Plant Tycoon Walkthrough

[Tyler Bannowsky]

PlantTycoon puts you to the task of planting seeds, growing plants of over 500 different species, and discovering the genetic secrets behind 6 magic plants that will make you rich! Become a master horticulturalist as you pollinate adult plants to produce seeds, and even cross pollinate your plants with other species to discover new and rare varieties.

Each game simulates the growth process in real-time with your plants blooming right before your eyes(!), and maturing even when the game is not running. Earn money by pricing your plants and making them available for sale at the Nursery where customers come to browse your prize creations. Use that money to purchase a wide variety of supplies, upgrades and even rare and extinct seeds.

There are even a couple of optional activities in this game to discover including bug collecting and sharing snapshots of your favorite plants with your friends. Collecting bugs can even earn you precious money to help you get started by catching bugs you already have in your collection.

Analysis: I have been enjoying this game very much. I especially like trying to figure out the cross-pollination sequences required to get to the rare and exotic plants. The attention to detail in the plants grown from seed is incredible. Even plants from the same seed will appear different, as each plant is grown dynamically, and thus with variation. Also, each plant can be pruned right down to its individual leaves and stems. Some supplies can make plants grow and bloom more than usual as well.

What this game needs is a master blueprint or in-game spreadsheet of some kind that the player can fill out as they progress with mapping out all the different varieties. I've found myself taking extensive notes outside the game, which indicates a shortcoming in the game: the tools it provides are constraining and leaves me wanting more from them.

If you enjoyed Alice Greenfingers but were wishing for something with a bit more depth, then Plant Tycoon may be just what you're looking for. Unfortunately, the 1-hour time-limited demo gives you only enough time to just scratch the surface of this amazingly deep game, and it will keep you wanting more like parched soil for a good watering.

I can't really say that I'm a fan of any of these real-time games. You either need to interrupt your day every hour or two to tend them, or play games with your computer's clock to make it seem like time is passing. If you, say, forget about it for a day, you can wave goodbye to any progress you'd made, because all of your people/fish/plants are dead.

Tell me, how can a game be "casual" if you need to pay attention to it regularly? Aren't casual games supposed to be ones that you can pick up and put down at a whim, unlike standard games that tie you to your keyboard for hours and hours?

Plant Tycoon is real-time, yes, and yet you can also sell all your plants if you will not be able to tend to them again for an extended period of time. And losing a plant or two is no big deal anyways.

Yes, I have not tried this particular one, but seeing as how I have played both of the Virtual Villagers games and Fish Tycoon, I feel somewhat qualified. Since you didn't say anything that would suggest a change from the same basic concept, I can only assume that what I see as flaws remain in the game. Judging a book by its cover art is a no-no, but when you're looking at the publisher, author, genre, and review, you've got a pretty good idea what's inside. If I say anything that doesn't apply to this one, please, do get out the giant flyswatter and knock me down.

Yes, they have a control for speed, but it's buried in the options. If it's a major part of how the game is played, it should be part of the basic interface. To my memory, there was never even a keyboard shortcut for it.

Were that fixed, you still run into the problem that if anything at all goes wrong while the program is closed, you can't react to it. A minor issue that could be fixed easily grows into a devastating problem by the time you get back to it.

For comparison, consider The Guild (either version), which is a more complicated, decidedly non-casual (to my eyes) take on the real-time management genre. There is a visible method for fast-forwarding the game, and when you close the game, it stops running. This is a Good Thing, because it means you can always pick it back up right where you left it. Any game that continues to progress even when closed requires that you think about it regularly. If I forget about The Guild for a week, I don't need to rush back to it in a panic, because I know that it's still fine. I shouldn't need to know in advance whether I'm closing the game for an hour, a day, a week, or even longer.

Really, what it comes down to is that I like the concept of these games, but not the execution. If you're going to let the game run even when it's not open, there needs to be some kind of a safety net, so that the player doesn't need to worry about what will happen to their plants/people/fish while they're away, even if some emergency (or simple absentmindedness) comes up that keeps them away for far longer than they'd expected.

I'd also like to point out that I'm not saying these are *bad* games, or that you should immediately delete them from the site. What I am saying is that, to me, if we are to consider them casual games, they are flawed, and the publisher seems to be producing one after another without fixing those flaws. As long as they keep selling well, I can't blame them, either. I just wonder wonder why a casual game site keeps posting them without even noting that as casual games, they have some problems.

