Mutant Swamp

The Mutant Swamp is one of the activities in JumpStart Adventures 4th Grade: Haunted Island.

Premise[]

The player must grow mutant plants in a greenhouse in order to harvest them.

Description[]

In this game, the user attempts to harvest various kinds of exotic swamp plants. There are four types of plants: Mortifera, Siccus, Acerbus, and Letalis. They player must get enough of them to grow large enough to meet a given quota. To do this, the user must experiment with different environmental factors: amount of light, amount of water, and amount of space between plants. In each round, the plants will respond best to certain settings, and will either thrive or wither depending on how the player changes the plants' environment. The objective is to get the plants to grow as large as possible by determining which settings suit it best.

The player can place seeds by first clicking the seed container, and then clicking on any mound of soil. The spade can be used to remove seeds. When the player is ready to try growing the plants, they must click on the grow button.

The activity is completed after three successful harvests.

Difficulty level differences[]

On the first level, there is only one kind of plant needed, but on the higher levels, the user must use two different kinds of plants on the same plot.

Digital manual description[]

4h mutant swamp manual — Digital manual image

Can you manage the "natural" resources to get these "unnatural" mutant swamp plants to thrive? Each spot on the grid holds one plant life form. How well the plants grow depends on lots of things: how close they are to other plants, how much water they receive, and how much light shines on them.

Your goal is shown on the monitor at the upper right of the screen. To win, the number of plants must match or exceed this number.
To plant seeds, click on a seedling, then click on any mound.
To adjust the amount of water, click on the water meter settings.
To adjust the light, click on the light meter settings.
To grow your plants, click on the Grow button.

To be a good farmer, you must experiment with your plants and resources. Try starting out with four seedlings and find the best pattern that helps them grow. Some seedlings might not like being too close to each other. Changing the water and lamplight settings may also make for some marvelous mutations!

To remove a seedling, click on the Spade and then click on each seedling you want to remove. Click on seedling bin to replace the Spade.
If you don't meet your goal, click on the Retry button to reset the game and try again.
If you need help click on Flap on the Toolbar.

Trivia[]

In the assessment test included with Version 1.3 of JumpStart 4th Grade: Haunted Island, the results screen refers to each of the activities in the game with one word (e.g. "well" for the Toad Well, "maze" for the Vampire Maze). The word displayed for the Mutant Swamp activity is erroneously "planets", presumably meant to say "plants".
A few changes were made to this activity in the game's re-release:
- The water and light settings are clearly labeled.
- Seedlings can be planted all at once instead of one at a time.
- Flap delivers a more intricate explanation on how the activity is played.
According to the info gravestones, the Mutant Swamp can't survive on rain, and Ms. Grunkle expects visitors to water it.