Bloombreak

How to play Bloombreak

The goal

In the Garden Tour, bloom every bud in the garden. In Overgrowth, keep the garden off the path for as long as you can. Either way, keep your seed from falling past the leaf.

The rules

1. Launch. The seed waits on the leaf until you launch it.
2. Aim with the leaf. Where the seed lands on the leaf sets where it goes: the center sends it nearly straight up, and the tips send it out to the side. A moving leaf adds a little nudge.
3. Bloom the buds. A bud blooms when the seed hits it. Bulbs show a crack for each hit and bloom on their last. Terracotta pots, gravity seeds and mushroom bumpers never bloom, and the garden is clear without them.
4. Seeds. You have 3 seeds (5 at Gentle pace). A seed that falls past the leaf is lost; while another seed is still in play, nothing is taken. When the last one falls, the next seed waits on the leaf and any power-ups end. With no seeds left, the level wilts, and you can try again at once.
5. Rallies and chains. Return the seed five times for a ×2 rally multiplier, or twelve times for ×3. It lasts until you lose a life, including while the seed travels or Sap holds it. Rapid blooms still form a chain: 5, 10, 20 and 35 blooms within 1.5 seconds of each other earn ×2, ×3, ×4 and ×5. Each plant hit uses the higher multiplier, not both.
6. Leaves. A cleared garden earns a leaf for clearing it, one for losing no seed, and one for beating its par time (a little longer at Gentle pace, a little shorter at Rapid). Clearing a garden unlocks the next, and presses its plant into your Herbarium (in Statistics) with a true fact. There are 32 gardens in four plots: Meadow, Greenhouse, Pond and Night Garden.
7. Overgrowth. Every 14 seconds of play the garden grows down a row, and the rows come faster as the run goes on. The run ends when a plant reaches the path, or when your last seed falls. The daily run starts from the same garden for everyone, grows faster (every 12 seconds at first, every 5 within three minutes), and one run counts each day.

Power-ups

Some blooms drop an illustrated power-up. Catch it with the leaf. The row above the bed shows what is active and how long it has left.

• Prism: the seed splits into three.
• Mitosis: every seed in play splits in two (up to 12).
• Sunbeam: for 8 seconds, launching fires two beams that bloom what they hit.
• Sap: five optional catches. Press C or Catch next to arm one catch; press again to cancel. The next seed to land sticks, spending one charge. Move the leaf to aim along the dotted guide, then launch to release (or wait 3 seconds). Arm again for another catch.
• Broad Leaf: a wider leaf for 15 seconds.
• Dewdrop: seeds travel 20% slower for 12 seconds.
• Thorn (rare): the seed passes straight through the next 6 buds it blooms. A bulb it only cracks still turns it back.
• Seed Bomb: the next plant a seed hits bursts, with everything around it.
• Root Net: a net under the leaf saves one falling seed.

Plants

• Seed pods burst and take their neighbors with them.
• Vines grow their leaves back after 8 seconds, until you bloom the vine’s root.
• Lily pads drift from side to side.
• Dandelions let go of seeds you can catch for points.
• Night seeds are hidden until a seed touches them, then glow; they take two hits.
• Gravity seeds bend a passing seed’s path.

Keyboard, mouse and touch

• Keyboard: ← → or A D move the leaf. Space, ↑ or W launches (and fires a Sunbeam). C toggles a Sap catch. P pauses.
• Mouse: the leaf follows the pointer. Click to launch.
• Touch: drag on the pad under the bed (or anywhere on the bed) to move the leaf; it moves with your finger and never jumps to it, and your thumb stays out of the way. Tap to launch. In Settings you can swap the pad for buttons: hold ◀ or ▶ to move, and press Launch.
• The menu pauses the game, and so does switching tabs.

Settings

• Play: the touch controls under the bed (a drag pad or buttons), touch sensitivity, the last-bud helper, and effects (Calm drops the petal bursts and glows; reduced motion is always calm).
• Appearance: Botanical plants (illustrated flowers on soft tiles) or Simple ones (drawn buds); four palettes (Greenhouse, Botany Lab, Heirloom and High contrast), each with a light and a dark bed that follows the site unless you choose; seed and leaf styles; and the seed’s trail. Leaves unlock more looks: the Dewdrop seed at 30, the Petal leaf at 60, and the Comet seed at all 96.

Tips

• Hit the seed with a tip of the leaf to send it steeply to the side, around plants that block the way.
• With 3 or fewer buds left and 12 seconds without a bloom, a bee shows the seed the way (around pots, never through them). You can turn the bee off in Settings.
• Vines grow back. Aim for the root, and the whole vine blooms at once.
• Chains ring higher with every bloom: keep the seed among the buds to climb the scale.

Questions

Do I need an account? No. Your game saves on this device automatically. An optional account adds cloud saves across devices.

Expedition

Choose Expedition in New game for a six-garden journey. Seeds are shared across all six gardens. After each of the first five, choose one of three upgrades. Offers stay the same when you reload. Each upgrade can reach rank three; your choices last for this journey.

• Canopy: permanently adds 12% leaf width per rank, including after a lost seed.
• Twin shoots: start each garden with one extra seed in play per rank.
• Daybreak: start each garden with 12 seconds of Sunbeam per rank. Launch to fire.
• Amber grip: start each garden with three optional Sap catches per rank.
• Bramble: start each garden with four piercing hits per rank.
• Deep roots: gain one spare seed immediately, and start later gardens with Root Net.

Apart from Canopy, starting effects can be spent, expire, or end when you lose a life; they return at the next garden. Ordinary pickups never reduce stronger active effects. Tap the Expedition heading to inspect your build and pause. Your progress saves during play and between gardens. Restart begins a new six-garden journey. The recap shows your total score, best rally and build. Expedition does not unlock Garden Tour levels or leaves.

The final garden is a crown. Bloom the outer petals, then the inner petals, then its heart. Faded plants are dormant: seeds and beams pass through them until their stage opens. The heart’s rim marks its remaining hits. It takes six ordinary hits; a Seed Bomb deals three. Your current stage is saved with the journey.