Botany

authors:

~deepend

~keyboardan


table of contents

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.