Nurturing Idle Transition Todo

This checklist is ordered by learning value. Complete and playtest one phase before expanding the next; do not implement the caretaker, special specimens, and full showcase scene simultaneously.

Phase 0 - Baseline and safety

• Record current actions per minute, unattended survival time, first bloom time, and bloom-removal availability in design/nurturing-idle-baseline.md.
• Add QA checkpoints for a newly planted specimen, mid-growth specimen, first bloom, mature display, and post-absence return.
• Define Phase 0 save migration: no new persistent gameplay fields; Phase 1 will add and normalize only the fields its vertical slice proves necessary.
• Confirm that existing event plants remain isolated from the experiment.

Exit condition: the current hurried rhythm can be reproduced and compared without replaying the opening game.

Phase 1 - Quiet growth vertical slice

• Use calendula first because its bloom and bee relationship are easy to see.
• Give it an eight-stage curve and extend healthy growth from about 84 seconds to about 8 minutes.
• Make unattended growth slow and safe inside isolated nurture QA saves.
• Replace water and nutrient death pressure with a 30% quiet-growth floor; unsuitable conditions slow this slice without killing it.
• Add capped offline growth and a return notice showing elapsed time, stage change, growth gained, and current progress.
• Keep QA acceleration separate: the ordinary speed control still accelerates local verification, while offline progress uses the normal baseline.
• Tell players in plain language that leaving is safe and suitable care only makes growth faster.

Exit condition: leaving the test plant alone is a valid and understandable strategy.

Phase 1.1 correction: the experiment now keeps its safety contract after blooming, suppresses inherited crisis animations, and shows a persistent explanation while the experiment is active.

Phase 2 - Attentive growth momentum

• Define meaningful care as needed watering/drainage, needed feeding, or aphid treatment.
• Add a bounded per-plant momentum state with visible duration and effect.
• Prevent redundant clicking from extending momentum.
• Make momentum accelerate growth by 2.2x and convert varied care into up to one extra flower.
• Let momentum decay smoothly back to quiet growth.
• Add active and unattended QA checkpoints and compare their outcomes at the same elapsed time.
• Hint that attentive care has an upside, but let players discover the exact outcome through play.

Exit condition: attentive play is clearly rewarding without making absence feel like failure.

Phase 2.1 - Optional purchased acceleration

• Add 神秘鸡肥 as an optional single-pot acceleration item.
• Give three free doses in nurture experiment saves and sell replacements for 18 coins.
• Run 1.6x growth for about three minutes without stacking repeated doses.
• Let short active-care momentum override rather than multiply with chicken-manure acceleration.
• Add a direct 鸡肥生效中 QA checkpoint.
• Extend optional acceleration through research: 超级鸡肥 provides a 3x mid-game dose and 金坷垃 a short, expensive 6x late-game dose.
• Add direct QA checkpoints for both researched fertilizer tiers.

Exit condition: a player who wants to keep moving can spend a limited resource, while waiting remains valid.

Phase 3 - Bloom continuity and payoff

• Hold the bloom reveal for about eight seconds before presenting actions.
• Allow the mature test plant to remain after first bloom.
• Separate cutting flowers, reserving one flower for seed, displaying, and selling the whole plant.
• Let cutting retain the plant at the flower-bud stage for a faster repeat bloom.
• Record bloom count on the plant card and persistent plot state.
• Give displayed blooms a better bee chance and repeated-bloom plants a whole-plant sale premium.
• Test an expandable other actions group, reject it after it added a click and collapsed during periodic renders, then restore direct actions.
• Remove instant seed double-dipping; unlock seed saving through research and trade one cuttable flower for a slowly maturing seed head.
• Revisit retained plants, repeat blooms, plant history, and long-term attachment in a dedicated discussion after Phase 4.

Exit condition: at least one rational player choice keeps the plant alive and visible.

Phase 4 - Showcase mode prototype

• Add a direct view greenhouse command separate from management tabs.
• Reserve 观赏模式 for the separate full-scene greenhouse view; call the single-pot choice 保留花期.
• Render only actual pots, plants, stages, visitors, and ambient greenhouse state.
• Remove bills, cards, prose, and progress bars from the showcase surface.
• Preserve a clear one-action return to management.
• Add restrained idle motion and reduced-motion support.
• Test phone portrait and desktop framing with rendered screenshots; keep landscape and tablet in the next device pass.
• Replace the crowded phone 2x2 arrangement with a horizontally swipeable single bench.
• Consider automatic showcase entry only after manual mode proves useful.
• If automatic entry is tested, wait for a clear idle period and restore management with one click or tap.
• Add separate controls for showcase auto-entry and optional idle notifications.
• Test an explicit manage / watch view switch before attempting automatic idle detection; the switch changes presentation, not plant survival rules.

Exit condition: the greenhouse is satisfying to look at when no task is pending.

Phase 5 - Rebalance the home greenhouse

• Slow retained calendula regrowth and distinguish it from a newly planted seedling.
• Give mint and calendula separate production roles: high-volume mint versus higher-value repeat-bloom calendula.
• Extend quiet growth to moonflower with a slower twelve-minute healthy curve and quiet unattended slowdown.
• Move 安心离开 above the pots and show live growing, blooming, and slowed-pot counts.
• Give all ordinary greenhouse species explicit safe-idle profiles while keeping event plants separate.
• Make showcase overflow explicit: four slots fit on phones; six slots reveal the next pot and name the swipe action.

