Cultivation
http://cultivation.sf.net

by Jason Rohrer
http://hcsoftware.sf.net/jason-rohrer




Introduction

This game is about a community of gardeners raising food for themselves in a 
shared space.

There is no "right" way to play Cultivation---it is a dynamic system that you
can interact with in a variety of ways.  In fact, you may notice that two
runs through Cultivation can be quite different.

This flexibility is balanced with one hard limit:  the game ends when your 
genetic line becomes extinct.  Thus, an implicit goal is to keep your line 
alive for as long as possible, which will give you more time to pursue 
whatever goals you set for yourself.

Your eventual goal in the game, should you chose to pursue it, is to open a 
gate to immortality and lead some of your fellow gardeners through it.
Achieving this goal wins the game and gives you a reward.

This rather brief document should get you started playing Cultivation.  You can
also learn to play by going through the in-game tutorial.




Cultivation is Free

I have placed Cultivation, and the underlying source code, in the public 
domain.  You are free to do whatever you want with it.

However, I spent many months working on it, and my family and I do need to
eat.  If you got some enjoyment out of Cultivation, and you can afford it, 
please stuff a few dollars in an envelope and send it to:

Jason Rohrer
93 Elm St.
Potsdam, NY 13676

You can also donate online, and read about my family's simple lifestyle (my
wife, child, and I live on less than $10,000 per year), here:

http://hcsoftware.sf.net/jason-rohrer/supportMyWork.php




Translations

Cultivation was originally released in English, my native language.  However,
it uses a translation engine when rendering text.  The upshot is that it is
very easy to translate Cultivation into other languages.  

Cultivation ships with both English and French language files.  The default is
English.  To switch to French, open the file "language.txt" in a text editor,
delete the word English, and type the word French.

To create your own translation, you can start with "English.txt" or 
"French.txt" as a template.  Drop your new language file into the "languages"
folder, and of course edit "language.txt" to select your language.




System Speed Issues

Cultivation should be playable on a variety of systems.  It has been played
on a 166 MHz machine with a 3D card, as well as a 250 MHz machine with no
3D card, during testing.  On these "slow" systems, the game was playable, but
certainly not smooth.  

A 400 MHz machine with a 3D card should produce a rather smooth play 
experience. 

If you have a slower system or no 3D card, the frame rate in Cultivation may
be choppy.  Play will become smoother if you disable some of the more
complicated graphical elements.  Take a look at the file "features.txt" in
your Cultivation folder.  Changing a "1" to a "0" will switch a feature off.
You must quit and re-launch Cultivation for your changes to take effect. 




Controls

This game is played entirely with a single mouse button (the left mouse button, if you happen to have more than one).  The keyboard is never used in the game.

The most basic control is a single click on the play surface to move your 
gardener.

All other actions are controlled with the buttons displayed at the bottom and
left side of the screen.  Buttons are enabled based on the actions that are 
possible at your gardener's current location.

For example, after clicking the Set Plot button, you can select a plot of land
by clicking and dragging a rectangular area on the play surface.

On the bottom bar, from left to right, you will see the following buttons 
(each button icon is described in brackets).  Note that when you start the
game, many of these buttons will be disabled, so you will not be able to see
all of the icons:

--Plant           [Greenish leaf shape of the plant that will result]

--Set Plot        [White square]

--Water           [Blue circle]

--Harvest Fruit   [Image of fruit that will be picked]

--Mate            [Image of two gardeners together]

--Lead            [Image of one gardener following another]

--Poison          [Black circle]

--Pause           [Two vertical, yellow lines]

--Quit            [Red x]


The left side bar shows your gardener's stored items.  There are two buttons 
at the top, above the storage area:

--Give Gift of Selected Fruit   [Fruit with white arrow]

--Eat Selected Fruit            [Fruit with white chomper]


Below the storage area, at the bottom of the left sidebar, there is one button:

--Discard Selected Item         [White x over the item]


All gardeners start the game with three seeds in their storage areas.  To find
your starting seeds, look above the discard button in your storage area:  you
will see three items featuring inverted brown triangles.  As you harvest fruit
and eat it, you can obtain more seeds.




Nutrient Usage

There are three nutrients in the game, Red, Yellow, and Purple.

Standing still consumes the least amount of nutrients.  Moving around consumes
more, and so does holding water.  Moving while carrying water consumes the
greatest amount of nutrients.  Being pregnant also increases nutrient usage.

When your gardener exhausts its supply of a given nutrient, it ages faster.
The speed of aging increases as additional nutrients are exhausted.

