Plant Lord

About the Game

Inspired by classics like Drug Lord/Dope Wars, Plant Lord swaps illicit dealings for a (mostly) legitimate botanical empire. This terminal-based trading simulation challenges you not with loans or combat, but with a surprisingly complex and volatile market. Navigate a world of wildly fluctuating plant prices, scarcity, random events, game-altering World Conditions, and dramatic Mid-Game Twists. It's a quirky "Wall Street Botanica Simulator of Weirdness" where your goal is maximum profit before time runs out!

Downloads

To verify the integrity of your downloaded file, you can compare its SHA256 checksum with the one listed below:

• Latest Release (0.9.5): plant_lord_0.9.5.tar.xz

SHA256: 9d5297c49b3ffcbd3592b74ddf6bef9554a8f2c193304acba0702e77883aeeb3

---

Core Features & Philosophy

Plant Lord enhances challenge by focusing on dynamic, often scarce markets rather than the combat or loan mechanics found in similar inspired titles. Success requires adapting to fluctuating prices, sudden shortages, and unique world conditions that change with difficulty and can even shift mid-game.

• Goal: Amass the most cash by the final game day.
• Dynamic Trade: Buy/sell plants with daily fluctuating prices and availability influenced by location, global events, random market shifts, World Conditions, and Mid-Game Twists. Scarcity is frequent.
• Strategic Travel: Moving between cities costs cash and 1 game day. Costs increase with distance and can be affected by game conditions.
• Inventory Management: Plants have different sizes; manage your limited carrying capacity effectively. Some plants may have unique properties like inherent volatility_index or even be considered is_illegal.
• Unpredictable Events: Encounter local market shifts, global events (like Blights or Festivals), lucky finds, rumors, and hazards (mugging, pests, police encounters). Event frequency and intensity are affected by game conditions.
• World Conditions: Depending on difficulty, games start with 0-3 persistent World Conditions from a pool of over 20 that significantly modify core game parameters (availability, prices, costs, event odds).
• Mid-Game Twists: After the first 10-12 days, the game can be further shaken by 1 of over 10 powerful, temporary (4-7 day) Major Twists that dynamically alter rules and require adaptation. Only one twist is active at a time, with a cooldown period.
• Promotions: Reach cash goals to achieve new ranks, gaining crucial inventory capacity and extending the total game days allowed.
• Difficulty Levels: Choose your pain! Affects starting conditions, market behavior, and the number of starting World Conditions:

Easy: Forgiving start, stable markets, 0 random world conditions
Medium: Standard experience with 1 random world condition
Hard: Tough start, volatile/scarce markets, 2 random world conditions
Random: The ultimate challenge with a harsh start and 3 random world conditions, ensuring maximum replayability

Embracing the Chaos (Random Difficulty Showcase)

So, what can a Random game of Plant Lord really entail? Picture this: you might start with 3 from over 20 unique World Conditions – perhaps "Great Scarcity" severely limits supply, "Hyperinflation" significantly devalues your cash, while "Barter Town Blues" completely upends normal trade. A baseline ~5% daily chance of an item being simply unavailable could escalate to a significant 30% or higher under such combined effects, impacting everything, everywhere!

Each plant's price then becomes a dynamic daily variable, influenced by global volatility, its own inherent volatility_index, and the active World Conditions. Beyond that, there's roughly a ~7% daily probability (itself variable, from <2% to >20% due to modifiers) for a game-wide Blight or Festival to target specific plants for several days. Every move you make also carries about a ~20% chance (again, varying wildly from 2% to over 40%!) of triggering a local surprise – a fortunate discovery, an intriguing rumor, or an unwelcome encounter with pests or the ever-vigilant Garden Guard (whose effectiveness also fluctuates!).

And just as you begin to master these shifting dynamics, around Day 12, an ~8% daily chance arises for 1 of over 10 potent Mid-Game Twists to activate. These temporary events can reshape the economy for a week by rewriting major game rules. The design philosophy? To ensure no two games are alike, making unnecessary long-term calculation a truly challenging endeavor. Adaptability is your greatest asset!

TLDR Random Mode mechanics: Expect 3 from over 20 initial World Conditions radically altering gameplay. Daily, item availability can swing from a ~5% no-show chance to >30%. Odds for ~7% Global Events & ~20% Local Events are also highly variable. Post-Day 12: an ~8% daily chance for 1 of over 10 potent, temporary Mid-Game Twists. Unpredictability is guaranteed!

How to Play

• Save the code as plant_lord.py (or your preferred name).
• Run from your terminal: python3 plant_lord.py
• Follow on screen instructions to select difficulty and make choices using single letters (B, S, T, W, D, Q).

Customization & Game Balance

Core game elements can be easily modified:

• ITEMS, CITIES, PROMOTIONS: Edit these dictionaries directly to change game content.
• --- Game Configuration (Defaults) ---: Tune core balance using BASE_ constants.
• select_difficulty(): Adjust base settings per difficulty level.
• apply_random_world_modifiers(): Customize the pool of "World Conditions" and their effects.
• POSSIBLE_MID_GAME_TWISTS: Customize the pool of "Mid-Game Twists," their effects, and durations.

Design Notes

Built using only standard Python libraries for simplicity and compatibility. Focus is on core gameplay loop and strategic decision-making amidst a constantly changing economic landscape.

Vibe-coded for fun in May 2025 - just a personal project scratching an itch for a simple-but-deep trading game, refined using modern tools.

Showcase

Gameplay Video

License

This software is released into the public domain via The Unlicense. Please see the LICENSE file for details.