Flower Power

Ordering Decimals, Fractions & Percents

Grow flowers and harvest them to make money in this addictive order-'em-up. It may look simple but it's fractionally harder than you might imagine. Remember to wait for the bee!

Intermediate School focused, Ordering, Decimals, Percents

Instructions

Game Goals

The object of this maths game is to make as much money as possible by growing and harvesting valuable and exotic flowers.

Use your fractions and decimals ordering skills to correctly order the blooms in the garden, and then harvest mature stems and sell them. Develop more interesting varieties by growing simple flowers and leaving them to pollinate and seed.

New and improved strains will germinate from perfectly-ordered flowers. Balance pollination and harvesting to achieve a high score, and demonstrate your mastery of fractions and horticulture.

How To Play

In your market garden, flower stems will grow from seeds. Blooms grow on flower stems, and each bloom carries a fraction, decimal, or a percentage.

Flower stems must be ordered with large blooms at the top, and small blooms at the bottom. Order the blooms by clicking on buds at the base of the stem and dragging them into place. Buds will flower into blooms if released, or if not positioned quickly enough.

When a stem grows to its full height of seven blooms, it will stop growing, and the player has the opportunity to either harvest it, or wait and allow it to be pollinated by a bee. To harvest, simply click on the scissors that appear if you mouse-over the stem value displayed at the base of the stem. To pollinate, leave the stem standing, and wait for the bee. When the bee pollinates the flower, it will spread more seeds.

Game Controls

Buds grow at the base of stems, and will eventually bloom in-situ if not dragged. If a bud is dragged to its correctly-ordered position on the stem then it will flower, but if incorrectly positioned it will flower and then wilt, reducing the value of the stem. Once released, a bloom cannot be picked up again. Buds that are already in their correctly-ordered position may be simply clicked to flower immediately.

Each stem has a value that is displayed at its base. The stem can be harvested at any time by positioning the mouse over this value and clicking on it, summoning the gardener. Multiple stems can be harvested at the same time to secure a "Bumper Harvest" bonus: achieve a Bumper Harvest by first clicking on the stem to be harvested that is the furthest to the left, and subsequently on the other stems to be harvested, from left to right. If all stems are harvested at once, a simple daisy seed will blow in, and all exotic flower strains will be lost.

Pollination

Stems that reach the top of the screen will be harvestable for a few seconds. If not harvested they will await pollination by the bees, and when pollinated, they will turn to seed:

• If the stem is perfectly ordered, three seeds will be generated - two of the same variety, and one of a new, more valuable variety.
• If the stem has one wilted bloom on it, two seeds of the same variety will be generated.
• If the stem has two wilted blooms on it, only one seed of the same variety will be generated.

Each time a seed is planted, the player receives a time bonus. However, the value of this bonus is progressively reduced each time it is awarded.

As the game progresses, the likelihood of growing a toadstool increases. Toadstools are high value, but must be ordered in reverse. Red toadstools spawn from roses, pink toadstools from lilies, and white toadstools from orchids.

Flower Varieties

Many attractive and mathematically-interesting plants can be grown in the garden. Flowers are ordered with large flowers at the top, and small ones at the bottom. Fungi are ordered in reverse, with large caps at the bottom and small ones at the top.

Daisies

Decimals
$0.10 per bloom

Tulips

Simple fractions with denominators of 2 and 4
$0.20 per bloom

Roses

Fractions with mixed denominators
$0.40 per bloom

Lilies

Percents, decimals and fractions
$0.80 per bloom

Orchids

Percents, decimals and fractions (both positive and negative)
$1.20 per bloom

Red Toadstools

Fractions with mixed denominators
$0.80 per bloom

Pink Toadstools

Percents, decimals and fractions
$1.60 per bloom

White Toadstools

Percents, decimals and fractions (both positive and negative)
$2.40 per bloom

Scoring

The value per stem harvested is calculated by the following formula:

In a Bumper Harvest, an additional factor is applied:

Improve your score

Basic Strategies

Don’t waste your time on cheap flowers – grow perfect stems and let them pollinate, so you progress quickly to more valuable flowers and fungi. Balance pollination and harvesting and attempt to keep at least six high-value stems growing at the same time.

Work left to right, ordering one bloom on each stem in sequence, taking extra care when ordering negatives and fungi.

Use the Bumper Harvest as often as possible, especially for high-value flowers. For the most efficient harvests, cut stems from left to right. As soon as you hear the end-of-day bell tolling, harvest all of your flowers in one Bumper Harvest.

Comparing Buds

When comparing the numbers on the buds, you may find a number of different strategies useful:

• Decide if a bud if greater or less than 1. For example: 105% and 7/3 are more than 1. But −0.3 and 11/12 are less than 1.
• Decide if a bud if greater or less than a half. For example: 53% and 4/7 are more than a half. But 0.28 and 5/12 are less than a half.
• When comparing fractions, try to change them into a common denominator. For example: 5/12 needs to be placed correctly between 2/6 and 3/4. Think of the 2/6 and 3/4 as being out of 12. So you are trying to place 5/12 correctly between 4/12 (=2/6) and 9/12 (=3/4).
• When ordering negatives, remember that bigger numbers go lower down. For example: −1.3 goes lower than −1.1.
• When considering a fraction that is more than 1, try to decide what whole number it is greater than. For example: 9/4 is greater than 2 because 4 goes into 9 more than twice.
• Changing fractions to decimals can be a quick way of comparing. For example: 3/4 = 0.75, 2/5 = 0.4 and 1/3 = 0.333...
• Changing percents to decimals can be a quick way of comparing. For example: 30% = 0.3 and 105% = 1.05.