News
New Ground Breaking Announcement
Green Thumb HD Released
The Garden is just filling up with a wonderful bounty of applications. We had to open an additional plot of land on the iPad. We're pleased to announce that the iPad version of GreenThumb, which we're calling GreenThumbHD, has been released and is now available in the App Store. There's a number of exciting changes and updates to this version:
- OpenFeint Leaderboards, Achievements and Forums to let you track your progress as compared to the rest of the Gardeners across the land.
- Updated graphics, making this the most visually gorgeous application we've released.
- All of the Gardens are available for you to play immediately, so if you get stuck on one there's plenty of more to play through.
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New Expanded Nursery
Green Thumb Lite Released
Greetings Gardeners! Now available on the App Store is a free lite version of Green Thumb.
You get the full tutorial and several boards to let you try out the game and see if you can solve the puzzles.
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Planting Continues
Green Thumb 1.1 Released
You guys are great! We've had an awesome response to Green Thumb, thanks a lot to you! We've been busy answering questions and dusting off the tractors for the harvest, but we've been able to get the number one requested feature into a 1.1 Release. Undo is here and available for all your gaming needs. Yah! There's a new button in the bottom middle of the screen that will take you back a move. You can go back all the way to the beginning of the game if you want (but the reset button the right is still there and probably simpler).
We also got a slightly changed icon. Some people suggested that perhaps there should be some green in the icon. Big shout out to Mr. Stroop for the explanation on that.
Some of you are asking if the game is actually solvable. We assure you that many, many nights have been spent devising these puzzles and they can be solved. ;)
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Planting Success
Green Thumb 1.0 Released
Today we are excited to announce that Green Thumb is now available for download on the iPhone AppStore for $2.99. It's an approachable puzzle game with over sixty different Gardens and three difficulty levels in a fun flower-based theme.
There is a quick tutorial to start the game off and show you how to play. The rules are very simple to learn, but there are a wide variety of Gardens that will challenge you with short logic puzzles and longer strategic battles.
We've been working on this project for quite a while and it's great to finally get it out the door. We hope that you'll have as much fun playing it as we did building it.
Also a big shout out to our early beta testers who had some great suggestions about improving the game. Thanks!
Developer Blog
Beta, This time with feeling
Based on the first beta feedback and our own discussions, we decided to spend the time to build out a Tutorial to start the game off right. Adding additional code to display some text at various points and then develop a set of introduction Gardens that will ease a new player into the game seems like a worthwhile investment of our time. Along the way, we landed a set of additional changes that we've been wanting to get into the game. Some of the things the first round beta people will notice include:
- new introduction sound and improved sound/animation synchronization
- additional image assets for the stones
- statistics and improved Garden chooser from the new game ui
- updated about text with game introduction
- new Garden naming scheme
- reordered the Gardens and added some new ones, based on feedback
- some additional hidden sprinkles, for those who like sprinkles
Developer Blog
3.0 SDK and our first Beta tester
We've been pushing hard to get our game into shape to publish to the App Store. We've got all the elements in place, we're working on the little details and polish work to make it even better. This week Apple send out a mail indicating that all submissions need to be compatible with the upcoming 3.0 SDK. We've mostly been ignoring the new release to focus on what's in front of us, but that plan is now changed. We've started to look into the 3.0 SDK and it's tickling some underlying issues with our framework. So we're focusing on that next. Simultaneously, we've done a build to our first Beta customer to get some feedback from outside of the bunker. We'll followup with them next week to see how they did and what needs additional polish. Finally, we did some tests for the YouTube uploads and video capture applications.
Visual Media
Tutorial Screen Shots
Here's some screenshots of the opening of the game, showing the first several Tutorial boards to explain the simple game play.
Great Screen Shots
Let's take a look at the first Garden 'Golden Fleece' and see what a normal game would look like.
Let's tap 'Retry on Hard' and see if we can beat it again. See how the flowers changed from red to yellow to indicate what difficulty you're playing against? The Expert opponent is a blue flower.
Ah, I lost this one, it looks like this yellow flower is harder, I'll have to think more about my moves.
Features 1.0
- Over 60 Garden Puzzles
- Play against your iPhone or against a friend
- Computer opponent has three difficulty levels, Normal, Hard and Expert
- Achievement tracking so you can see how well you've done on each Garden
- Reduced stress while waiting in line at the grocery store
Instructions
Introduction
This board game pits you against the opposing Flower for control over the Garden. Someone needs to win this ecological battle, will it be you?
The first set of Gardens are a Tutorial that will guide you through learning the game. As you win, additional Gardens will be unlocked for you to play.
Objectives
You want to end the game with more Flowers than the other player. Sometime you can Grow next to them and convert their Flowers to yours. Sometimes you'll have to Jump to leave a space for you to come back to later. You opponent is doing the same thing. You each take a turn choosing which spot you want to take. Once there are no more spaces the game is over and who ever has the most Flowers wins.
