Posts by Hushsound

Thank you both so much! That's a relief.

Hello, I was looking at the wiki in preparation for Halloween and was wondering, if I wanted to get the breed-only variants of the jack-o'-lantern, do I need to breed two of them together? Or can I breed them with regular pumpkins?

It looks like the Valentine's Day seeds are in the wild garden now. Since I hadn't seen a post about it yet I wanted to try to let other people know. Happy Valentine's!

I feel like my response was misunderstood or possibly not read at all, so I'll excuse myself from the discussion now. In the end, I was trying to say that there needs to be effort from the creator(s) to polish the website and wiki and that it can't fall entirely on the playerbase, when the playerbase is small due to the unpolished nature of those things.

It's a little idealistic to think that we can fix everything up on our own, even if everyone wants to and even in the implausible case that everyone set aside time to do it. It just isn't realistic. There needs to be professional work done, because there just aren't enough people with that much free time. I'm not saying "we shouldn't try", I'm saying "we will not be enough".

I was being as pragmatic as possible in an attempt to help.

Of course it's okay! But I do want to explain myself and counter this a little. This website was created by people who don't have English as their first language (I presume), and official forum posts are written in both English and German, which makes me think that that's the case for some of the playerbase, too. Another thing that makes me believe this is the errors I've seen on the wiki. They are possible to understand, but they aren't grammatically correct in English, and that in addition to some things referring to ~2014 as if it's the present makes the wiki look outdated and neglected. I don't mean this with any sort of tone, I'm just stating how I see it.

There are gaps in information available to the players and I've found myself confused and searching the forum and the wiki multiple times, which is something players shouldn't need to do. I'm not trying to sound pretentious, and I personally don't mind, I prefer the current size of the website and feeling of everything, it's just that if you think of any polished and successful media it succeeds in having reliable resources available to everyone.

Flowergame can't rely on a hypothetical, eventual larger audience to fix these issues because these are issues that would turn players away.

It isn't as if an outdated wiki is the entire reason for a small playerbase, but try to imagine being an average person who doesn't know anything about Flowergame. For them, finding this might be coming across a unique website from 2009 that seems interesting and has laid-back gameplay that still feels rewarding. But even if they want to get into it, they might have thoughts like this, with each point being more and more likely to make them drop the game:
"The website needs an adblocker, but that's okay. Wow, that letter from the postpixie was kind of hard to read. I guess no one's read this since it was made. There are only a few minigames and you need to water your plants a lot... This is like the fifth time I've played this one already. Oh, there are holiday events? Is there a wiki? Oh, there is. Cool. Where can I see those... Oh, okay, I found them under "special plants". These look great. Wait, when do the holidays start? That's only available for a few days every year? There used to be furniture?? There used to be whole puzzles across the website with rewards for holidays? Wait, why does this page cut off at 2015? Does this game not have those anymore? All of the writing looks low-effort, does anyone even use this? It feels like no one cares, and the forum is really inactive, I guess this game is dead..."

That is a really plausible thought process and something that occurred to me while I was going through the wiki myself. I thought "If I wasn't as charmed by and appreciative of this game as I am, several things would have made me lose interest already."

A band-aid solution would still be a step toward fixing the core problem at this time, which is that the playerbase is too small. No one needs to think about the long-term right this moment because that makes finding any solution overwhelming. What matters is "What will help fix things up right now". I'm not saying proofreading and updating the wiki should be at the top of anyone's list of priorities, but clearly giving people interested in the game the information they need to understand and be more thoroughly invested is important.

It's a little hard to believe but I checked this forum for the first time in at least two weeks about thirty minutes after your reply somehow so this quick response is not because my hobby is debating, I genuinely just care about this game.

(Unrelated and not in response) Again, I'm completely content with the website as-is. I would never be saying any of this if the creator wasn't trying to find a solution to a shortage of users. I really like this game and find playing the same minigames relaxing because I prefer familiar, predictable things. I don't mind the way anything is written at all. I think it's a shame about the features that are gone and seemingly won't come back, but it doesn't make me want to stop playing. I thought it was exciting that I managed to get a few New Year's plants within such a short amount of time. Just for the record to anyone who might see this, I'm not complaining or trying to be difficult, I'm just trying to help with an unfortunately unpleasant voice of reason.

