Crazy Plant Shop

Crazy Plant Shop is a strategy game about managing a plant shop. At first sight it resembles a typical time management game where customers need to be served and you need to make a profit to make it to the next day. It is however an education title that is part of the PLEx Life Science suite developed in conjunction with Washington State University. It also has a standards map and an implementation guide to use it in classrooms. Also unlike time management games, there is no time pressure at all; the player can spend as much time as he wants on orders and chooses when a day ends.

After choosing a male or a female botanist and meeting the landlord Gregor Mendel who provides the shop for ten coins a day, a short tutorial provides the gameplay basics. Customers enter the shop and provide an order. They order a certain type and amount of plants for a number of coins. There are three levels of difficulty for incoming order, mostly based on the required traits and it is possible to reject an order. The plant is picked up from the pedestal and placed on the counter where the order is completed. With each completed order additional plant types become available in the plant catalog and to win the game all plants need to be unlocked.

Not every type of plant is available in the shop. When there are empty pedestals left, additional plants can be ordered from the catalog. More complex orders require the use of the breeder machine. Two plants can be placed inside and then different traits can be selected to adjust and breed them into a new plant. Breeding is based on a punnett square that shows the four possible trait types offspring can have. Players select a trait or leave it up to chance. Traits are determined by alleles, genes that determine the flower colour. Getting the colour right is based on configuring dominant and recessive alleles, with the combinations shown through the punnett square. Asexual plants form an exception as the resulting offspring is always identical to the parent plant. Breeding plants is a way to acquire plants without spending money, but there is only a limited amount of breeding power available per day. When no more orders can be fulfilled, the player ends the day and then a daily account of profit and expenses is shown, including the rent for the shop.

Redundant plants can be sold at the front of the shop. With a sufficient amount of money it is possible to upgrade the shop with a breeder machine, more breeding power, faster breeder speed, faster player speed and additional pedestals. Next to the regular orders you can enter three plant competitions to reach the World's Fair. Entries can be quite complex; the one to enter the first competition for instance requires you to submit a heterozygous plant for at least two genes with one dominant and one recessive allele for each gene.