花 园 Huayuan

A terminal garden game for learning Chinese and Vim.

  ⌠           ᴗ          ◞        ⸦∙▓
 <∙▓         '∙'        <∘@         ░
  ⁑░▒▓╱      ░▒▓ᗕ       ░░▒▓◸     ░▒▓▓◜
   ⸔⸔         ╯╯       ~ ~≈~~≈≈~   ᨓ
 Robin      Sparrow      Duck      Goose
 知更鸟       麻雀        鸭子       鹅

Grow plants, talk to birds, learn characters. Huayuan is a quiet little game where you tend a garden using Vim keybindings while picking up Chinese vocabulary along the way. Plants start as sprouts and grow into hanzi -- cross-pollinate them to discover hybrids with increasingly complex characters. Birds visit your garden and quiz you in Mandarin.

 ◦ → 芽 → ⚜ → ❀ → 花     seed to flower
 ◦ → 芽 → ↟ → ♣ → 木     seed to tree
 花 × 木 → 果              hybridize for new species
 果 × _ → 桃 → ... → 蘭    keep going

It's a niche thing -- if you're learning both Vim and Chinese, or just want a calm terminal game with some character recognition practice, this might be for you.

Screenshots

Install

npm install -g huayuan
huayuan

Or run without installing:

npx huayuan

Or clone and run from source:

git clone https://github.com/cixzhang/huayuan.git
cd huayuan
npm install
npm start

Requires Node.js 18+ and a terminal that supports Unicode and 256 colors.

How to Play

Movement and actions use Vim keybindings:

| Key | Action | |-----|--------| | h j k l | Move cursor | | w b | Jump right / left | | space | Use current tool | | tab | Cycle tools (plant / water / harvest) | | s | Switch seed type | | v | Enter visual mode (select region) | | t | Talk to a nearby bird | | ? | Help | | :w | Save | | :q | Quit |

Tools

• Plant -- place a seed on soil
• Water -- water the ground (plants need water to grow)
• Harvest -- collect seeds from mature plants

Growing Plants

Plants progress through stages: seed ◦ → sprout 芽 → growing → flowering → hanzi. Each species ends as a Chinese character -- grass becomes 草, flowers become 花, trees become 木.

Cross-Pollination

Place two different mature plants next to each other and harvest to get hybrid seeds. There are 4 tiers of hybrids, culminating in the orchid 蘭.

| Hybrid | Parents | Character | |--------|---------|-----------| | fang (fragrant) | grass + flower | 芳 | | miao (seedling) | grass + tree | 苗 | | guo (fruit) | flower + tree | 果 | | cha (tea) | fang + any | 茶 | | zhu (bamboo) | miao + any | 竹 | | tao (peach) | guo + any | 桃 | | ju (chrysanthemum) | cha + any | 菊 | | mei (plum blossom) | tao + any | 梅 | | lan (orchid) | ju + any | 蘭 |

Birds

Four bird species visit your garden. Walk next to one and press t to start a conversation -- they'll quiz you in Chinese (HSK 3 level). Answer correctly to earn seeds.

Maps

When starting a new game, choose from three maps:

• Beach -- ocean shore with a river delta and sandy beach
• Lake -- large central lake with an island
• River -- winding river with a forest (the classic)

Terrain

Use :terraform soil, :terraform sand, or :terraform river to change terrain. In visual mode, select a region first then terraform to change the whole area.

Settings

Settings are available from the title screen (press 2):

• Sound -- toggle ambient sounds and bird chirps
• Weather FX -- toggle rain/wind particle effects
• Pinyin -- show or hide pinyin in dialog answers

Custom Dialog

If you set the ANTHROPIC_API_KEY environment variable, you can generate custom bird dialog at different HSK levels and topics from the settings menu.

Data

All user data is stored in your home directory:

• ~/.huayuan-save.json -- game save
• ~/.huayuan-settings.json -- settings
• ~/.huayuan-dialog.json -- generated dialog (if any)

License

ISC