I understand, and I didn't think that either of those things would be easy at all, but I thought "If anyone is being hired, or anything is being bought or spent on new features, I would think those resources should be redirected into these existing issues". I was only trying to say that, in my opinion, repair of existing things would make the website more polished and appealing and should take priority over new projects. As well as expanding on existing features (plants, furniture, minigames, wiki) would be easier, safer, and would make the website feel "fuller" as opposed to spending time and money on giving an experiment a shot. A new addition doesn't mean much if the rest of the website gives a neglected impression.

I wasn't proposing "hire someone long term" either, I just meant paying someone to go over what exists now and give things an update at their current point. I'm not under the illusion that these things wouldn't be expensive. And thank you for fixing the plant embeds!

I know that it would be impossible for a single person to go through and correct everything, but relying on the community to do a real job is inefficient... People are typically paid to do things like that, the same as with designing new minigames and systems. I recognize a lot of spelling errors and grammar that could be improved but it would be very time-consuming for me to sit down and try to correct them all. As much as I like this game, I just don't want to devote my time to doing a job I'm not being paid to do.

That's why I think resources being devoted to those things instead of new features would be a good idea, personally. The same as with wiki upkeep, it being community driven is nice but if it falls into being outdated then new players are going to struggle for information and that makes the website less accessible. It being linked at the top makes it look official, so going to it only to find that it's really outdated makes the website look like it's being neglected.

I'm really happy to hear that the updates are unrelated, though! Then still, despite what I've said I can't help but look forward to seeing what those will be.

I just saw the new update and I don't want to drag this topic into that comment section just in case it's unrelated, but if the both "small and large" feature is this then I truly, seriously implore you not to waste resources on a gamemode that most definitely will not draw a larger audience. I donated a while back and was thinking about donating again for new plants and to help support the website for exactly what it is, even if in some small way.

More plants, more minigames, furniture (both actual furniture and maybe still images of cats, dogs, etc. the same as the Easter rabbits) a proofreader, an up-to-date wiki, a way to gauge exactly how full your watering can is, making the watering can give a full drop of water at a time (picking up four new plants and grinding through as many limited gamemodes as you need in order to water them would be too tedious for many people), artistic features like a nighttime themed "dark mode", for example, are all things that would be more worthwhile and would require money and/or an artist on a smaller, more achievable scale, and would make the website feel more polished and engaging. Frankly, for as long as there are as many grammatical errors as there are and a limited set of minigames, no other ambitious features should be considered at all.

To finally put it bluntly I think the 3D idea under these circumstances is borderline impossible to achieve, from the perspective of someone with a grasp on what it would entail. I don't want to be harsh, I am just alarmed at the idea that my existing support will be spent on a dead end, and it'd make me hesitant to donate any more in the future...

In any case, "change nothing" is the winning poll result so far, and I feel like it would be a betrayal to the people who have donated and supported this game in other ways to go ahead with the 3D gamemode. I sincerely hope I'm overthinking it and the potential feature mentioned in the update is something entirely different.

Another 2.5D or 3D gamemode would be cool, but incredibly expensive, and there'd be the difficulty of running something like that in-browser, and all of the lag issues, server strain, mismatches with different browsers and operating systems, etc. it could easily experience would make it a very large project. It seems like it'd be a risky gamble...

I'm sorry, to clarify what I meant with my edits of rearranged pages was that it would be unfortunately a lot of work with a very minimal impact on the website. If the goal in this is to draw a larger audience, potentially rearranging things with HTML and CSS (time-consuming) to add 3D models (expensive) would be time and effort spent purely for the sake of the existing players who would like that look. At least from my perspective.

So sadly I wasn't drawing those as a suggestion, I was trying to say that if Flowergame were to try to add 3D models, and if it tried to in either of the ways I drew, it wouldn't be a wise idea... and that there isn't really any room for other ways of implementing the 3D models that wouldn't be even more work, from what I understand.

For anyone concerned with the dark backgrounds in the first and second, those are the backgrounds of 3D modeling software. In programs where you design 3D models, black or white backgrounds help you see the details of your model more clearly as you rotate it around and edit it. I am almost certain that the plants would actually have transparent backgrounds in practice. However, 3D models would force the layout of plant pages to change.

