Event and Competition System

Status

The Spring Grower's Cup cultivation, market, and preparation slices are live. Local 0.8.1-beta.1 adds contextual hydrangea soil choice and prevents the wheel's dripper slot from becoming dead inventory after permanent irrigation.

Implemented First Slice

• Unlocks after the first completed permanent order.
• Shows a persistent invitation and a separately collapsible event pavilion.
• Charges a visible 30-coin entry fee.
• Uses two dedicated event pots and four planting rounds instead of a real-time deadline.
• Randomly selects either an abundant-bloom prompt or a morning-freshness prompt before entry.
• Allows any currently owned seed, while returning one seed from every remaining candidate at closing.
• When hydrangea is selected, each empty event pot offers ordinary, acidic, or alkaline soil. Specialist choices consume one stored soil product, determine the candidate's color, and receive a small difficulty credit; unused reservations are refunded.
• Hints at one rotating judge preference; 3 observation notes reveal the exact favored plants.
• Shows an estimated score range for every blooming candidate before submission.
• Locks one candidate with explicit confirmation and freezes event cultivation during judging.
• Reveals five scoring categories automatically after one start action.
• Returns tiered coins, notes, compost, and a medal ribbon that extends greenhouse bloom duration.
• Allows an unsuccessful four-round run to close with participation notes, compost, and seed recovery.
• Requires six ordinary greenhouse harvests before the next rewarded invitation, preventing immediate event farming.
• Keeps event visitor records separate from the main greenhouse economy. A bee only improves candidate seed return at closing.

Purpose

Events add short arcs above the repeatable greenhouse loops. They should create anticipation, temporarily change what the player values, and then return a useful reward to ordinary play.

The first event is a cultivation competition rather than a floristry competition. Real flower shows include horticulture, container-grown plants, floral exhibits, and floristry as separate judged categories. This lets the prototype judge plant condition and cultivation before a future floral-arrangement system exists.

Event UX Contract

An event must never exist only as a disappearing popup.

1. Invitation: a high-contrast persistent banner and event entry appear together.
2. Briefing: entry fee, prompt, scoring, deadline, reward, and maximum loss are visible before accepting.
3. Cultivation: a separate event pavilion contains dedicated competition pots but reuses normal care knowledge, tools, and resources.
4. Submission: the player chooses and locks one candidate with a clear confirmation and estimated score range.
5. Judging: criteria are revealed one at a time so the result has ceremony and remains explainable.
6. Market: the local second slice turns the result into temporary demand and bounded price risk.
7. Lucky wheel: one free draw and at most two paid draws create a bounded burst without replacing guaranteed progression.
8. Results: rewards state exactly how they affect future loops; the pavilion closes cleanly.

Every event screen shows the current stage and the remaining stages. The local second slice now completes the full path:

Invitation -> Brief -> Grow -> Submit -> Judge -> Market -> Wheel -> Reward

First Vertical Slice: Spring Grower's Cup

Included

• One persistent invitation.
• One event pavilion.
• Two dedicated competition pots so the player can compare candidates.
• One randomly selected cultivation prompt.
• A deadline measured in event rounds or completed event harvests, not real time.
• One locked submission.
• A category-by-category judging reveal.
• Tiered results and one reward that strengthens normal gardening.
• Soft failure rewards such as notes, compost, or judging insight.

Candidate Prompts

• Produce at least four flowers.
• Submit above 70% freshness.
• Produce a named hydrangea color.
• Finish without aphid damage.
• Attract or record a bee.
• Grow a common plant under a restricted brief.

The first build should use one or two prompts that existing mechanics can already express. A trait-generation system is not required yet.

Scoring

The recommended balance is 80% controllable and 20% uncertain.

The result screen must explain every score contribution. Randomness may change medal boundaries, but it cannot invalidate a clearly excellent entry without explanation.

The implemented score uses five visible categories:

The displayed total is capped at 100. Medal thresholds are gold at 85, silver at 70, bronze at 55, and participation below 55.

Bounded Gambling

Gambling is accepted when it is attached to information, investment, and price decisions.

Good Risk

• Paying a visible entry fee.
• Spending extra on acceleration or temporary help.
• Choosing whether to submit a safe candidate or a higher-variance candidate.
• Spending observation notes to reveal judge preferences.
• Choosing a high price with a lower probability of selling out.

Bad Risk

• A hidden die roll deciding the entire result.
• Losing unique seeds or the home greenhouse.
• Real-time deadlines expiring while the player is away.
• Full bankruptcy before a recovery loop exists.
• Save-or-reload gambling with no meaningful prior decision.

Implemented Lucky Wheel

• Every completed Cup, including participation without a valid submission, grants one free draw.
• After the free draw, the player may buy at most two more with 30 coins, 6 mint materials, or 6 calendula materials.
• The wheel uses exact visible odds: common resources 86%, one dripper 8%, a next-order double voucher 3.5%, a 90-coin jackpot 2.3%, and one borage seed 0.2%.
• The borage seed has a global 80-draw guarantee. Non-winning draws advance it across Cups; winning resets it.
• The selected reward is applied and saved before the spin animation. Refreshing reveals the saved result rather than rerolling it.
• During a draw, the wheel expands over the ordinary event interface and labels every prize with its numeric probability. After stopping, a separate prize reveal blocks further draws until acknowledged; this pending reveal is also saved.
• Coin rewards and paid draws appear in the event cash statement. Material payments remain visible in the draw history.
• A double-order voucher affects one fixed order payout, never the player's full bank.
• Irrigation relief remains guaranteed through the equipment path. Winning a dripper is an early surprise, not the only answer to watering pressure.
• Once the central tank is owned, the dripper outcome keeps its 8% probability but resolves as a maintenance box worth 30 coins and 2 compost. This is a duplicate-protection rule, not a commitment that portable irrigation can never gain a later event or expansion use.

