Creatures Caves

About how many frames are normal for plant growth stages? I feel like I might be going a tiny bit overboard, but I don't actually know what's normal so it's hard to say. So far it starts with the seed image, which becomes green to form the 'sprout', then the actual tiny sprout is Growth1. I'm up to Growth6 and the way I'm going it'll be at least two more before it's finished. And by 'finished' I mean 'at full size', the point where it'll begin growing flowers and then fruiting.

Speaking of fruiting, is there a way to make the plant stay in its adult form for a while before dying? I'd prefer a situation where the plant has both fruit and flowers on it at any given time, not dying until it's been alive for a certain amount of time (say, ten minutes, just to invent a number, though I'll have to playtest to figure out what the best number will be in practice). If that's not possible or is difficult enough to not be worth it, I'd also be content with them having multiple flower-fruit-seed-repeat cycles before dying. I'm guessing that's probably easier than the first version but I'm not sure how I'd go about setting either of them up.

And is there a way to give different parts of the plant different properties, and to give a gradually increasing property? Ideally I'd like the seeds to give off a decent amount of heat - not enough to be satisfactory heat sources on their own, but enough to be noticeable, as if they were glowing cinders. (They will be invisible to creatures so no worries about them trying to eat the burning seeds LOL)

This heat output would diminish to almost nothing in the 'sprout' stage, but then slowly start to grow again with each growth stage, until the adult plant is giving off about half as much heat as the seed did. The flower buds then appear, and they give off heat in themselves, which increases as they open, maxing out with the fully opened flower. The amount of heat from the individual flower goes down again when it closes up to fruit, but the mature fruit gives off as much heat as the mature flower did. (I plan to make the fruits edible, contributing a small hit of Hotness and typical fruit nutrition, but mainly just to give them some use besides background prettiness.) Fruits should drop off the plant at maturity after hanging for a few seconds. If not eaten they should decay into a manky-class object that gives small amounts of both Hotness and Alcohol when eaten. If the manky isn't eaten, it should disappear, leaving behind two seeds, which soon sprout and start the process over again.

That's the idea, anyway! I hope it's not overly complex. x.x

The amount of heat given off by any one flower won't be too much, but the plant will have multiple flowers on it, so the total heat output by the plant and its flowers will be fairly significant. I don't want them to be strong enough to overheat everything and kill stuff so I'll have to calibrate the levels of Hotness output very carefully and a lot of playtesting will probably be required. But the ultimate goal is a plant that radiates a useful amount of heat into the room to help Draconians and Magma Norns and other heatlovers stop shivering all the time. :p

If that's too complicated, I'd be just as happy with a much simpler scenario where the plant itself gives off a specific amount of heat its whole lifetime and where the seeds and fruit don't give off heat directly. But the above would be my ideal. Do you guys think I should dial back the complexity level or am I worrying too much?