Floral Extract

Death Match: Floral Extract

IMAGE SUMMARY

(Note: The Chrysanthemum being watered image should say 0->3 rather than 0->2.)

OBJECTIVE

Players are trying to cultivate five different types of flowers by casting spells. Spells are made up of runes, but the opponent’s runes are encrypted, so they will have to be deduced. When a flower has fully bloomed, it gives that player the opportunity to guess the identity of one of their opponent’s runes. You win upon reaching 4 correct guesses.

STRUCTURE

There are two types of phases in this game: planting phases and casting phases. These phases typically alternate (unless a planting phase is skipped).

A planting phase consists of a single submission: Players submit one flower type that they haven’t yet planted, and it is planted in the leftmost empty pot. If one player has no empty pot, they do not submit during this phase; if both players have no empty pot, the phase is skipped altogether.

✏️ You cannot plant a flower you have already planted, even if you don't currently have a pot with that flower.

A casting phase consists of five turns. During each turn, both players submit a single rune to be casted. Any spells that are casted trigger. The spell casted may depend on the current turn count.

✏️ This means that the game flow occurs as follows: in the first time period, players pick a flower to plant, then Turns 1-5 happen, then players pick a second flower to plant, then Turns 6-10 happen, and so on. Note that the planting phase doesn’t affect the turn count.

FLOWERS & GARDENING

Players will be cultivating flowers in three flower pots (labeled from 1-3, from left to right). Flowers grow in stages, starting at stage zero. At the end of each turn, depending on the flower, it may grow. Flowers will bloom if its growth stage is at least at a specified level. At that time, the flower is automatically removed from the pot, and the player who planted it gains access to a guessing spell (they will use one "access" whenever they successfully guess an opponent rune).

✏️ Flowers cannot be below stage zero. If a flower would have its stage be below zero, it is instead set to zero.

During each turn, flowers may also be watered or fertilized, which may affect their growth rates. Flower growth may additionally be affected by the current weather. Weather is global and applied to every flower. There are three weather conditions:

• Weather 1: Sunny - Basic, does nothing special.
• Weather 2: Chilly - Stops most natural flower growth. (There is no mechanical effect of chilly weather, but some flowers' growth may be influenced by it.)
• Weather 3: Rainy - Every flower is treated like it has been watered. Flowers that are rained on can still be sabotaged (explained in Spellbook) to remove the watered effect.

FLOWERS

There are 5 unique types of flowers you can plant: Azalea, Chrysanthemum, Hyacinth, Wisteria, Xanthium.

Azalea: Grow by 1 if the weather is not chilly, unless… This flower cannot grow if it was watered twice in a row. If for two rounds in a row this flower did not grow, it shrinks by 1. Blooms at 8.

Chrysanthemum: Grow by 1 regardless of the weather. If this flower was watered, grow by an additional 2. If this flower was fertilized, grow by an additional 3. Blooms at 30.

Hyacinth: If the weather is sunny, grow by 2. If the weather is chilly, shrink by 1. Blooms at 15.

Wisteria: If the weather is not chilly, grow by 1. This flower cannot grow from stages that are multiples of 2 unless it has been watered. It cannot grow from stages that are multiples of 3 unless it has been fertilized. This is not required at 0. Blooms at 7.

Xanthium: If this flower experiences a unique combination (for itself) of weather, water/none, fertilizer/none, it grows by 1. Blooms at 6.

RUNES & SPELLS

A rune is composed of two parts: its symbol and its identity.

A rune's symbol is a letter of the alphabet; the player with advantage will use ABCDEFGH, and the player without advantage will use STUVWXYZ.

A rune's identity is a number from 0 to 7 inclusive, which dictates what spells are cast.

Players will only know what opponent symbols are cast, and not their identities.

Each player will be randomly assigned a mapping from symbol to identity, such that they have a rune of each identity.

A spell is composed of two parts: its condition and its effect.

A spell's condition is just what sequence of rune identities must occur in order for the spell to trigger.

A spell's effect is what happens if its condition is satisfied.

For example, a spell could have a condition of having your 3 most recent runes all be odd numbers, and an effect of watering your own flower in Pot 1.

Note that when a player casts a rune, ALL spells that are completed as a result of it will be cast.

