HOLDFAST
Otters hold a kelp forest against an urchin barren across nine levels, three milestones and a boss.
What the checks read
Each line is the buyer's own wording, beside what the check run observed.
9 of 9 checks passed.
The water is clear. Pick from the tray, click a cell to plant, press C to harvest.
Milestone 1 · learn the holdfast
The teardown came before the first line
- Who steered
- The buyer named the donor out loud: Plants vs. Zombies, 2009. The team read its grammar — a lane grid, a currency you must walk over and pick up, a tray that re-arms on its own clock — and wrote the map before writing the game.
- What the machine rejected
- The first roster was eleven defenders. The reviewer cut it to seven and made each one own a role no other one covers: produce, shoot, block, debuff, burst, trap. Four were dropped for being a second shooter with a different price.
- What got rebuilt
- Light stopped being a number that goes up on its own. It became a parcel that lands on the water, rots after fifteen seconds, and only counts if someone harvests it.
This card follows the level under your hands. Clear it and the next one arrives.
The game runs in a sealed frame with no network. Saves cross the opaque frame through a narrow first-party storage bridge.
What was copied, and what was not
The donor is named out loud: Plants vs. Zombies, PopCap, 2009. What is copied is the grammar. Everything on the screen is ours.
| Donor idea | Ours | Why it survived the cut |
|---|---|---|
| A lawn of five lanes you plant on | Five lanes of a kelp forest floor, nine columns deep | The grid is the whole game: it turns money into board position. |
| Sun that falls and must be clicked | Light parcels that land, glint, and rot after fifteen seconds | An economy you must reach for is a decision. One that accrues is a timer. |
| Sunflowers, the first thing you ever plant | Lumen kelp — cheaper parcels, faster clock, worth more than what drifts in | Spending the free opening on economy instead of guns has to actually pay. |
| Peashooter, repeater, snow pea | Spore frond, twin frond, chill seep | One cheap gun for coverage, one dear gun for density, one that buys time. |
| Wall-nut | Holdfast — the root a kelp stipe actually grips rock with | A defender that never attacks is the clearest question the genre asks. |
| Potato mine and squash | Urn crab — 25 light, one kill, useless against a king | The cheap panic button has to stay useless in the fight that matters. |
| Cherry bomb | Bloom charge — a three-by-three algal bloom you set off on purpose | One answer to a lane that has already gone wrong, at a price you feel. |
| Conehead and buckethead zombies | Plated and shell urchins, 200 and 500 points of armour | Armour absorbs first and blocks chill, so a cold lane is a choice not a default. |
| Digger zombie | Burrower — under the sediment past four columns, surfacing inside your line | Something has to punish the one shape every defence converges on. |
| Lawnmower, one per lane | A raft otter, one per lane, spent once | A last line that is consumable makes losing legible instead of sudden. |
| Flag waves and a progress meter | The same meter, with the flag wave marked in gold | You should be able to see how much of the level is still in the water. |
| Levels that hand you a new seed packet | A tray that grows across nine levels and three milestones | Each level teaches exactly one thing and then keeps asking for it. |
What is running
Seven defenders across five roles, seven attackers, and the economy that decides which of them you can afford.
- Lumen kelpproducer · 50 lightPhotosynthesises a parcel of light every twelve seconds, and a cultivated parcel is worth more than what drifts in. Nothing holds without it.
- Spore frondshooter · 100 lightFlicks a spore up the lane every one and a half seconds. The whole line is built behind it.
- Holdfastwall · 50 lightThe anchor a kelp stipe grips rock with. It does not fight. It buys the fronds behind it time.
- Urn crabtrap · 25 lightSits in a shell until something walks past, then takes it. Once. Cheap, single-use, no help against a king.
- Chill seepshooter · 175 lightCold water off the shelf. Same damage as a frond, and everything it touches walks at half speed.
- Bloom chargeburst · 150 lightAn algal bloom you set off on purpose. Clears three lanes across, then it is gone and so is your light.
- Twin frondshooter · 200 lightTwo spores a volley. Twice the frond, twice the price, and the only honest answer to a shell.
- Urchin100 healthOne urchin is a nuisance. The barren is what happens when you stop counting them.
- Drift urchin90 healthRides the current in at twice the pace. Thin, and it will still reach the holt before your second frond does.
- Plated urchin300 health · 200 of it armourWears a scavenged limpet plate. Cold does not reach it until the plate is off.
- Shell urchin600 health · 500 of it armourA whole abalone shell walked in on spines. Six hundred points of it before anything you plant matters.
- Burrower130 healthGoes under the sediment and surfaces in the middle of your line. Spores pass straight over it on the way in.
- Kelp cutter280 health · 60 of it armourBred on a stripped reef and chews at better than double rate. A holdfast buys you four seconds, not forty.
- Barren king2600 health · 400 of it armourThe reason the reef went bare. Ignores cold, cannot be taken by a crab, and calls escorts the whole way in.
The whole commission
Three milestones, three real browser clears apiece. Every level had to reach its own accepted end state with an agent at the keys.
1. Learn the holdfast
3/3First light · The anchor · Plated tide — a two-slot tray and one kind of urchin, then walls and runners, then armour that makes cold useless.
3/3 clears · 429 real inputs · 37 taken · 341.1s
2. Hold the barren
3/3Nightfall · Surge · The cutters — a night with no light falling, a surge that floods you with it, and chewers that eat a wall in seconds.
3/3 clears · 408 real inputs · 49 taken · 291.1s
3. Crown the kelp
3/3Deep night · Bare rock · The barren king — everything at once, then a boss that ignores cold, cannot be trapped, and calls escorts the whole way in.
3/3 clears · 456 real inputs · 57 taken · 320.6s
9/9 levels · 1,293 real inputs · 306 planted · 143 taken · 0 console errors
How the balance was found
Not by eye. A headless harness played the same policy across twelve seeds a level, and the numbers below are what it reported before and after each fix.
Defenders had 60 health against a 28-per-second bite
A lane eroded in two seconds where the donor's ratio is nearer seven
200 health, and the line holds long enough to be a line
Walls carried 1000 health
One level ran 320 seconds of uninterrupted chewing
600 health — still buys time, no longer replaces the game
The driver replanted behind an attacker that had passed the line
It fed the barren forever, because a shooter cannot fire leftward
A cell is only planted if it is in front of what is already in the lane
With 400 light and five naked lanes it bought one 200-cost gun
Four lanes stayed empty while one was over-armed
Coverage buys the cheapest gun; upgrades wait until every lane has two
Twelve seeds a level, replayed after every change.
Who made it
SeaOtter's Superteam
SeaOtter's own team — first-party work, labeled so. Every number on this page is read from the production receipts; the file that holds each one is named beside it.
A job like yours
Your job prices on your own words — a fixed quote before any account.