• Begin integration with mint and calendula: both use safe quiet growth, care momentum, reduced alerts, and longer bloom tolerance.
• Keep calendula-only continuity rules separate; mint does not inherit repeat bloom, seed saving, or bloom history.
• Preserve pot turnover: any healthy plant can be cleared and replaced without refunding its seed; soil and installed equipment remain.
• Join showcase and offline growth through 安心离开, a one-time safety explanation, persistent status copy, and a garden-level return summary.
• Decide which successful vertical-slice rules apply to later ordinary plants.
• Audit the touched greenhouse, harvest, order, away, and return copy for short everyday language.
• Revisit growth duration, water drain, nutrient drain, bloom duration, and unattended tolerance by species.
• Reduce alerts and required checks that no longer support the new rhythm.
• Revisit order timing and payouts after plant turnover slows.
• Keep speed controls player-facing for now; they support both quiet viewing and fast creator testing.
• Retest the first ten minutes and a six-species twenty-minute return with automation enabled.

Exit condition: the base greenhouse behaves like an idle nurturing game rather than a fast management game.

Phase 6 - Paid caretaker

• Introduce one 温室大师 as a single profit-first commercial caretaker.
• Offer one legible 20-minute trial shift: 750 coins, 3x operating efficiency.
• Show harvests, sales, service fee, water cost, and net profit in the existing return report.
• Protect rare seeds, specimens, competition plants, and reserved seed heads by default.
• Make an active shift legible and exclusive: lock direct pot care while keeping upgrades, orders, research, and navigation available.
• Apply watering, feeding, pest treatment, acceleration, harvest, and replanting while the page remains open as well as offline.
• Replace direct-sale automation with one legible order planner: stock daily-bouquet materials, choose the next basic crop from shortages, and deliver complete orders automatically.
• Compare four-, six-, and eight-pot daily-bouquet output: -372, +48, and +300 net at a 750-coin fee.
• Keep profitability discoverable: warn that small greenhouses may not cover the fee, but show exact results only after the shift.
• Confirm the ordinary expansion path reaches eight pots: 4 -> 6 for 96 coins, then 6 -> 8 for 240 coins.
• Add one passive mixed-plant ecology reward after expansion: blooming calendula and cornflower can attract a swallowtail carrying borage seed.
• Playtest whether the caretaker reduces attention load without making ordinary planting decisions irrelevant.
• Add short/medium/long shifts, caretaker tiers, or more policies only after the single shift proves useful.

Current slice: 温室大师 commercially harvests and replants only mint and calendula. Other ordinary plants receive accelerated safe care but stop at bloom. The UI adds one secondary action beside 安心离开 and one confirmation sheet; it does not add controls to individual pots.

Exit condition: players can buy profitable absence without turning every plant and collection decision over to automation.

Phase 7 - Special specimen bridge

• Select one unusual plant that benefits from close attention: an isolated butterfly-orchid specimen.
• Add new-potted and flower-spike QA checkpoints without placing the specimen in normal progression.
• Give the specimen a deliberately separate presentation: a full-width card, dedicated tall pot, greenhouse backdrop, identity banner, and observational stage copy.
• Replace the flat research list with a compact four-branch tree: cultivation, ecology, propagation, and engineering.
• Separate growth tasks and research into two explicit views inside the growth center; never stack the research tree below the task route.
• Give research an independent wide canvas with branch lanes and compact nodes rather than reusing order/task cards.
• Add 个体培育 as the normal-game specimen entry. It requires seed-saving knowledge, three blooms, and two recorded visitor species, then awards the first orchid specimen for 18 notes.
• Give it a longer identity-bearing lifecycle and one optional trait opportunity: two distinct care types create a visible branched flower spike.
• Keep natural flowering successful; the branched spike adds exactly two flowers under otherwise equal conditions and is recorded on the specimen card.
• Add a first tactile specimen interaction: hold to water continuously and release to stop, with immediate amount and plant-response feedback.
• Replace exact watering guidance with visible orchid roots, leaf posture, and drainage cues while keeping one short response sentence.
• Reuse quiet growth and bounded care momentum around specimen care rather than turning every need into a recurring task.
• Add name, lineage, bloom record, or competition experience only where it changes attachment or decisions.
• Keep failure recoverable and readable: dry and wet states slow progress, show distinct cues, and do not cause sudden specimen loss.

Exit condition: standard production and personal cultivation feel complementary rather than unrelated.

Current art target: use the orchid and mint as the first two-species pixel-art vertical slice. See design/art-asset-plan.md. The orchid now enters ordinary saves through research; its temporary CSS specimen art proves the interaction and will be replaced by the creator's pixel-art slice.

The specimen is now obtainable in ordinary saves through research, but its trait payoff remains experimental. Research is the unified entry for learned capabilities; purchases, discoveries, services, and invitations remain in their own systems.

Presentation rule: special specimens must not look like expensive production crops. Their cards may occupy more space and use unique vessels, but they must stay simple on phones and must never add recurring controls merely to appear deeper.

Current next action

• Implement Phase 0 QA checkpoints and baseline measurements.
• Build the Phase 1 calendula vertical slice behind isolated QA save scenarios.
• Complete Phase 2 meaningful-care momentum in the isolated calendula experiment.
• Add Phase 2.1 神秘鸡肥 as a bounded early acceleration option.
• Complete Phase 3 bloom continuity and keep-or-sell choices.
• Freeze further Phase 3 option expansion; revisit the number of bloom choices only after showcase testing.
• Build the first deliberate greenhouse showcase view.
• Correct Phase 3 seed saving before wider integration.
• Complete the Phase 7 butterfly-orchid bridge with tactile watering, root and leaf feedback, drainage cues, and recoverable care states.
• Playtest whether watching the scene is satisfying before adding automatic idle entry.