Eating fruit replenishes exhausted nutrients.  Fruit is colored according
to its highest nutrient.




Gate to Immortality

The gate has five rings that must each be opened before the gate itself opens.
Rings are opened by the death of the gardener that you are controlling.  The
first time your gardener dies, you will see the first ring appear at the 
location of its death.

To open additional rings, you must make sure you move your next gardener back 
to the gate right before it dies.  If your next gardener dies away from the
partially-opened gate, an additional ring will not open.

After the fifth ring is opened, the gate itself will open.  At that point, any
gardener that moves into the center of the gate will pass into limbo and await
immortality.  To finish the job, you must pass your gardener through the 
gate too, which will cause the gate to close.  Your gardener, and whatever
other gardeners passed through the open gate, will become immortal.  What about
the other gardeners who did not pass through the gate?  They're stuck on the
island.




Play Hints

The descriptions given above should be enough to get you started.  If you are
stuck or confused, here are some hints:

--Draw a plot for yourself, plant some plants in the plot, keep them watered
  until they are done growing, harvest fruit when it becomes ripe (after the 
  flowers die back) and then eat the resulting fruit to gain more nutrients.

--When you click the Plot button, a cross-hair is shown as you move your mouse
  around the map.  Click once on the map to set the first corner of your plot,
  and click a second time to set the opposite corner of your plot.

--Pick up water by moving into the water and clicking the Water button.
  Dump water on a plant by moving near the plant and clicking the Water button
  again.

--A tan circle over a plant means it needs more water to finish growing.
  After a plant is done growing, you no longer need to water it.

--You can only plant, water, and harvest in your own plot.  You can draw a 
  new plot for yourself at any time.  Your plot can intersect with the plots
  of others (intersecting plots are the main sources of conflict).

--You can only plant if you have seeds selected in the storage area.  The
  Plant button shows the leaf shape of the plant that will grow from the
  selected seed.

--Dark seeds (with white backgrounds) prefer dark soil.  Light seeds (with
  black backgrounds) prefer light soil.  The color under a seed indicates
  the color of the fruit that will result.

--Give gifts of fruit to other gardeners.  If they like you, they will give 
  gifts back.  If they like you a lot, you may be able to mate with them.
  If they adore you, they may even let you lead them.

--Pregnancy progress stalls if you are low on any nutrient.

--When a baby is following you, it shares all of the food you eat.  The baby 
  stops growing when it is low on any nutrient.

--Any gardeners that you are leading also share all of the food you eat.

--Fruit rots eventually, so harvest it and use it quickly.  Rotting fruit
  turns white and shrinks.

--Keep an eye on the buttons that are enabled.  The state of the buttons tells
  you what actions are available in a given situation.  For example, to tell
  when fruit is ripe on a nearby plant, watch for the harvest button to become
  enabled.

--Watch for flying emotions.  If you're doing something to please or anger a
  neighbor, the neighbor will let you know.  Anger is displayed with a red "x"
  symbol, and pleasure is displayed with a green "+" symbol. 

--If you mate with a gardener that another gardener likes a lot, you will
  make that other gardener angry.  Chose a mate with care.

--Click the Poison button when near a plant to poison it.  The plant will
  die, and the soil around it will become forever unusable.  Poisoned soil
  turns black.

--Fighting gardeners can ruin the island for everyone.  You can use the Lead
  button to quell a fight.

--You can't plant anything in the water.

--When you die, you take over control of your oldest living descendent.
  When you run out of descendents (in other words, when your genetic line
  is extinct), the game is over.

--After the game is over, you can still move around the play surface to watch
  what happens with the other gardeners.  Clicking the Restart button will
  start a new game.

--To successfully open the gate, you must survive through at least five 
  generations and make sure that each of your gardeners dies where the first
  one died.  Each death will open a new ring of the gate.

--Only the gardener you are controlling can open a gate ring by dying.  Deaths
  on the part of other gardeners, even your own offspring that you are not
  yet controlling, has no effect on the gate.

--If you walk across poisoned ground, some of the fruit you are carrying will
  become poisoned.  Eating poisoned fruit can offer you a quick-and-painless
  death (which might be convenient if you are trying to open the next ring of
  the gate).

--A gate is destroyed if the ground under it becomes poisoned.  A new gate
  cannot be started on ground that is already poisoned.

--A gate can be opened over the water.

--What does immortality mean?  After you successfully close a gate, take a 
  look in your Cultivation folder.  You'll be rewarded with some soul trails.



