Mazetools Botany

Mazetools Botany is a meditative music game.
Plant Seeds and bring their melodies to life through touch and play. Discover how their appearance and sounds evolve over time.
Each Seed is based on music by selected artists, offering a new way to explore and shape their instruments through play.
No musical experience is required. Discover different plant forms and elements, experiment freely, and grow your own musical garden.
Plant, Play, Grow, Listen
In Botany, every Seed grows into a living plant containing multiple playable instruments.
As you interact with it, its shape, colors, and sounds evolve. Every session creates new variations, turning each Seed into your own interpretation of the underlying music.
Your plants remain in your garden, allowing you to return at any time, listen to them, and continue shaping their growth.
Music by Artists, Your Way to Play
The seeds are based on music by independent artists who receive a share of the game's revenue.
Rather than simply listening to music, you are invited to explore and reinterpret it in playful and unexpected ways.
There is no right or wrong way to play. Botany is not about performance or perfection. It is about curiosity, discovery, and finding your own connection to music.
The Story Behind Botany
The project began with a simple observation: many people love music but do not see themselves as musical. Musical activities are becoming increasingly exclusive and are gradually disappearing from everyday life. Botany was created to offer a more intuitive and playful way into making and experiencing music.
Botany is the first game to emerge from the ongoing development of Mazetools. More than ten years ago, Stephan Kloß and Jakob Gruhl began their artistic research into music, interaction, and creative technology at Ectoplastic Lab in Halle an der Saale, Germany. Alongside the release of apps such as Soniface and Mutant, the creative use of these technologies has always been at the heart of their work.
In recent years, observing natural environments around the river Saale, its riverbanks, and the vegetation within the urban landscape became an essential part of Stephan’s daily life and creative process. These impressions found their way into the visual and musical language of Botany. They inspired the idea of Sound Gardening: understanding music as something living that grows and changes over time, while encouraging people to become more aware of the plants and animals that share their everyday surroundings.