Discover the Gardenscapes Activity Pass Prize Chest bug that let PC players repeatedly collect rewards, build massive inventories, and race through thousands of levels.
The fully documented story of the 2024–2025 Gardenscapes Activity Pass Prize Chest bug that allowed PC players to collect repeated rewards, build massive stockpiles, and race through thousands of levels.
This may have been the only time in Gardenscapes history when a significant number of players were able to take advantage of a major Playrix mistake before it was stopped. In less than two months, some accounts accumulated millions of coins, thousands of boosters, and huge supplies of in-level tools.
But the biggest advantage was not the rewards themselves. With hours of timed boosters constantly active, players could move through levels at extraordinary speed. Accounts that had been thousands of levels behind climbed toward the highest available stages, and several players reached the Golden League far earlier than they normally could have.
None of this involved illegal software, modified game files, or interference with Playrix servers. Players simply collected a reward, closed Gardenscapes, reopened it, and found another reward waiting for them.
It sounds hard to believe, but authentic video footage from that period still exists. It shows the Prize Chest empty, the game being closed and reopened, and the chest becoming available again without a single new level being completed.
This is the story of the Activity Pass bug that briefly turned the normal Gardenscapes reward system upside down.
How the Activity Pass Works Today
The Activity Pass is one of the main reward systems in Gardenscapes. During each season, players collect points, move through a series of stages, and unlock boosters, tools, coins, lives, and other rewards.
Players who purchase the paid Pass path receive additional prizes. After all the main stages are completed, the Bonus Bank becomes available.
The Bonus Bank works like a controlled vault. Players continue collecting coins until they reach a fixed maximum. In the version introduced after the system changed, that limit was 5,000 coins, and the reward was paid out only at the end of the season.
It is a limited and predictable system. There is a counter, a maximum amount, and one final payout.
Before the Bonus Bank existed, however, the final stage of the Activity Pass worked very differently.
What Was the Prize Chest?
After completing all the main stages of the old Activity Pass, players unlocked a repeatable reward called the Prize Chest.
Players continued winning levels and collecting points. Once the progress bar filled, the Prize Chest opened and awarded a random selection of rewards.
The rewards could include:
- permanent boosters,
- timed boosters,
- in-level tools,
- coins,
- lives,
- unlimited playtime,
- or combinations of several different prizes.
After the reward was collected, the chest became empty and its progress bar reset. Normally, players had to keep playing and collect more points before they could open it again.
The chest could therefore be opened many times during the same season, but every new opening was supposed to require additional gameplay.
Who Could Access the Prize Chest?
The Prize Chest was not available to everyone. Players first had to purchase the Activate Pass, the name used at the time for the paid Activity Pass path.
They also had to complete every main stage of the season before the repeatable chest appeared.
Players using only the free reward path could not access the Prize Chest and therefore could not benefit from the bug.
That limited the number of people who could discover it. A player needed an active paid Pass, had to reach the end of the season, and had to be using the Microsoft PC version.
How the Bug Worked
In late December 2024, the Prize Chest began behaving incorrectly in the Microsoft version of Gardenscapes for PC.
Normally, once a reward had been collected, the chest was supposed to empty and the player had to start earning points again.
But that did not always happen.
A player could collect the reward, watch the Prize Chest become empty, and completely close Gardenscapes. After reopening the game, the chest could appear full again and ready to give another reward.
No new level had been completed. No additional points had been earned.
Restarting the game was enough.
The player could collect another prize, close the game, reopen it, and repeat the same process again and again.
Six or Seven Rewards a Minute
The process was extremely fast, especially on a computer that could load Gardenscapes quickly.
In roughly one minute, the Prize Chest could be opened six or seven times. Each opening generated a new reward that was added normally to the account.
Under normal conditions, earning that many Prize Chest rewards would have required completing numerous levels and spending hours playing.
With the bug, the same number of rewards could be collected in minutes without completing a single additional level.
Repeated over hours and then over multiple days, those small individual rewards quickly became enormous stockpiles.
Video Evidence of the Activity Pass Bug
The video below is an authentic recording from the period when the bug was still active. The footage was sent to us by a friend who discovered the problem and recorded it while it was happening.
We apologize for the low quality and limited resolution of the video. It was not captured directly with screen-recording software. The computer monitor was filmed with a mobile phone, so the image is not always clear.
Despite the quality, the footage is valuable because it provides direct visual evidence of the bug rather than relying only on memories or descriptions.
It also shows a level being played while several free timed boosters are already active. Their remaining timers are visible on the screen, confirming that the Prize Chest rewards were active and usable during gameplay.
