site/wiki/source/botany.md

title	author	category
Botany	deepend	software

Botany is a tiny terminal game where you grow an ASCII plant that lives on your Tilde home. It thrives when you water it on time, and it sulks—then dies—if you forget.

Quick start

• In a shell, run: botany
• Use the on-screen menu to Water, Look, Visit, Garden, Instructions, or Exit.
• Your plant and stats live in ~/.botany/.

How it grows

• Time = score. The longer it lives (and the more generations), the more ticks you earn.
• Stages: seed → seedling → stages 2–5.
  • Species appears at stage ≥2, rarity at ≥3, color at ≥4, “seed-bearing” at 5 (you can harvest then).
• Miss watering too long and the plant dies. Typical rhythm:
  • Thirsty after ~18h, dead after ~72h without water.

Watering

• In the game: choose Water.
• On IRC (community bot): in a channel the bot is in (or via DM), use:
  • !water <user> — record a visit/watering for ~<user>.
  • !plant <user> — show the current status summary.
  • The bot is rate-limited to prevent spam and will tell you if a plant appears dead (watering won’t revive it).
  • Privacy: if a user has opted out (see below), the bot pretends their plant doesn’t exist.

Seeing your plant on the web

• Personal page: https://tilde.club/~username/myplant
  • Shows status, last watered, and the current ASCII art (including fun holiday art on Oct 31).
• botanygarden (web): a community “garden view” that showcases many members’ plants in one place.

Opt-out of the web view

Don’t want your plant visible on the web (or referenced by the IRC bot)? Create this file:

touch \~/.notrackbotany

The personal page will show “private,” the garden won’t list it, and the IRC bot will act as if it doesn’t exist.

Visiting and the garden

• Garden (in-game): browse everyone’s plants from inside Botany.
• botanygarden (web): browse a mosaic of plants and jump to user pages.
• Visit: see who stopped by and go say hi. Visiting is social.

Tips

• Water roughly every 18 hours; set a reminder.
• Stage 5 lets you harvest to start a new generation with bonuses.
• If a web page looks wrong, launch botany once—opening the game reconciles state.

Grow well, water often, to keep the garden alive.