Getting started guide

Welcome to The Garden Path!

While getting Lost™ is part of The Garden Path experience, here are some pointers to guide you through the first day and beyond as you begin in the Garden.

Your first day

When you first arrive in the Garden, you might notice that your area to explore is quite, well, big! Not to worry, your first day has a few things for you to do right off the bat to help you get comfortable with life in The Garden.

Here's some non-spoilery tips for you first day:

1. Open your map and seak out any (potential!) friends marked with a '?' on the map. They might just have a quest or two for you!
2. Try out your new tools and trade for new ones! A big bear walking around might have a couple options for, for the right price of course...
3. Record new Plants! Just focus on a new plant (as you learned in the tutorial) and fill in details on the wonderful flora around you.
4. Explore the Garden! There's lots of areas to explore on your map, seek out every corner to start unravelling some of the secrets left behind...

Run out of things to do? The Garden Path is meant to be played in short and sweet bites, so if you run out of daily tasks don't worry! Come back tomorrow to see how your Garden has grown and which new Folk have visited in the meantime.

If you don't mind spoilers, here's a full breakdown for progressing a new Garden:

Detailed walkthrough

1. Inspect the object just south-west from you, by the tree stump. You'll see that it's a broken pair of secateurs, and pick it up.
2. Next, it's time find Augustus. You'll need to open the Map to find him if he's not nearby.
3. Speaking to Augustus, he'll lend you the second broken half of the secateurs you found earlier. If you missed them earlier, their location will be marked on the Map.
4. Speak to Augustus again, and give him the missing half of the secateurs. Augustus will thank you, and task you to collect some Bracken. Doing this will unlock Augustus's shop. You can do this now, or save it for later.
5. Thom will appear nearby. Speak to him, and he will welcome you to the Garden, as well as lend you a Trowel. Thom will suggest you trade with him. Thom favours Natural items, so picking some flowers before trading is recommended.
6. Speak to Thom again, and ask to buy some seeds. Buy at least three seeds of any kind from Thom. Speak to Thom again, and hand-in the objective.
7. Thom will then invite you to sow the seeds. Be sure you have the Trowel he gave you earlier equipped. You can sow the seeds anyway. Speak to Thom again, and hand-in the objective. This will unlock The New Gardener.

This concludes the tutorial! But there's still plenty to do...

Begin a project

When speaking to Thom again, Thom will lend you a Project Folder and a Bundle Of Popsticks to get you started on your first project. You can unbundle the Bundle of Popsticks from your inventory but selecting Use, and then select the Project from your inventory to begin adding to it.

Ready to get started on your projects but not enough time in the day? Assign someone in the Community Centre to your project to get them to passively work on it while you're busy taking care of more important things (like fishing with Larto, very important)!

Find the Old Statue

If you haven't already, speak to Thom about the Mysterious Note. Show Thom the note, and he will mark the location of the Old Gardener's Statue on your map.

Approaching the statue will unlock The Old Gardener star.

Unlocking your first constellation

With both The Old Gardener and The New Gardener stars unlocked, you can unlock The Root constellation from the Star Map. Doing so allows you to interact with the stones next to the Old Gardener's Statue. If you've collected any Guide Stone Fragments along the way, combine them in your inventory to create Guide Stones, and place them into the stones for some rewards to get you started.

Invite your first resident

After sowing the seeds for Thom, a new visitor will appear close to where you started. Speak to them, and they will ask to be a resident of your Garden. Your first resident will be free, however subsequent residents will need to be persuaded to stay.

Obtain a fishing rod

On the first day, Larto can also be found in the Garden. Find him using the Map and speak to him, he will give you your first fishing rod. He will also give you an objective to catch a fish. After catching your first fish, speak to Larto again to hand-in the objective. This will unlock Larto's shop.

Your second day

Start catching dust flies

You may have noticed small collections of glowing flies now appearing in the Garden. Approach them carefully, and there's a chance Jahi will appear and lend you a Dust Fly Jar to catch them with.

Once you've caught a dust fly, you can begin charging their light by working the Garden. A completely charged jar can be exchanged for a voucher, or taken to the Pigeon Holes to entice a specific traveller to visit the next day.

This also unlocks Jahi, who you may now catch visiting the Garden from now on, and sells Star Maps to observe stars in the sky.

Look out for treasure

Keep an eye out for glowing markers while you play, they may appear on the ground, or on trees. There are 90 journal pages to find and unlock that tell the story of the Garden, and more will appear each day.

Watch the stars

You've probably already unlocked a few stars, but look out for the stars in green to give you more ideas of what you can do in the Garden. A random selection will already be tracked for you, but from you star map you can

Look out for Spirits

Lonely spirits may now start visiting the Garden, making it harder for you to harvest the plants around them. They'll need comforting, find them, see what their worries are, and prepare the right tea to give you the Tones to guide them on their way.

Begin furnishing the Garden!

Every other day, Weyley & Terracotta will visit the Garden with new furnishings to purchase. Furnishings can be expensive, but keep an eye out on the Community Board for an announcement the day before to let you know what will be worth double when they visit.

Your third day and beyond

As we mentioned, The Garden Path is best enjoyed with daily check-ins ranging from 30 min to 1 hour of gameplay. Wondering what to do every day?

Here are just a few tips to get you started on daily tasks to focus on:

1. Check the Community Centre for news on who will be coming by tomorrow to get prepared!
2. Check in on your Plants to see if anything is ready to harvest.
3. Record plants, bushes, and trees to unlock new understandings of them.
4. Check your Map to see which travelling merchants are in today to chat with!
5. Use your Tools to unlock new Tones! Fish, dig, cut, prune - all of them will have a chance at unlocking a seasonal tone.
6. Chat with residents - old and new! - and help them with their daily tasks or requests.
7. Wander the Garden in search of Guide Stone Fragments (dependent on whether you enabled the tutorial or not) which you can submit in the Old Gardener’s Statue.