At the beginning of the recording, the Prize Chest can be seen empty. The player closes Gardenscapes, opens the game again, and the chest appears ready to provide another reward.
The process is repeated several times without a level being completed or any new points being collected between openings.
The footage also includes actual gameplay. Levels begin with timed boosters active, while the player's tool inventory and coin balance can be seen on the screen.
At the time of the recording, the account was at level 5,772 and had accumulated approximately 545,000 coins.
The video may not have professional production quality, but it captures game behavior that can no longer be reproduced today.
No Hacks or External Software Were Needed
One of the most unusual parts of the story is that players did not need to install outside software or modify Gardenscapes in any way.
No game files were changed. No scripts, automation tools, or unofficial versions were used. No technical knowledge was required.
The entire process involved four normal actions:
- opening Gardenscapes,
- collecting the reward,
- closing the game,
- and opening it again.
The game itself kept restoring the Prize Chest and adding the rewards to the account.
For that reason, describing the players as hackers would be inaccurate. They did not bypass a security system or alter the software. They repeatedly collected a reward that the game itself continued to offer.
Why This Was a Bug, Not Just a Glitch
The word glitch is often used for almost any strange or temporary behavior in a game.
In this case, however, reward bug or reward duplication bug is a more accurate description.
This was not simply a visual error. The behavior was repeatable and predictable, and the same sequence of actions could trigger it over and over again.
The game may have been failing to save the fact that the reward had already been collected, or it may have been restoring an earlier Prize Chest state when the application restarted.
That would also make it a possible synchronization issue: the application and the account's saved data appeared to disagree about whether the chest had already been opened and reset.
Why the Bug Appeared to Be Limited to Microsoft PC
The bug was confirmed in the Microsoft PC version of Gardenscapes.
The same process was tested on a mobile device through Google Play, but it did not produce the same result. Closing and reopening the mobile version did not restore the Prize Chest.
This suggests that the problem was not tied to the Gardenscapes account itself. It appears to have been connected to the way the Microsoft version loaded or synchronized the Activity Pass state.
The same account could behave normally on mobile while showing the bug on PC.
How Players Built Massive Stockpiles
The Prize Chest did not always award the same thing. One opening might give coins, another tools, another permanent boosters, and another timed booster hours.
At six or seven openings per minute, even relatively small rewards added up quickly.
During the weeks when the bug remained active, players who repeated the process extensively managed to collect:
- hundreds of thousands or even millions of coins,
- thousands of permanent boosters,
- thousands of in-level tools,
- large supplies of lives,
- and many hours of timed boosters.
There was no practical overall limit. As long as the process continued to work, the rewards continued to accumulate.
The Prize Chest had been designed around one basic assumption: every new opening would require more gameplay. Once that requirement disappeared, the reward system effectively became an unlimited source of resources.
Why Timed Boosters Mattered Most
In my opinion, the biggest advantage was not the coins or permanent boosters. It was the timed rewards.
The Prize Chest could add free time to the boosters available at the beginning of a level. New rewards extended timers that were already running.
After enough chest openings, a player could have all three starting boosters active for four, five, or even six hours.
That meant new levels could begin already packed with power-ups, with explosions and combinations happening before the first normal move.
Difficult levels became much easier to clear, and players did not have to worry about the timers running out because they could return to the Prize Chest and add more time.
The Bug Also Made Events Much Easier to Win
The advantage went far beyond regular level progression. Events such as Treasure Hound and Magic Hats were active during that period and depended heavily on consecutive victories.
In roughly half an hour of repeated chest openings, a player could build up as much as two hours of free Rainbow Blast, along with two hours of the starting booster combinations then known as 2 Bombs and Dynamite + Rainbow Blast.
With every level starting with multiple boosters and large supplies of tools available, the risk of losing dropped dramatically. Completing Treasure Hound, Magic Hats, and other active events became almost guaranteed for heavily stocked accounts.
Competitions benefited as well. Players were not just collecting Prize Chest rewards. As they continued winning levels, they were also earning prizes from events and tournaments at the same time.
When the resources from the Prize Chest were combined with rewards from Treasure Hound, Magic Hats, the Golden League, and other competitions, the advantage multiplied.
The result was a self-reinforcing cycle: the chest supplied resources, those resources helped players keep winning, and those wins produced even more rewards from other parts of the game.
How Players Raced Through Thousands of Levels
Once that cycle was established, level progression changed dramatically.
Players could keep going for hours with starting boosters active and enough tools to avoid worrying about their inventory.
