Heather Hogan
LIFESTYLE
Weed lovers, now you can legally grow marijuana in your own homes without fear – the virtual kind that is!
Slick Software has produced an amazing marijuana-type Tamagoshi package known as HighGrow Legal Marijuana Growing. You have to see it to believe it.
You can select three seeds out of 24 options to grow at a time. These strains include Durban Poison, Super Skunk, Silver Haze, Hindu Kush, Shiva Skunk, California Gold, Maui Wowie, Sweet Dreams, Original Big Bud, Silver Pearl, Malawi Gold and Northern Lights.
Dare to play and enter the world of Weird Wally, the program’s cartoon marijuana cultivator and host.
Striding across the screen explaining the game as you view the various index topics, Wally is a dark-skinned, chubby little dude with corn-coloured hair, beard and moustache. He has bulging eyes, a bulbous nose and walks like a large, lanky duck. Dressed remarkably like a Smurf sans elfin cap in his red shirt and blue shorts, Wally is quite a character. Perhaps this virtual grower has smoked too much of his virtual merchandise…
“Sadly,” he says, as you enter the program objectives introduction box, “in most countries, growing marijuana is illegal, but here at HighGrow you can grow legal marijuana. You may name and plant three marijuana seeds and then watch how your plants grow and develop.”
Wally maintains that it’s not difficult to grow healthy plants and says the least you have to do is water them every few days. If you care properly for your seedlings, you should be able to grow very potent marijuana, but if you don’t, they will dry out and die.
“I’ll be around to give you hints and tips if you require any help, but I won’t get in the way if you don’t need my assistance,” Wally assures all potential HighGrowers.
In the planting stage you must select and name your choice of seed. “So, you wanna plant some dope seeds, huh?” he asks. “Some of these seeds are of the Cannabis Sativa variety, growing tall and producing quite a potent harvest. The Indica variety, however, grows into a smaller plant, but produces huge, potent buds and an excellent harvest. You may choose three seeds and plant them at any time, but once planted, you will be required to care for each one.”
The grow room is a typically South African-looking garage- an old cupboard with an abandoned electric fan standing on top of it, a few bottles of some unknown substance on the floor, a wheelbarrow, shovel and three plant pots. Three adjustable lights are suspended above the pot plants and can be raised and lowered as necessary, and each has a timer that allows one to control the daily photo-period for plants.
According to Wally, all HighGrow plants have a limited lifespan and you only have 300 days to produce your crop, although potent buds can be produced and harvested in 200 days.
He goes on to explain the workings of marijuana, taking users through the seedling, vegetative, flowering and harvesting stages with incredible speed and clarity.
Apparently, harvesting is the tricky part, because if you harvest crops too early they may not have reached their full potential. However, should you harvest them too late they may have lost some of their potency.
“When you harvest a plant, you will receive a printed certificate, showing all the growth statistics at the time of harvest,” he promises. “These details will also be entered into the HighGrow plant log which you may visit after harvesting at least one plant.”
Shareware users will be unable to harvest their plants, but for registered users harvesting is the climax. After harvesting, you can choose another seed and start again.
“Then, when you’re happily looking at your certificate I’ll be offscreen, smoking your prime marijuana buds. Heh, heh…” Wally chuckles.
Highgrow’s owner and programmer, Slick, started programming HighGrow in October 1997 and released the first shareware version in October 1998. He has since completed two further versions, the latest, version 2.0, was released in December 1999.
There are hundreds of registered HighGrowers and probably tens of thousands of others who are still running their shareware version due to previous versions being less secure, said Slick. “It is definitely not my intention to encourage people to grow real marijuana, but simply my way of providing an entertaining and educational, ‘legal’ marijuana growing experience for everyone.”
The Mail & Guardian reviewed the original HighGrow 1.1 version, but the free 2.0 Shareware version of the program can be downloaded at http://www.geocities.com/slick_software/ind
ex.html. Although this version is fully functional, plants will all die after 60 days, unless you register them with Slick. Shareware plants of version 1.1 only die after 100 days.
Other options on Weird Wally’s introduction menu include entering the growth room, your plant’s own daily growth chart, its growth log, plant statistics, lighting, watering, fertilising, pruning, harvesting, extensive growing tips and Weird Wally’s 10 “golden rules”. Growing tips cover everything one would need to know in explicit detail especially in the Help menu. This elaborate game is practically idiot proof if one follows the instructions and is not only very cool but definitely worthwhile.