Rules
You are the white Flower. Your opponent will be one of three different Flowers, a red, yellow or blue one, depending on the Difficulty setting. You can tap on one of your Flowers to select it. Available moves will display on the empty spots. Solid circles mean you can Grow there, hollow circles mean you Jump there. Tapping another Flower changes your selection, which will change your available moves. Tapping on an opponent's Flower or on a spot that's not a valid move, will show you which of your which Flowers have valid moves by circling them.
After you move, of your opponent's Flowers that are next to your new position will be captured and converted to your Flowers. This is the main way to gain more Flowers in the Garden. Stones will block you from moving into a spot, but they can be Jumped over.
Interface
Entry Sign
The Entry Sign has a variety of actions, some items only appear if necessary. Careful, this sign is a little creaky and might sway a little bit in the wind. Try not to break it.
- Start Tutorial - If this is your first time playing, there is a short Tutorial to explain things.
- Resume Garden - If you were in the middle of game and paused it, you can restart it by choosing this.
- New Garden - Review the list of available Gardens, and pick one to play. While you're there, take a look at your best scores so far.
- Settings - Control options like Sound and Music.
- About - Some information about how the game works.
In the lower right hand corner, you'll see your total achievements. You get one point for beating each level on normal difficulty (not counting the tutorial), and an additional point as you increase the difficulty each step.
Gameplay
Once you've started a game, tapping your Flower and then on an open spot will make your move. In the lower left, there's a button to get back to the Entry Sign. In the lower right is a reset button that will set the Garden to what it looked like when you started.
Sometimes some hints or tips will display in the lower part of the screen. You can tap these for additional information or just continue with your game.
The computer opponent doesn't like to lose and if you force him into a losing position, he'll tend to jump to continue the game. Sometimes this can force you into a more drawn out game. The opponent does get bored though, so he'll usually not replay the same Garden position twice. There is no restrictions on you or him in this regard, you're free to repeat Garden positions until you drain your battery.
New Garden
The Garden view shows you what the Garden looks like if it's unlocked. You can swipe the Garden left and right or tap the arrow buttons to see the other Gardens. Tapping the Check in the middle, or anywhere else on the Garden, and you will begin playing that Garden. (Advanced tip: if you press and hold an arrow for a second, when you release you will be taken to the next Garden that you have not beaten on the current difficulty yet. This is useful when you're trying to finish those last few Gardens and need to skip a bunch you've already completed.)
Below the Garden is a set of statistics about the games you have played on this Garden. These include
- Title - The number and title of this Garden are displayed at the top of this section. You might notice that the Expert opponent has different names for the Gardens. He's like that.
- Difficulty -This is the current difficulty setting: either Normal, Hard or Expert. You can change this by selecting one of the flowers below, or by tapping anywhere on the statistics message.
- Record - This displays your Win-Lose-Tie record for this Garden. This shows you how many times you've played this Garden at this Difficulty.
- Fastest time - This records your best time at beating this Garden.
- Fewest moves - Shows your best game in terms of number of moves.
If the Play Mode is not "Human vs Computer", the statistics will not display.
At the very bottom, are a number of buttons. The left-most button will take you back to the Entry Sign. The three middle buttons display as Flowers and allow you to change what Difficulty level you want to play at, as well as changing the statistics displayed above. The currently selected Flower will have a bright highlight around it.
Settings
Tapping the Sound Effects and Music signs will toggle the in game sounds and music On and Off.
The last sign allows you to change the Play Mode. It defaults to "Human vs. Computer" and tapping it will change it to "Human vs Human". This allows you to play against a friend. Tapping once more selects "Computer vs Computer" which can be used to see how your opponent would play both sides of the Garden. If you have not completed the Tutorial this sign will not display.
Note that any changes to the Player or the Difficulty will reset your current game back to the beginning of the Garden.
You can press the "Done" sign when you've finished to return to the Entry Sign.
History
The basic gameplay of Green Thumb is based on a game called Infection by Dave Crummack and Craig Galley which eventually became known as Ataxx and also appeared as a memorable puzzle in the 7th Guest.
Version History
Version 1.3 (730) - November 3, 2010- Separate iPad Version of the Game.
- Added OpenFeint support for Leaderboards, Achievements, and Forums.
- Separate Free Lite Version of Game.
- Undo previous move.
- Game over signs are larger and farther apart.
- App icon updated.
- Best time now only counts player 1's thinking time.
- Best moves now only counts player 1's moves.
- Locked board display in board chooser improved.
- Initial public release.
Welcome
Welcome all the new Gardeners from the new Green Thumb HD version of the game!
Hope you are enjoying the game, what is your favorite Garden so far?