In just a few weeks, some completed a number of levels that would normally have taken months or even years of regular play.
Several players reached the end of the normal levels available at the time and entered the Golden League.
They had not suddenly become better players, and they had not necessarily spent huge amounts of money. For several weeks, they simply had access to far more resources than a normal account would ever have available.
What Players Kept After the Bug Ended
In late January 2025, the old Prize Chest was replaced by the Bonus Bank, and the restart method stopped working.
But affected accounts were not returned to their previous state.
Players who had used the bug heavily had already accumulated huge inventories. Some accounts held more than one million coins along with thousands of boosters and tools.
Many had also climbed thousands of levels. Even after the Prize Chest disappeared, those stockpiles could continue supporting their gameplay for a very long time.
The effects therefore lasted far beyond the few weeks when the bug itself was active.
Why the Bonus Bank Changed Everything
Playrix did more than simply fix the old chest. In late January 2025, the final Activity Pass reward system changed completely.
The repeatable Prize Chest disappeared and was replaced by the Bonus Bank.
The Prize Chest:
- awarded several different types of rewards,
- could be opened repeatedly,
- reset after each opening,
- and had no fixed overall reward limit.
The Bonus Bank:
- collects only coins,
- has a predefined maximum limit,
- does not provide immediate repeatable prizes,
- and pays out the stored coins at the end of the season.
There is no longer a chest that opens, empties, and starts filling again. The modern system is essentially a counter with a fixed ceiling.
Even if a similar loading problem appeared today, it could not produce endless boosters and tools through this system because those rewards are no longer part of the final Activity Pass stage.
Playrix's Accidental Christmas Gift
The bug appeared in late December 2024, right around Christmas. For players who discovered it early, it felt like an unexpected Christmas gift from Playrix.
It was not an official promotion or planned holiday reward, but in practice it gave some accounts resources that would otherwise have required years of gameplay or extremely large purchases.
And when the bug disappeared, the rewards were not broadly taken back.
Coin balances were not generally reset. Booster and tool inventories remained in place, and affected accounts were not rolled back to an earlier state.
Playrix changed the system going forward, but players kept what the game had already awarded them.
Why I Say the Players Beat Playrix
Playrix carefully controls the Gardenscapes economy. Coins, lives, boosters, and tools are normally distributed in limited quantities because resource management is a major part of how the game operates and generates revenue.
Players usually have to decide whether to use a booster, spend coins on extra moves, save a tool, or buy a package.
For a few weeks, that balance was completely reversed.
Players were no longer trying to conserve resources. The game was giving them more than they could realistically use.
They did not need to worry about waiting for lives, running out of tools, or saving enough coins for the next difficult level.
For perhaps the first time, the Gardenscapes economy was working overwhelmingly in the players' favor.
That is what I mean when I say the players beat Playrix. They did not hack the game, win a legal dispute, or force the company to change a policy. They simply managed to collect far more from the game's own reward system than that system had ever been designed to give them.
Why This Story Still Matters
This was more than an old bug that was eventually fixed. It became part of Gardenscapes history.
It helps explain how some accounts climbed thousands of levels in an unusually short period and how inventories that would seem almost impossible under normal conditions were created.
Without documentation, the story could eventually survive only as a vague memory among a small group of veteran players.
That is why the video matters despite its low resolution. It preserves direct evidence of a reward system, a bug, and a period of the game that no longer exists.
The Prize Chest is gone, the Activity Pass has changed, and many newer players may never know that this version of the reward system existed at all.
Conclusion
From late December 2024 until late January 2025, a bug in the Microsoft PC version of Gardenscapes allowed the Activity Pass Prize Chest to become available again after the game was restarted.
Players could collect a reward, close the game, reopen it, and repeat the process without winning another level or earning any new points.
At six or seven chest openings per minute, some accounts accumulated millions of coins, thousands of boosters and tools, and hours of timed power-ups. Those resources helped players move through levels and events at a speed that would normally have been impossible.
Then, in late January 2025, the Prize Chest was replaced by the strictly limited Bonus Bank, and the gold mine finally closed.
What players had already collected, however, remained in their accounts.
That is why, in my opinion, this was the one time Gardenscapes players truly beat Playrix: for a brief period, the reward system stopped limiting them and started giving them more than anyone could reasonably have expected.
Connect with Gardenscapes Strategy
Follow Gardenscapes Strategy for gameplay, new levels, research, updates, community discussions, and more.
Have you noticed something that isn’t mentioned here? Level differences, changes, or team-related issues? Leave a comment.