Turnleaf — A quiet garden puzzle

Every rule is a real one

Rosemary wants dry ground and cannot abide clover. An iris wants the pond beside it. A marigold puts a snail to sleep. A hive holds back the bloom until a plant the bees like stands beside it.

The puzzles are real companion planting, so learning the garden and learning the game are the same thing. There are one hundred and twelve flower beds along the Path, in five acts: Morning Meadow, Blossom Garden, The Year of the Snails, Autumn Wood and Spring Again.

A flower bed with a pond at its edge. An iris stands on the square beside the water; a row of plants waits below: amaryllis, azalea, hyacinth, paperwhite. — An iris, placed where it wants to be: beside the pond.

Anna and Leo

Anna looked after a town garden alone for twenty-two years. Then the town gave half of it to Leo, a cook who gardened before work. They never met, so they left each other notes on the flower beds, and then a book in the shed.

Their story is told in notes, each in its writer's own hand, and in twenty-two dated journal pages that open as you walk, from their first spring to thirty years on. It passes through a year of illness and into old age. At the end of the walk, the garden is yours.

A journal page opened over a flower bed, headed Year 1, 14 April, in which Anna writes that she has left the book in the shed and asks the stranger to write and say who they are. It is signed A. — The first page, on a flower bed in the Morning Meadow.

The journal on an iPad: a cream book headed Journal, Anna and Leo's book, kept in the shed, open at the Morning Meadow chapter. — The book they kept in the shed, on iPad.

Not a match-three

Turnleaf is a puzzle game for anyone who loves match-three but not what it asks of them. There are no lives to run out, no timers, and no moves to spend down to zero. There are no ads and nothing to buy.

When a flower bed is hard, the lamp is free: it shows where a plant would be happy, and what it says is always something true about how plants grow. Undo and Start over stand beside it. A flower bed blooms when every plant is content and your own planting has made a heart; every bed offers at least three, and finding them all turns a plant gold.

A flower bed called The Last Seed with the lamp lit. Above the bed the lamp says: Here. This is one place it would be happy. A faint outline marks the square. — The lamp, asked for help.

A hundred plants to find

Every plant you meet is pressed into the herbarium: some in Anna and Leo's book along the walk, some met in the flower beds, some brought by the lantern, and the twenty-five of Anna's list, which come with the Daily once the walk is done.

Beside the hundred there are five rare plants, each earned by a feat, one for each way of playing, and marked with a small gold star. Catch them all, calmly: every chapter keeps a tally and is sealed when it is full, a plant you have only seen shows faintly with its name, and every pressed plant carries a label saying who pressed it and when.

The herbarium: 73 of 100 species have taken root. The Morning Meadow chapter shows pressed daisy, clover, poppy, cornflower, lavender, rosemary, marigold, iris and more. — Chapter by chapter.

The Wildflowers of the Verge chapter, 6 of 6 and sealed, with the five rare plates below it: four still faint and one, Quaking Grass, earned, on a dark green plate with a gold star. — A sealed chapter, and one rare plant earned.

A pressed primrose on its card: Pressed by Anna, Year 1, 14 April, Two Clovers. Below, what it wants: the dark earth underfoot, and delights beside the bluebell. — Who pressed it, and when.

The Daily

A lantern on the Path lights one new flower bed each day at 03:00 UTC, the same for everyone who has walked as far, always with three hearts to find. The lantern shows faintly which plant today's bed brings.

On some days, and on a few flower beds of the walk, it rains: the rain waters every square, so every plant has the water it needs. Missing a day costs nothing. No streak is shown or asked of you.

The Path at night under a crescent moon: a pale track winding up a dark hill past numbered flower beds, with the shed, the garden gate and the lit lantern of the Daily at the foot. — The Path at night, the lantern lit.

Your Garden, and over the hedge

At the end of the walk Anna and Leo's garden is yours, to plant however you like with no rules at all. A Dawn Seed from the Daily grows there in a real day.

The garden keeps your time: dawn, day, dusk and night by your own clock, and the seasons of your own half of the world. Invite friends through iCloud and their gardens stand beside yours, to visit and never to change. The seed tin grows a flower bed from any three plants you have met, the same bed for anyone with the same three, to send by link; a cutting is one plant from your herbarium, given to a friend's garden.

Your Garden by day: a wide plot of pale squares with red-leaved trees, flowering beds, a pond and a small shed, three plants golden. — Your Garden, by day.

The same garden at night under a dark blue sky, the pond catching a little light. — The same garden, by night.

iPhone, iPad and Apple TV

The whole game on each, on the same save through your own iCloud. On Apple TV it is played with the remote. There is a Home Screen widget on iPhone and iPad, and a Top Shelf on Apple TV.

Turnleaf on a television: a flower bed called The Last Seed on a wide pale screen, the lamp lit and its advice written above the bed, the row of plants below. — On Apple TV, with the lamp lit.

The Path on an iPad by day: the track winds over a green hill under a bright sky; a list of the five acts stands at the top left with their counts, every one in bloom. — The Path on iPad, every act in bloom.

Six languages

The whole game, every note and every page, in English, Portuguese, Spanish, French, German and Italian. It opens in your device's language where it is one of the six.

English
Português
Español
Français
Deutsch
Italiano

Also in the garden

Nothing collected: the App Privacy label reads "Data Not Collected". The only online services the game uses are Apple's own, iCloud and Game Center.
Game Center achievements only: no leaderboards, no challenges, no competition.
Notifications only if you ask for them: they start off, and the garden asks once.
Rated 4+: no chat, no purchases, nothing collected from anyone.