The Garden isn't only about recognising work that already happened. It's built to get people talking in the first place.
Asking for Help
You can ask from three places:
- the Help panel in the Garden dock (Stuck on something? then Ask for help — +1 Bloom)
- your own drawer, opened by clicking your hexagon (Post request)
- the Help Board page (Post request — +1 Bloom)
Every request is tagged with a skill. That's required, and it's what lets the right people find it instead of it disappearing into a general feed.
Asking pays 1 Bloom in that skill, once per skill every 24 hours. You can post more requests in the same skill whenever you need to. They just don't pay again until the 24 hours are up, and the confirmation tells you so.
Choosing Who Helped
Your open requests appear in the Help panel under You asked for, showing either "Waiting for an answer" or how many people have offered to help. Click one to open the conversation.
- Several people can reply, and you can approve every reply that helped. Press This helped on each one.
- Each person you approve earns 2 Blooms in the request's skill, which they collect from their Rewards.
- Your first approval closes the request to new replies. You then have 24 hours to approve any other replies that were already posted. A banner shows when that window ends.
- After 24 hours, any reply you didn't approve closes on its own, marked "Another player already helped solve this", with no reward.
- You can close an open request yourself at any time: Close in your drawer, or Close without a reply on the Help Board.
Answering Someone Else
The Help panel's Ways to help list shows other people's open requests, with the ones in skills you hold first. Press Help on a card to open it, write your answer and press Offer to help. You'll also find a person's open requests under Needs help in their drawer.
- You get one reply per request, and you can't reply to your own.
- Your reply shows "Waiting for review" until the asker decides.
- If they approve it, it's marked "Approved — earned Blooms" and a reward appears in your Rewards: press Claim to collect your 2 Blooms.
Offering help is real contact with that person, so their hexagon returns to full colour. It also counts toward any Mission that asks you to help someone, as soon as you post it.
The Help Board
Follow Open the Help Board from the Help panel for the full page: your own requests with their replies, and every open request in the adventure. Some cards carry a "Matches one of your top skills" badge.
Direct Messages
You can message anyone in your adventure one-to-one, from Messages in the dock or the Message button in their drawer. Conversations are private between the two of you, belong to the adventure you're both in, and are the same conversations you see in the Wall's Messages tab.
Unread messages show a badge on the dock button.
Your Game Master may also place a Ways to help list or a Messages button on the Journey map, so you can do both without leaving it.
What Counts as Contact
These refresh someone's hexagon in your Garden: messages in either direction, a reply to a help request, approving a reply, endorsements, gifts, a connection being accepted, and a Game Master awarding you skill points directly.
A wall post doesn't count as contact with anyone in particular, and neither does posting a help request. Nothing keeps a relationship bright without actually interacting with the person, which is intentional.