If the models stayed at the top, simply replacing where the 2D plant pictures are, they would be indistinguishable from GIFs like these, which have been around for long over a decade now. They would be forced to rotate to make it visible that they're 3D at all.

But if the pages were to be rearranged entirely, it would still be the same thing. The model would need to rotate, but in order for it to be impressive, it would need to be detailed. Otherwise it's the same as a 3D GIF again. The difference would be negligible while the development would be costly.

The models look nice here, but how they would be implemented, I don't know. It seems like an impractical direction to go in, which is unfortunate because it really does look cool. But for Flowergame in particular I don't think it's worth it.

Oh my gosh I forgot that would be a risk! My bad. But "inspired" might be okay, I certainly hope it wouldn't be an issue seeing as they're only plants.

If I could make a suggestion, there are plants from video games that many people would recognize and might be drawn to. If there was an update similar to "(Game) themed plants available!" I think people might be interested in being able to post those flowers on their webpages.

An Ancient Fruit from the game Stardew Valley, and a Starfruit in the Stardew Valley style, for example. A lot of people love that game. Similarly Qingxin and Naku Weeds from Genshin Impact would be recognizable. Maybe some plants in the pixelated Minecraft style, and plants from Terraria. Apparently Silent Princess and Hearty Durians are popular from Zelda. Plants vs. Zombies plants are also distinct. (I don't actually know that many games, I'm just researching ideas).

From what I understand, people get excited and develop positive relationships with anything that references something they like. I can't be certain of course, but additions to implement "relatability" in a way that'll still suit the charming style of Flowergame could both be inoffensive to existing players and attract new ones.

Edit: This would also skip needing to make several variations of the same plant.

The art is what made me interested in this game, so unfortunately I'll say I would be dissuaded from playing if it changed. And I don't mean to be rude, but I thought funds were being devoted to hiring artists to draw new plants. An overhaul of what already exists in a new style would be incredibly expensive, wouldn't it? And it would only be new visuals, not new content... It's a nice idea, but I'm in favor of things staying the same.

I might be off the mark, but I imagine that especially when most of your playerbase is long-term users who have stayed and donated for the current style, a complete change in direction would cost more than it was worth, both financially and in user engagement.

Thank you so much for letting me know!

Hello. From what I can tell on the wiki, in 2014 the Christmas seeds were in the wild garden from December 6th to January 6th, 2015. That seems like a very long time compared to the Halloween event, so I want to make sure I'm understanding it properly. Is that still the duration of the Christmas event, or is that information outdated?

I would really love to see the Halloween event too. I've read that it's typically very short, which is a shame. It'd be nice if it began soon.

Quote from fkrauthan

Like the game does not care where the image/link is embedded. So what you are suggesting does already work. But good idea to potential change the wording itself on that page. I'll think a bit about it.

P.s. Welcome to the game

Thank you!! And I'm sorry, I was trying to test it to see if I got the option to water when going off of my other page vs. going off of my signature and it didn't work, but it must have genuinely been my browser or the way I was trying to check that. Don't mind me!

Hello. I've only just started playing this game, but I realized after struggling to understand how to embed links to my plants into another website that this "visitors will help your plants grow" system only works for the forum. I think it might alienate both newer and younger players, because the forum community is not that active and younger people (at least in many English-speaking places) use things like Githubs, Strawpages, Patreons, and Rentry pages to introduce themselves. Plants shown in places like those would gain a lot more attention.

If this game were to allow any visit from any website to help the plants grow and allow those users to water plants, I believe this game would have a lot more reach. It's charming, but if it's essentially "singleplayer", I think a lot of people will be discouraged from getting invested.

My suggestion is to change it from "people who view and click on the plants in your signature will help them grow" to "people who view and click on your plants from any website will help them grow". Instead of it being forum and signature specific, I believe it'd help for it to just be "anyone who clicks on the link to your plant".

I know that it being signature specific was likely intended to encourage people to use the forum and participate in conversation... but it seems like that isn't effective anymore, and I think it'd be worth it to change and try to reach a wider audience. I genuinely think that some teenagers to people in their early 20's would find plant widgets cute, and a calm fairy theme charming. It might be an unwanted audience, so I understand if this doesn't happen, but I would be sad to see this website ever go under, so I was thinking of ways to help it stay secure. I'm sorry if this comes off too strong.