Three weeks after the passing of your grandfather you receive a package in the mail. Wondering what it could be, you hurry into your office and grab the box cutter. The box flaps give way and out comes a dirt-filled pot, a letter, and a strange looking seed protected in a plastic box. You open the letter and read it:
Dear grandson, As you know my affinity for all things botanical has lead me to many parts of the world. Just before I became ill, I took a trip to India where I tracked down a man known in the botanical world for having many fine seed specimens. He and I had dealings before and he owed me a big favor for saving his life during the Indian creamsicle tramplings. I wanted to do something for you to both encourage your interest in botany and perhaps better your future. The seed enclosed with this package is very special. It is rare. So rare, in fact that there is no other like it on all the Earth. It's properties and age are unknown, but my friend speculates that it could have been around during the creation of the world. If you are able to make it produce berries or fruit or whatever it has then it is quite possible you will posess something that no one else has. Depending on the properties of the product of this seed, it could make you very rich. I've enclosed a special pot for you to use should you try to grow it. Remember, every plant needs at least 3 things to survive: water, light, and food. Depending on how much you give or withold these three things during its growth it could very well affect what it produces. Love, Grandpa
Instructions:
Ensure that the plant has enough of each of the 3 elements it needs to grow. Note the 3 bars in the upper right corner. Each is divided into 3 zones that represents how long the plant has been lacking (below the left-most vertical bar), adequate (between the 2 vertical bars), or lavished (to the right of the vertical bar) in the particular element. Play around with getting the bars in different zone combinations to see what kind of berries you can produce! There are two stories behind each berry that you find.
Note: There are 15 different kinds of berries and each can be identified by its shape and color.
@Masadow: Yeah. There are 26 possible Plant health combinations and I only had time to get 15 berries in the game (that is 30 different stories - 2 for each berry). That means that a bit over 50% of the time you will grow a berry. Not too bad, but I'd rather have it around 60% or so and make it possible to kill the plant. As always, I had other ideas to implement but ran out of time.
The cat peed on the plant, I got sent to jail, the neighbor is poisoned - next time I'll just use some roundup and kill this weed! Very good use of the theme, and I love the intro music (should have it play during the game too!)
Neat concept, because I felt like I was playing for the chance to read the stories more than anything else. I wasn't exactly clear how the quantities matched up to the health meter, but I found around 4-5 different berries.
Very interesting idea. It takes some time to get the rules, but some of the endings are really funny. My favorite one is working as a statue in a museum ;)
Comments22
Great job :)
If you have time, rate my game too! I would really appreciate it! :D
I managed to grow berries having the watter always on (100% water). Shouldn't the plant rot?
I think the text-to-gameplay -ratio could've been a bit better. I think I managed to get the same exact stories as vinull.
Pretty fun little game!