Crazy Plant Shop is an edu-tainment management/simulation game in which you use Punnett squares to selectively breed silly plants and produce offspring that conform to your customer’s specifications.

(As someone who has spent many years teaching Punnett squares, I’m aware that I’m probably not the target audience of this game, so that’s probably worth bearing in mind in the context of this review.)

I generally enjoy management/simulation games, and the idea of one centering on using biological concepts for fun and profit was very appealing to me. I was under the impression that this was a cute, casual management sim, but unfortunately, this game is pretty clearly intended more as edu-tainment to reinforce the concepts of Mendelian genetics than as a real game. The management aspects are trivial, the game progression is very linear, and determining the correct crosses to produce the required offspring is not very challenging.

I can see this game appealing to parents who want a fun way to introduce their kids to important biological concepts, and maybe to those who don’t remember much about basic biology and want a fun-ish refresher. Beyond its educational merits, though, I really don’t see any reason to play this game.

Crazy Plant Shop is an edu-tainment management/simulation game in which you use Punnett squares to selectively breed silly plants and produce offspring that conform to your customer’s specifications. (As someone who has spent many years teaching Punnett squares, I’m aware that I’m probably not the target audience of this game, so that’s probably worth bearing in mind in the context of this review.) I generally enjoy management/simulation games, and the idea of one centering on using biological concepts for fun and profit was very appealing to me. I was under the impression that this was a cute, casual management sim, but unfortunately, this game is pretty clearly intended more as edu-tainment to reinforce the concepts of Mendelian genetics than as a real game. The management aspects are trivial, the game progression is very linear, and determining the correct crosses to produce the required offspring is not very challenging. I can see this game appealing to parents who want a fun way to introduce their kids to important biological concepts, and maybe to those who don’t remember much about basic biology and want a fun-ish refresher. Beyond its educational merits, though, I really don’t see any reason to play this game.