Game Manual

Introduction:

Welcome to Grant's Patch, an NES styled historical farming simulator. 

Taking inspiration from classic games like Oregon Trail, Tetris, Chess, and Frogger, Grant's Patch is a fast-paced puzzle game for play on world wide web connected computers. 

Story:

Early in his army career, Ulysses S. Grant was ordered to Fort Vancouver, on the Columbia River, then in Oregon Territory.

To help feed his troops on the frontier, he planted 20 acres of potatoes.

The mighty Columbia River will not make harvesting his crop easy though.

Race the flood to harvest your potatoes and feed the troops!

Game play:

Head down the trail and select your starting point. 

Cycle through your current destination options while considering your next moves. 

Land on potatoes to harvest them and return to the trail so they can be collected and taken to the fort. 

The water will rise with your every move. Move options will be flooded out as the high water mark climbs.

Greenhorn tips:

Watch out for Gary the Ox, his horns are dangerous!  

Folktales say that the hot potato can be a lifesaver during flood season. 

Controls:

Select ............... Space

Cycle ............ < >

Restart ......... ESC

Moveset:

- King

-  Pawn         - Square

       

- Queen         - Bishop

       

- Knight         - Rook

       

                       

       

                       

       

                       

       

History:

"The ground is already broken for twenty acres of potatoes...

I shall do all the ploughing myself all summer."

To Julia Dent Grant
Columbia Barracks O.T.
March 19th, 1853

"I have been quite unfortunate lately.

The Columbia is now far over its banks, and has destroyed ...

about half the potatoes upon which

I had expended so much money and labor."

To Julia Dent Grant
Columbia Barracks W.T
June 15th 1853

"I believe I explained in my last letter

the results of the high water! I have

now had a chance of looking at matters

and I find that we will have a crop of

several thousand potatoes...

This is in consequence of so many

being drowned out.

To Julia Dent Grant
Columbia Barracks W.T.
June 28th, 1853

I performed all the labor of breaking up the ground while the other officers planted the potatoes. Our crop was enormous. Luckily for us the Columbia River rose to a great height from the melting of the snow in the mountains in June, and overflowed and killed most of our crop. This saved digging it up, for everybody on the Pacific coast seemed to have come to the conclusion at the same time that agriculture would be profitable. In 1853 more than three-quarters of the potatoes raised were permitted to rot in the ground, or had to be thrown away. The only potatoes we sold were to our own mess."

Volume 1, Chapter XV
Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant
1885

Soundtrack:

Star Spangled Banner - 1814

Wait for the Wagon - 1850

John Brown's Body  - 1861

Marching Through Georgia - 1865

Built With:

GameMaker

Famistudio

Lilypond

GIMP