Seed is a soothing, botany-based diversion that lets you cross-breed several different kinds of flowers into pretty mutant hyper-flowers. Simply select a flower species from the menu and it will spawn into one of five available locations in the dirt. Click on your creation to clone it, or click-drag and drop on another flower to crossbreed. Doing so will spawn a third flower into an available spot in the dirt. To delete a flower, hold [shift] and click on it. You may have five flowers only onscreen at a time, so additional crossbreeding or cloning when all spots are occupied will cause one flower to be deleted at random — so clone your favorite creations often. As an alternative, you can just let evolution decide all of this for you; this option gets very interesting if you have several species of flower in play.
Of course, it wouldn't be much of a game if you couldn't share your creation with others. Just drag your flower into a box in the upper right-hand corner to see its "DNA," the code you can copy and paste for others to view. I've seen some very interesting creations from simply crossbreeding the same species over and over again — so experiment freely and see what appears!
Analysis: Seed is a small game, but it'll keep you engaged for a while, particularly if you share your discoveries with others and try out their creations, too. Challenge yourself to create the largest, smallest, or most colorful flower you can. Right now the options are limited as there are about nine initial flowers, but the author has indicated he may add more later. For the moment, it's an intriguing little webtoy.
Walkthrough Guide
(Please allow page to fully load for spoiler tags to be functional.)
This walkthrough (or "guide") explains what each element in your DNA coding does, how you can change it, and is aimed to assist you in genetically engineering the plant of your dreams.
Let's start out with some basic DNA. This is the DNA of the little pink flower that you start out with.
85.0, 0x44bb44, 1, 10, 30.0, 0.0,
1.1, 1.4, 40.0, 80.0, 1.0, 2,
0.1, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0,
0.0, -0.4, 0xddbb44, 0xdd88dd, 5.0, 10.0,
6, 6, 0.5, 0.3
Now, beyond the spoiler tags, I will explain what every one of these numbers does.
This chart shows how the letters match up with the numbers:
A, B, C, D, E, F,
G, H, I, J, K, L,
M, N, O, P, Q, R,
S, T, U, V, W, x,
Y, Z, AA, AB
With the following leters, the ones that I did not list have no apparent effect on the flower, so, rather than writing "I don't know" several different ways, I have simply excluded them.
A
This affects the heighth of the flower. The higher the number, the taller the flower.
B
This hexadecimal is the color of your stem. Don't bother changing the 0 out in front, just change the next 6 digits to match an HTML color code.
C
The number of flowers your plant will have.
D
This affects the roundness of the petals. The effects are subtle. Lower numbers result in harder edges while higher numbers result in smother edges.
E
A number from 20 to 60, this is how tall the stem grows after the branches stem off.
F
Affects the size of the flower's core. Set between 0 and 1.
G
The width of the stem.
H
The speed that the stem grows, from 1 to 1.5.
I
How far apart the flowers are spaced.
K
The size of the flower's core.
L
How many layers of petals the flower will have.
M
Seems to affect the potential for the leaves being offset to the side. Results are subtle.
Q
The width of the border around the petals.
T
Changes the color of the border around the flower's petals.
U
Affects the color of the center of the flower. Again, this is done with color codes.
V
Use a color code to set the color of the petals. Note that this is just the general color, and each leaf has potential to deviate from it.
W
How big the center of the flower is.
X
How large the petals are.
Z
The number of petals on each flower.
AA
How much the petals in deeper layers appear. Will only work if L is greater than one. Set between 1 and 2.. For example, a high number makes it look like a clover. Lower numbers make it spikier.
AB
How much the petals dent inwards. For example, a high number makes it look like a clover. Lower numbers make it spikier.
If you've got any additions to this list, or want to correct an error, you can grab me on the IRC chat. I use the name "SamusMan" there.
Thank you mike for getting on IRC and relaying to me what AA does.
Thank you Roman for getting on IRC and relaying to me what E, H, and I do.
Posted by: Griff | December 23, 2007 12:36 AM