Pumpkin Patch Panic

What you do

The days before Halloween are the busiest of the year at Mabel's pumpkin farm, and the hay wagon has to be loaded for the market. The patch is eight columns of pumpkins under a farm fence strung with paper jack-o'-lanterns, and a new row keeps sprouting along the bottom and pushing everything up, so you pick groups of matching pumpkins to keep every column below the fence while you fill the order on the chalkboard. Twelve farm days run from October 19 to October 30. Each has its own patch, the same on every try, and its own wagon order, and each brings one new idea: more kinds of pumpkin, faster sprouting, vines, hay bales, and orders that want some kinds and not others. Six kinds grow in the patch, and each has its own shape as well as its own color: round orange pumpkins, tall white ghost pumpkins, flat blue Jarrahdales, warty yellow gourds, green striped pumpkins and flat red Cinderellas. Filling the order opens the next day, and finishing day 3 opens the Moonlight Patch, an endless night patch that sprouts a little faster with every row, played for a best score.

How to play

1. Press Play day 1 on the title card. Day 1 starts with a few rows of pumpkins and an order on the chalkboard: 30 orange and 25 white.
2. Tap any pumpkin in a group of 3 or more touching pumpkins of the same kind (side by side or stacked, not diagonal) to send the whole group to the wagon. Pumpkins above fall into the gaps, and when a stack stands two or more taller than the column beside it, its top pumpkin rolls over into that column.
3. Bigger groups score more: 3 pumpkins score 30 points, 5 score 100 and 8 score 280. A group of 1 or 2 only wobbles.
4. Seedlings sprout in the furrow under the patch, one per column from left to right. When all eight have sprouted, the new row pushes the whole patch up one row. If a column already touches the fence when a row pushes up, the patch is overgrown and the day ends, though your score still counts toward the day’s best.
5. Sprout now pushes the growing row up early for 10 points for every seedling that has not sprouted yet. It rests while any column touches the fence.
6. Pick 8 or more at once and a giant prize pumpkin grows where you tapped. Tap the giant to harvest every piece in its row, for 20 points each and 100 for each giant.
7. From day 4 some pumpkins come tangled in vine: they cannot be picked until a pumpkin right beside them is picked. From day 7 hay bales sprout too: they cannot be picked, but a giant pumpkin clears its row of them.
8. Fill every line of the order to send the wagon to market. The finish adds 50 points for every empty row above your tallest column.

Controls

• Touch: tap a group to pick it, and tap the furrow under the patch or the Sprout now button to sprout early. Tap the chalkboard for the menu, where you can resume, start the day over or pick another day.
• Mouse: hovering outlines the group under the pointer with its size and points. Click to pick it.
• Keyboard: arrow keys move a cursor over the patch, Space or Enter picks the group under it, S sprouts now and Escape opens the menu. Every button is reachable with Tab.
• Toolbar: pause, help, restart (starts the current day or night over), optional sound and fullscreen.

Tips worth knowing

• Watch the paper lanterns on the fence. A lantern glows brighter over a column one row from the fence and turns red when the column touches it: pick something in that column, even a kind the order does not need.
• Picking one group can drop two small groups of another kind together into one big group, so look for picks that join groups.
• Big groups of kinds the order does not need are worth keeping while there is room: grow them to 8 for a giant pumpkin, or pick them when a column gets tall.
• Sprout now is a good deal while the patch is low and a risky one when it is high.

Accessibility

• Every kind of pumpkin has its own shape, not only its own color: round, tall and narrow, wide and flat, warty with a curved neck, striped, and flat with deep scallops.
• Everything can be played with a keyboard. Moving the cursor announces what is under it and its points to screen readers, and picks, order progress and fence warnings are announced too.
• The patch sprouts in real time, but pausing (from the toolbar or the chalkboard menu) stops it completely, and so does switching to another tab.
• Reduced motion keeps the pops, points and wobbles but drops the arcs into the wagon and the falling and rolling travel.
• Sound is optional and never needed to play.

Guides and roundups

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