthman, one of the scientists involved in work in the facility. Becomes a subversion when you take into consideration the fact that Banban has the genetic memories of Uthman due to the scientist's DNA being used during his creation and believes himself to be human.
- Would Hurt a Child: Stinger Flynn claims to avert this, as he tells the protagonist that the children he's captured will eventually be sent back to the surface after he's finished his plan... but he is also vague and uses the term "safest of procedures" rather than simply "safe."
