site/wiki/source/botany.md

title, author, category

title	author	category
Botany	deepend keyboardan	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.