The Garden Path is a slice-of-life gardening sim, with a mystery. Set in a beautifully hand-crafted woodland garden, you play as the New Gardener, trying to nurture the garden and unearth the secrets.
I thoroughly enjoyed playing The Garden Path, but there were times when the game was a thorn in my side. The Garden Path guide will help you overcome some of those prickly situations. The developers and community have recently created a wiki, which can be accessed from The Garden Path main menu.
Hope you dig The Garden Path as much as I do. Happy nurturing!
The Garden Path Guide – Table of Contents
The Garden Path Tutorial or No Tutorial?
Key Controls
Community Locations
Quests for Augustus
Quests for Thom
Brewing Tea
Lost Spirits
Finding Dust Flies
Where is The Garden Path encyclopaedia?
The Garden Path Tutorial or No Tutorial?
What are the differences between starting or skipping the tutorial?
When you select the tutorial, you start outside the main garden. You will learn how to use your lantern, how to interact, how to open and use items in your bag, how to focus on items, how to harvest, and how to open the overview menu. After those explanations, you appear in the main garden, with the map being explained. When you close this hint, you receive a guide stone fragment. Then when you discover new things, for example, how to plant seeds, you will get a pop-up hint and sometimes a guide stone fragment.
When you skip the tutorial, you start in the main garden, with your axe already equipped. However, you will not receive any explanations as you interact with the garden. This means you will not receive any guide stone fragments via the pop-up hints. Instead, you will need to look for guide stone statues to destroy. The controls are given in the overview menu if you need a reminder.
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Key Controls
+ button opens the overview menu, use L and R to navigate through the different tabs
X opens your inventory, use A to use items (includes equipping tools), use Y for more options
press Y to focus on a group of plants, use X to record, A to harvest, and Y for information
hold Y to focus on a single plant, use X to record and A to harvest (information already shown)
A interacts with objects
B runs whilst the white bar is visible
Press down on Right Stick to view the map
– button then A to view the sky
Character: Within this menu, you can select an item of clothing or equipment to see any bonuses that item has. You can see what time it is in the garden and how full the jar containing the dust flies is. You can also see how many tones you have, including those which are temporary due to drinking tea.
To-Do List: Selecting a resident or traveller quest in the overview menu, and then pressing A will turn off the tracking. Completion and progress are shown for each quest.
Star achievements can be deselected by pressing A from the overview menu, but you need to view the sky to turn on tracking. The green stars can be tracked, by pressing Y, and more information about the star can be found by pressing X. Looking at these stars gives you ideas of what to do around your garden. The white stars can only be tracked once they have been observed. You need a star map, available from Jahi, to observe a star. Once observed, you will know what is needed to complete the achievement.
Wanderings: Those staying in the garden will be in the Garden Residents section. When a Wandering visits, you will learn their name. Wanderings can be invited to stay on their next visit, once their requirements have been met. Requirements could be growing a certain number of specified plants, decorating with furnishing with the correct type, or acquiring specific stars.
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Community Locations
As you enter the garden, you will discover the shrine. This can be used once to alter the time in the garden compared to real-life. Once you use the shrine, you can pick it up and use it as a decoration elsewhere in the garden. However, you will be transported back to this original space when you use a certain song-fish.
The community centre will remind you of the daily information, as well as messages from travellers. You can also post your planting projects and assign residents to help via this board.
The pigeonholes can be used to request a specific traveller to visit the following day. A full jar of dust flies is needed, and only one traveller can be requested.
The compost has limited slots, but anything can be placed in there for Worm to collect the next morning.
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Quests for Augustus
The first request from Augustus is to find the lost half of the broken secateurs. He does explain that they were lost near a small shrine. Once the quest is given, the map will show where to head to.
Once you’ve returned the broken half of the secateurs, Augustus will ask you for 10 sprigs of bracken. To begin with, it can be quite difficult to distinguish between the plants. If you watch carefully, dust flies will guide you towards the correct plant and you can use the focus to check. Don’t forget to equip the secateurs from the inventory, before trying to harvest the sprigs.
Once you hand over the bracken, you will be able to trade with Augustus. If you can, trade for a shovel.
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Quests for Thom
When you have completed the task for Augustus, Thom will appear in the garden. Thom will give you a trowel and ask you to trade for some seeds. When you speak to Thom again, you can either trade or ask him about the mysterious note.
Trading: Each entry in the trading menu will show what type of item is required to successfully trade. The easiest are those with the leaf or campfire pictograph (representing natural and rustic respectively) and can be fulfilled with dead flowers, dry wood or overgrowth. He will then explain how to plant seeds and request that you plant 3 seeds. Planting these seeds makes you the New Gardener and unlocks that achievement.
Mysterious Note: When you show Thom the mysterious note, he will explain about the Wanderings and suggest you go to the statue of the Old Gardener. Refer to the map, to see where the statue is located within your garden. When you get to the statue, use A to inspect it and you will find a paper scrap. This will also unlock the Old Gardener achievement. I suggest you use a pin to mark the statue on your map, as you will need to go there again.
Combining Items: In order to complete Thom’s quest, you will need to combine the pieces of paper to make a complete page. From the inventory, select either the mysterious note or paper scrap and then press Y (for ‘More’ options). Move to the Combine option and then select the other part of the note. Press A to use and this will create a page from the Journal. Show Thom the journal page.
Other items can be combined using this method.
Thom will ask you to find another journal page. There are two ways of finding treasure. Occasionally, you will notice a sparkle on a tree. As you approach the tree, you will get an option to ‘Knock’. Alternatively, you will notice a sparkly circle on the ground. Use Y to focus on it and then A to harvest. This will yield a safe box, which can be opened via the inventory.
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Brewing Tea
Tea can be brewed at any unlit campfire. You will need to select a vessel to make the tea in, for example, a flask or teapot. You can then select at least 5 flowers or leaves from the Collection tab to brew with. Each flower or leaf has its own temporary tone bonus, and it’s possible to combine different flowers or leaves in the same brew. Before you confirm your mixture, by pressing X, you will see the resulting bonus. You can at this point, back out and then reselect to make a different mixture.
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Lost Spirits
Occasionally, at the start of the day, you will get a message that there is someone else in the garden. The map will show a black and yellow pin, which represents a lost spirit. When you get to the lost spirit, you will have the chance to talk and try to reassure them. However, this will cost a lot of tones. I found making tea in a flask, using 25 gorse sprigs (which gives 10 of each seasonal tone) was just enough to have a full conversation.
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Finding Dust Flies
As you wander the garden, you will come across patches of glowing dots. You have to approach fairly slowly, running will definitely scatter them. The first time you manage to get close enough, you will meet Jahi. Apart from explaining what dust flies are, Jahi will give you a jar, so that you can catch the dust flies. Then, as you manage your garden, (pruning, collecting flowers, etc), you will make the dust flies glow.
Once the jar is glowing at its maximum, you can gift it to a traveller in return for a token to trade with, or use it in the pigeon holes to request a specific traveller the following day. Not all glowing dots are dust flies, sometimes it might be a glow worm.
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Where is The Garden Path encyclopaedia
To find the encyclopaedia, you need to unlock the stones near the Old Gardener statue. Both the New Gardener and Old Gardener achievements are needed, which can be gained by completing Thom’s quests.
By viewing the sky, the two stars can be connected to make the constellation, called The Root.
When you examine the stones, you are invited to place a guide stone. You will need to combine two guide stone fragments to make a complete guide stone. Use the inventory menu and the more (Y) option to combine, similar to how the mysterious note and paper scrap were joined.
Once you’ve got the encyclopaedia, don’t forget to equip it via the inventory.
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