Sorry about the length, but I tend to get verbose when I'm emotionally invested in my topic. I do love this site, and I would hate to see the term "casual game" lose its meaning, because I think it's an important distinction to make.

Now watch the powers of Gemini step in!

Well you probably couldn't call it "casual", but then again it's a download, which makes it a little less casual, so it wouldn't be so casual on the inside.

But why worry about how "casual" it is when it's fun?

I know it defies mostly what this site is about but there are a few other games on thus site that aren't totally "casual".

So ends the argument, and lets others talk about the game itself, not how "casual" it is.

Perhaps displaying a dialog upon returning to the game giving players the option to continue where they left off, or to have the game process the elapsed time as "real time" would address this issue you have with these types of games?

Are these casual games by strict definition? Probably not; these simulation games are likely to appeal more to the hardcore casual set. Do they belong on a site that features and promotes excellence in casual gameplay? I think so.

I can see Funnyman's point - but probably in a different way. I really dig games like this and my only difficulty with the time issue is that I'm impatient and want to quickly see what will happen and, in the alternative, not miss anything. I think, however, that it is more of a personal issues with myself than it is with the game.

I would probably still consider these casual gameplay because it doesn't require that someone sit with a strategy guide in one hand calculating Mage Spell hit points or other odd junk like that. Those games are really for the ner...hardcore gamers.

I will point out that you CAN play it as if time doesn't pass while you're not there - hitting the spacebar pauses the game, hitting it again returns it to whatever speed it was on before you paused it, although you have to remember to pause it before you close it. (and doing it that way gets rather annoying since the plants take like half an hour to grow...)(Also pausable under the time settings in options)

This game does make it easier to leave running for a while, unlike fish tycoon. You could have all your fish die, but in this one the 'babies' are stored as seeds that don't die or need tending, so as long as you have a store of seeds everything is still good.

I'm enjoying it quite a lot, although I have run into my usual problem; There's not enough space for all my seeds! I've bought all the seed box upgrades and I'm still running out. I guess I'll have to ditch all the plants that aren't somehow unique, expensive, or awesome.

One nitpick I have is that even if I have known parents for a given seed, I can't tell what it is after it's been planted. It'd be really nice if the game would display the name of the plant in that situation, instead of having to wait until it's mature.

Anyway, I definitely prefer this one over Fish Tycoon. As said, you can store lots of seeds so that you have doubles of everything you currently have growing. If they all die then it's no big deal. Repeatedly I'd end up somehow breeding one kind of fish that barely survived to adulthood and they'd eventually die out so I'd have to start over. I didn't realise it paused either, that's very cool. Wish I'd known last night so I wouldn't have stayed up until they all grew up and I could sell them off...

What the game really, really needs is something that keeps track of discovered species and how you got them. At the absolute least it needs to display names along with pictures of the parents. I'm going to have to start a big file putting pictures to names just so I can keep track of it. (I don't suppose anybody has already done that and feels like uploading it so I can figure out my current parents?)

lizardling - yes, I don't believe there are 500 varieties of seeds, as I've seen different plants come from the same seed. And that is a good question about cross-pollination. I am wondering the same thing.

There definitely are not 500 seeds - it seems like the base seed is based on the foliage and then the coloring/hair is based on the rarity of the flowers rather than by specific flowers. Generally the fancier the seed, the rarer the flowers.

1) Is it 'casual'? Our games were never 'aimed' at the casual demographic. We try to make them very easy to pick up (without dumbing down the game!), and they happen to sell very well on casual portals...so *POOF* I guess they are 'casual'.

2) Flow of time: we made 'fast' time setting _very_ fast in Plant Tycoon (relative to Fish Tycoon), because it seemed a little slower just because the plants do not swim around in a cute way. I personally do change the time setting a fair bit and if I could go back I would probably add a more prominent display for 'current speed setting'.

3) Seeds/species combinations. There are a lot. The limited seed space is actually intended to force the player to make some hard choices about organization, and which seeds to keep. That is why we start them with so little space and allow them to upgrade. As a designer, I am a fan of limits (both in design and in the play experience). I find limits like these challenging--and even liberating in ways.

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