INFORMATION

After every round, you will know for each of your flowers, what its growth stage is. Note that you do not know whether or not your flowers have been watered or fertilized. You also will not be told the weather.

After every fifth turn (the end of a casting phase), you will be told the growth stage of each of your opponent’s flowers in order, but not what each flower is.

You will always be told what runes both players have casted, including the translations of your own runes, as well as the translation of any guessed rune for your opponent.

You will always know what spells you have casted. Spells casted by your opponent are not typically revealed, with the exception of Guess Declaration, whose result (whether it was correct or incorrect) will be revealed.

SPELLBOOK

There are 3 basic spells and 3 special spells. Basic spells have various casting conditions that will vary from DM to DM. The exact set will be revealed 24 hours before the DM, at which time the DM players have their communications with other players cut.

Basic Spells

The basic spells have slightly different effects based on what turn they were completed on. Each of them has a variable X, and this X is defined as either 1, 2, or 3, matching the remainder when the turn number is divided by 3.

All of these basic spells apply to your own flowers.

Water every flower in Pots 1 through X

Fertilize the flower in Pot X

Change the weather to X

✏️ For instance, if you cast Fertilize on Turn 4, then you will fertilize Pot 1; if you cast Weather on Turn 6, then you will make the weather Rainy. Recall that the weathers are Sunny, Chilly, and Rainy, in that order.

Here are the possible formats for the basic spell conditions:

The last [3-5] runes were in this set of [3-5] runes: {?, ?, ?, …}

The running total of the last [3-5] runes is within [?-?]

Of your last [3-5] runes, the following sequence of inequalities holds for the number: [one of <, ≤, =, ≥, >; repeated one fewer times than the number of runes]

Special Spells

The sabotage spell applies only to your opponent's flowers.

If the previous rune plus the current rune adds up to exactly 8/10/12, prevent your opponent's flower in Pot 1/2/3 from being watered or fertilized.

The stall spell consists of only the rune with identity 0, and cannot be cast multiple times in a row. All other spells (other than the guessing spells) will ignore this spell.

The guessing spell can only be cast if you have more picked flowers than correct guesses made. Each cast of it gives you a "guess charge," of which you can have a maximum of one at a time. A guess charge allows you to perform a guess declaration spell, which expends that charge.

Guessing Spell: Cast 6 different runes in the last 6 rune casts.

Guess Declaration Spell: Cast one of your opponent's runes. Win a point if your previous rune casted has the same identity as it. Note that this opponent rune cast will break any other spell you might have been casting.

✏️ If you guess a pair which has already been correctly guessed, it will still be considered incorrect and use up a charge.

WINNING

✏️ The first player to get 4 points wins the DM. In case of a tie, go back in time until a player has more points; that player wins. If this is still somehow a tie, the player with the advantage wins.

TIMING + SUBMISSIONS

✏️ Players have 60 seconds to make each submission. If you do not submit within that time during a planting phase, you will plant nothing. If you do not submit in that time during a casting phase, you will cast a 0 if you are able to, otherwise you will cast a 1.

✏️ This DM is bot-hosted. During each submission, you should only have to submit a single character. During a planting phase you can submit the first letter of a flower (ACHWX); during a casting phase, you should submit a rune either by its symbol (either a letter from A-H or a letter from S-Z), or its identity (a number from 0-7, which will be automatically changed to its corresponding friendly symbol).

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Clarification: The "List of Flowers" graphic was slightly inaccurate with how the Chrysanthemum works; I've written an erratum above.

The stall spell consists of only the rune with identity 0, and cannot be cast multiple times in a row. All other spells (other than the guessing spells) will ignore this spell.

This has been changed to clarify that both guessing and guess declaration spells will include 0 in its calculations.

Amendment: The guessing spell is being changed to be as follows: Instead of always casting 6 different runes in a row, you instead cast 6-X-Y different runes in a row, where X represents the number of points you've earned so far, and Y represents the number of guess declaration spells you've casted so far, since your last correct guess.

In other words, your first time charging your guess will still take 6 guesses; if you guess incorrectly, your next one will cost 5, 4, etc, with a minimum of 1, and guessing correctly will reset this counter back to 5.