iPhone app review: Flower Garden
Flower Garden, $2.99 at the App Store
Developer website: http://www.snappytouch.com/flowergarden
I’ve had my iPhone for about 6 weeks now, and I’m finally getting around to reviewing some software. There are a number of great apps that I use every day so it was a bit hard to choose which to review first, but Flower Garden is so pretty and fun that it wins the coveted first-iPhone-app-review-on-kayray’s-blog award!!
Flower Garden is a garden simulation app. It’s not the kind of thing you’ll play for an hour at a time, but you’ll find yourself checking your garden several times a day, especially when you unlock some of the more difficult-to-grow seeds. The graphics are very pretty and the outdoor sound effects, birdsong and a gentle breeze, are soothing. I feel happy every time I look at my Flower Garden.
My main Flower Garden page:
When you play for the first time you have twelve empty flowerpots and a small selection of seed packets. Tap a seed packet, tap the “plant” icon, and you’ll have a pot of seeds ready to care for. Water them as often as necessary to keep the slider in the green zone and your seeds will grow into lovely flowers. If you accidentally over-water and the slider goes into the yellow zone, the app plays a sad sound and your flowers droop a bit. Let them get too dry and the slider drops down into the red zone, the flowers droop even more, and the dirt looks dry. There will also be an alert icon on your main garden page to let you know you’d better water them. But don’t worry — your flowers won’t die! Just take better care of them and they’ll regain their health.
My seed packets, with some still remaining to unlock:
A packet of Sunflower seeds:
A pot of Tulips:
When you’ve got full-grown flowers you can cut them, assemble a pretty bouquet, and email it to someone special. Cut flowers go straight to the bouquet page. From there, you can remove any flowers that don’t suit the bouquet, rearrange them by shaking your phone, rotate horizontally with a finger-swipe, and even rotate them vertically with a two-finger swipe. You can zoom in and out and move the bouquet up and down. Choose from a small number of different-colored backgrounds; the developer says a color-picker is coming soon, which I’m happy about, since I need a mild yellow background my tulip bouquets. Tap the tag, which is draggable, and enter the recipient’s email address (or choose from your Contacts list) and a brief message. The email interface is perfect — you stay within the app instead of getting kicked out into your email program, and you’ll enter your own return address so your recipient knows it’s not spam. An emailed bouquet looks like this:
Over time you will unlock more and more seed packets. Eventually you will see a little padlock at the bottom of the seed packet page, which lets you enter an unlock code for super-special flowers. Try entering “snappytouch” or “theappera” or “theportablegamer” or “touchofgaming” or “iphonegamesnetwork” or “fingergaming” or “appcraver”, and let me know if you figure out any others. :) May 2011: Note: you no longer need to enter unlock codes. All of these flowers are in the Bonus Seed Pack.
Many thanks to Noel of SnappyTouch for this charming iPhone pastime, and thanks to Chris Hughes for recommending it to me!
Flower Garden on Facebook (check here for more unlock codes)
(By the way — any review you see here will most likely be positive. I’d rather write nice things about fun and useful iPhone apps than gripe about the bad ones.)
Category: Blog, Reviews, Tech 22 comments »
April 29th, 2009 at 9:30 am
I forgot to say thank you for my flowers that you sent me!!! :-) It was nice to know that you were thinking of me.
May 3rd, 2009 at 5:36 pm
Now I know that you grew the flowers yourself, they are even more special! So pretty! I love you!!
May 3rd, 2009 at 6:21 pm
I love you both! oxoxoxoxo!
(Forgot to say that most flowers take a few days or a week to grow, and require water several times a day.)
May 20th, 2009 at 10:23 am
Try “fingergaming” as an unlock code for another flower.
May 20th, 2009 at 10:29 am
Thanks Justin, I’ll add that to the post. My favorite unlockable flower is the “appcraver” one. You get three pretty blossoms and they’re not so difficult to grow.
May 26th, 2009 at 8:09 pm
Here is more to share with and if u hv figure out more pls tell me too!
snappytouch
theportablegamer
fingergaming
theappera
iphonegamesnetwork
touchofgaming
pocketgamer
appcraver
148apps
mothersday
May 26th, 2009 at 8:21 pm
Thanks Kelvin! pocketgamer, 148apps, and mothersday are new to me! I think the next update will let us keep our unlocked seeds :)
August 25th, 2009 at 11:55 pm
can you tell me how to open all the common seeds?
Because i can only use three seeds ,others are locked! thanks
August 26th, 2009 at 12:02 am
Yes, you need to be diligent about sending LOTS of bouquets — that’s how some of the seeds unlock. Others unlock after you’ve grown the seeds you already have a certain number of times… just keep growing flowers and sending bouquets and you’ll get them all eventually! :)
July 27th, 2010 at 4:39 am
Thanks for reviewing and recommending flower garden. My GF loved the game, she plays it while she is on the bus.
If you have other apps you find interesting please let me know, thanks.
July 27th, 2010 at 9:34 am
Sure thing, Tom. I’ve been thinking that I should do a post about my current favorite apps. Glad your girlfriend is enjoying Flower Garden – it’s still one of my all-time favorites!
May 22nd, 2011 at 3:56 am
How do I unlock the ability to put in the special codes? I’ve unlocked all my seeds but I’ve never found any way to put in these so called codes for more seed packs. :/
May 22nd, 2011 at 10:32 am
The codes no longer apply. All of the seeds that used to unlock with a code are now in the Bonus Seed Pack.
December 16th, 2011 at 2:03 pm
Are there any new codes for flower garden
December 16th, 2011 at 10:20 pm
Flower Garden doesn’t use codes anymore.
December 29th, 2011 at 11:33 pm
How do you grow more flowers for achievements… Grow 50 in same pot? Dot you keep planting them? Also how do you change color of just one flower for achievement and not whole pot? Please and thank you!
December 29th, 2011 at 11:38 pm
Having trouble with achievements how do you grow 50 in one pot? Keep cutting back and replanting? Also how do you color change only one flower for achievement?
December 30th, 2011 at 12:03 pm
I have no idea, sorry :)
March 14th, 2012 at 11:35 am
Can anyone tell me what the brown box is at top centre of screen, it sometimes appears briefly when you are watering the pots?
May 17th, 2012 at 10:11 pm
You’re accidentally triggering the dropdown thingy for your notification center. Pull down on that little box next time you see it and you’ll see what I mean.
May 17th, 2012 at 7:18 am
Why does the pot at the top of the screen make all the pots shake?
May 17th, 2012 at 10:10 pm
When the pots shake you can drag them from screen to screen and rearrange them. It’s like when you make the icons on your iphone/ipad shake.