Event Preparation Reinvestment

The first Phase C experiment adds a compact preparation counter after registration. Purchases are once per event, save immediately, and disappear at closing.

• Event caretaker costs 64 coins and automatically corrects dry event pots. It buys relief rather than extra clicking.
• Bloom nutrition costs 42 coins and supplies two targeted doses. A dose must be assigned before bloom and adds one flower to that candidate.
• Market publicity costs 48 coins and adds one potential demand step to every market wave.
• The counter always shows cumulative event investment and exact shortfalls instead of silently disabling unaffordable choices.
• Nutrition cannot be purchased after the event has no remaining eligible or future candidate.
• The result screen reports entry fee, preparation spend, payout, and net cash change without charging anything twice.

Buying everything costs more than a typical result returns. The intended decision is which advantage matters this time, not an automatic checklist.

Limited Market Experiment

This is implemented locally as the second event increment and is intentionally smaller than a permanent shop.

• The medal score creates a visible popularity band.
• The show has a small number of buyer waves.
• Each wave offers low, market, or premium pricing.
• Low prices favor sell-through; premium prices create margin and unsold-stock risk.
• The player may lower prices between waves to cut losses.
• Unsold event stock wilts at closing and returns only a small amount of compost.

The implemented rules are:

• The submitted plant's flower count becomes real market stock; no separate stock is invented.
• The judging score maps to a visible popularity band that modifies all three waves.
• Opening, post-award rush, and closing waves each ask for one choice: friendly, market, or premium price.
• Every price shows a forecast sales range before commitment.
• Buyer variation is rolled once when judging ends and stored in the save, so refreshing cannot reroll a bad outcome.
• A price choice resolves into a dedicated sale scene. Flower tokens leave the rack, revenue appears separately, and the result remains until the player explicitly welcomes the next wave or closes the stall.
• Sales revenue is held in the event settlement until the player closes the Cup.
• Unsold stems never enter normal greenhouse inventory and return only half-value compost, rounded down with a minimum of one when anything remains.
• A run with no valid submission skips the market, receives its free wheel draw, and then receives the existing participation recovery.

This tests pricing and demand without building the full flower-shop simulation.

Reward Design

Competition rewards should feed the greenhouse loop rather than only adding coins.

Preferred structure: a trophy cabinet with one active award at a time.

• Morning Dew Cup: freshness declines more slowly.
• Abundant Bloom Ribbon: excellent care improves flower-count potential.
• Ecology Medal: slightly improves helpful visitor attraction.
• Merchant's Seal: raises the minimum direct-sale return.

One active slot prevents permanent reward stacking from flattening future balance.

The current prototype uses one Spring Cup ribbon slot as the minimum version of this idea. Bronze, silver, and gold extend bloom duration by 10%, 18%, and 25%. A later trophy cabinet can make this slot explicit when more event families exist.

Rewarded entries cannot repeat immediately. After closing, the player must finish six ordinary greenhouse harvests before another invitation appears. This cooldown is measured in visible play rather than real time.

Failure Contract

A failed event may cost entry money, consumables, and the opportunity to sell the entry elsewhere. It should still return at least one of:

• judging notes that reveal a future preference;
• compost from unsold or declined entries;
• participation reputation;
• a pity step toward a later invitation or reward;
• a clear explanation of how to improve.

Later Event Types

• Royal boiled-seed trial: a one-time honesty story arc, not a repeatable random contest.
• Valentine's rush: temporary demand for floral products after floral arrangement exists.
• Ecological challenge: attract a specified visitor without harming the plant.
• Plant of the Year: reward novelty after crossbreeding exists.
• Weather emergency: deferred until weather is a meaningful, non-punitive system.

Rival Exhibition Brainstorm

A later event mode may show the player's candidate beside one visible virtual rival. Both pots advance through the same readable cultivation stages. This should first be tested as comparison and anticipation, without sabotage.

An optional second experiment could add event-only attack and defense cards: release a recorded pest, apply a protective treatment, or enter with a seed carrying a visible resistance trait. This is not accepted production scope yet. It has strict boundaries:

• every attack is announced before damage resolves;
• the rival follows the same rules and visible inventory limits as the player;
• counterplay is available before commitment, not sold after an unavoidable surprise;
• interference affects only temporary event candidates;
• unique seeds, visitor-card progress, and the home greenhouse remain protected;
• pests are not consumed from the ecological codex unless a separate, clearly fictional event inventory proves worthwhile;
• losing returns research or resistance knowledge instead of only deleting time.

The primary design question is tonal: theatrical cheating may create a funny competitive peak, but invisible or realistic cruelty would conflict with the game's care fantasy.

Explicit Non-Goals For Version One

• Floral-arrangement grid gameplay.
• Full shop operations.
• Loans, interest, rent, payroll, or bankruptcy.
• Multiple simultaneous events.
• Real-world holiday scheduling.
• More plant species solely to fill event content.

Playtest Questions

• Was the invitation impossible to miss but easy to postpone or decline?
• Did the pavilion feel distinct without making normal gardening irrelevant?
• Did the player understand what the judges wanted?
• Were cultivation and result reveal both satisfying?
• Did uncertainty feel exciting rather than arbitrary?
• After the event, did the player want to improve and enter again?
• Did the free draw create a satisfying peak without making the two paid draws feel mandatory?
• Did players understand that the rare seed guarantee persists across Cups and that refreshing cannot reroll a prize?