Plants vs Wall Street

Your portfolio is a lawn: five neat lanes of grass, with your money bags parked along the left edge. Wall Street wants it. The suits come from the right in waves — Retail Bears first, then Leveraged Coneheads, Panic Sellers and Hedge Fund Bucketheads in steel pails, and further up the levels Algo Bots, Margin Callers, Bag Holders and Activist Investors — and every one of them is walking straight at your money.

Nothing stands in their way except what you plant. Dividend Daisies pay out cash, Day Traders fire sell-orders down their lane, Blue Chip Barricades soak up the punishment, and Margin Mines wait in the grass for the first suit careless enough to step on one. Clear a level and the seed bar grows: Rate Cut Cannons that slow the market down, Circuit Breakers that halt a 3×3 patch of it, high-frequency Algo Turrets, a lane-torching Short Squeeze and the compounding Index Fund.

Every 5th level, The Big Short comes to collect. A crowned bear nearly twice the size of anything else on the lawn, with 6,000 health and more every time he returns, he walks down the middle lane calling in Retail Bears as he goes. Let 3 suits reach the edge of the lawn and you are bankrupt; hold the line and the next level is waiting, a little longer and a little meaner. There is no last level — only how far up you can climb.

How to play

• Collect cash — tap the falling $ bills. The market drops a $25 bill every 8 to 11 seconds, and your Dividend Daisies and Index Funds pay out more. Grab it quickly: cash left on the lawn vanishes after about 11 seconds. Every level starts you with $75.
• Plant — tap a card in the seed bar, then a tile on the lawn. The price is on the card. A dimmed card is too expensive or still recharging; the dark shade drains away as it gets ready again.
• Mind your lanes — suits walk in a straight line from the right, and Day Traders, Rate Cut Cannons and Algo Turrets only fire at suits in their own lane. Cover all five lanes before you double up on one.
• Build a wall — a suit that reaches a plant stops to eat it. A Blue Chip Barricade has 4,000 health; put one in front of your shooters and they get time to work.
• Breaches — your 3 money bags sit at the top right. Every suit that walks off the left edge of the lawn costs one, and when the last one goes the portfolio is bankrupt and you retry the level.
• Explosives — Margin Mines are the cheapest card but take 9 seconds to arm, so plant them ahead of the trouble. Circuit Breakers (3×3) and Short Squeezes (the whole lane) go off a moment after you plant them: drop them right where the suits are.
• Sell — the Sell card digs up a plant and refunds 40% of its price — handy for swapping a Daisy for a shooter once the money is flowing.
• Waves and bosses — each level arrives in waves, ends with a bigger Final Wave, and is won when the last suit is gone. Every 5th level the final wave brings The Big Short. Pause and sound are at the top right.

Questions