Seed Hollow
Grow one seed from a windowsill pot to a valley.
Seed Hollow is an idle garden game, sewn in cross-stitch. One seed in a windowsill pot grows and earns seeds; you spend them on more plants, the plants seed the beds beside them, and when the pot is full the view pulls back to a back garden, then to a valley.
The goal
Fill every bed of a scale. A filled scale shows its card and the view pulls back to the next one; the filled scale goes on earning the seeds it earned when it filled.
| Scale | Beds | A first run |
|---|---|---|
| A windowsill pot | 15 spots | About 3 minutes |
| A back garden | 100 beds | About 8 minutes |
| A valley | 84 fields | About 15 minutes |
- The pot grows cress, marigold and lavender, cheapest first.
- The back garden grows those three, then sunflower, runner bean and apple tree.
- The valley grows fields: wildflower meadow, wheat, lavender, sunflower, orchard and beech wood.
The Almanac names three scales still to come: a green continent, a garden planet and a galaxy in bloom.
How a garden grows
- A plant grows on its own, from 11 seconds for cress to a minute and a half for an apple tree. Grown, it earns seeds every second.
- The plant button plants the kind it names, at the bed the needle marks, for the price under the name. It offers the kind that gives the most seeds a second for its price; the seed packet beside it opens the tin, to pick a kind yourself or go back to the best buy.
- A tap on an empty bed plants the offered kind there.
- Each kind costs 8 times the one before it, and each plant of a kind you buy raises that kind's price by 15%. A kind opens once 3 of the kind before it are planted.
- A grown plant now and then seeds an empty bed beside it with its own kind, for nothing. Each grown neighbour of the same kind, left, right, in front or behind, adds 15% to a plant's seeds.
- A tap on a plant shows its label: the seeds it earns a second, or how far it has grown. Pull it up empties the bed, lowers the kind's price a step and gives back half of that price.
The can and the visitors
- The can fills in 45 seconds. Water makes the young plants grow 3 times as fast for 20 seconds.
- The first visitor comes after 45 seconds, then one every 70 to 110 seconds after the last has gone. Each stays 12 seconds over a grown plant; a tap on it catches it.
| Visitor | Caught |
|---|---|
| Butterfly | Every plant blooms: twice the seeds for 30 seconds |
| Hummingbird | Every young plant grows up at once |
| Rain cloud | Waters the whole garden for 40 seconds |
Time away
With the game closed or its tab hidden, the plants go on growing and seeding and the seeds come in, for up to 8 hours; no visitors come and nothing is bought. Coming back shows the seeds that came in and the plants that seeded themselves.
Controls
- Phone, tablet or mouse: tap the plant button, Water, a bed, a plant or a visitor; the seed packet picks the kind.
- Keyboard: Tab moves between the buttons, Enter or Space presses one.
- The Almanac lists the scales, the visitors and Sound: on a phone it opens from its button bottom right, and on a wide screen it stands beside the garden.
- The gear, top right, opens the site's Settings. The garden stops while the tab is hidden and counts the time away.
Tacs and awards
- Awards pay Tacs once: the pot filled 10, the back garden 15, the valley 20, the first apple tree grown 10, the first beech wood 10, and each visitor's first catch 5.
The garden and your Tacs are kept on your device.
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