Strategy Guide

Different strategies are required to achieve progress in many elements of Grow: Song of the Evertree.

General Advice

The key gameplay loop of Grow is daily tending to districts, their residents, and worlds planted on the Evertree. Forward progress depends on the growth and maturing of both districts and worlds.
- Resident requests are not a requirement for progress but do contribute to district Harmony -- a measure of district maturity required to free the next district from The Withering.
Each day's time is limited but more than enough to fully tend to two growing worlds and visit all districts
- it's recommended to handle world-tending first as worlds cannot be visited in the evening while districts can.
- Mature worlds do not require The Apprentice's care, but may produce a harvest every three days if Everkids are hired on to gather on The Apprentice's behalf
- While ambitious Apprentices may take on 3 or more growing worlds at once, 2 is the recommended maximum to leave enough time in the day for all tasks
There is no maximum number of days in Grow, so don't feel bad about not getting everything done in a day -- it'll still be there tomorrow!
Visitors and prospective residents take some time to disembark from the Airship dock at the start of each day and disembark one-by-one. If The Apprentice transported directly to a district at the start of a day and has yet to see any new resident candidates, give them time to disembark!
Myora may seem very limited at the start of the game, but as districts continue to mature daily Myora income will rise accordingly and The Apprentice will become less dependent on Myora from world-tending and hidden chests.
Worlds are the best source of essences, once the Apprentice has unlocked the secret of creating their own seeds, create new world seeds with different combinations to have a renewable source of each type of essence
- It is recommended to include at least 5 of a particular type of essence in the world seed recipe to reliably find that essence in the resulting world's resources
- Until a renewable source for an essence has been established, it is not recommended to spend that essence on buildings.
Time doesn't pass in Where-Ever, Vaults and Caves. The Apprentice can take as much time as needed to gather resources for EverKoin or solve puzzles.

Essences and where to find them

Essences are crucial to several aspects of gameplay, in particular both when rebuilding a Town and when creating a World Seed. Some Essences, however, are difficult to come by in the earlier parts of the game. (Exactly which Essences this will be true of can vary somewhat from one playthrough to another.)

Essences for sale

Six Essences per day, selected at random, can be purchased beside the Where-Ever portal back to Alaria, but they can only be purchased with EverKoin, not Myora.

Bisha and Bosha may sometimes offer one or more Essences, selected at random, at the Festival Grounds on an Observance Day, but they can only be purchased with event tickets for the festival being observed that day.

Extracting Essences

Regarding items which can be given to Coppertop for him to extract Essence from, there are two categories of items: generic and specific. Generic items can drop any Essence, while specific items will yield only up to six specific Essences.

Of these two categories, these are the best items to extract from in order to get these Essences:

Generic

Any Wall item, such as the Gross Wall or the Small Wooden Wall Decorations, have a chance to drop any Essence; these are acquired by tending Worlds. Any Wallpaper, whether solid or patterned, has a chance to drop even the rarest Essence; while Wallpapers can be acquired a number of ways, the most efficient way to acquire many is to build and staff at least one General Store, which will then offer 24 Wallpaper items for sale each game-day.

Specific

All Resources acquired while tending a World, from Weeds and Rocks to Nuts and Wood, have specific Essences which can be extracted from them.

Initially, when a particular item is being selected for essence extraction, only question marks will appear — a flower called Dreamy Bloom, for example, would display a row of question marks below its name and description — but each time one of that item type (if the Apprentice has more than one in their Inventory) is extracted, any Essence previously unknown to be extractable from it will be revealed.

By stockpiling numerous items of the same name (provided they are from the same World), it is possible to reveal all the Essences that can be extracted from that item, and that item can be either sought out or disregarded depending on whether it can provide the particular Essence or Essences that are needed.

Because most Resources from a given World can yield back all Essences used to create its World Seed, it is advisable, when the Apprentice has only a few of a particular Essence (and has or can make available an open Seed Planter), to use at least five of that Essence to create a World Seed rather spend it constructing a Building.

However, as Strange Worlds do not provide Resources in the same way that regular and Perfect Worlds do, and any Seed recipe has a chance to create a Strange Seed, it is advisable to save before creating a World Seed with the last of the Apprentice's supply of any particular Essence.

Rare Resources and where to find them

Particularly-rare Fish, Flowers, Fruits, Insects, Nuts, and Rocks may each have only a single example, or none at all, on a given World on a given game-day.

Note: As of the January 2022 Care and Prosperity Update, Fish caught in a Cave on a World do not count toward a World's completion statistics. Be aware that a World may have multiple bodies of water in which Fish spawn, and a rare Fish may only spawn in a pool, pond or lake that itself only appears after the World's initial or final expansion. It can sometimes be necessary to fish most of the Fish out of a body of water before the one rare Fish can be spotted and targeted with the Fishing Rod. Noting the size and shape of each Fish species's body and dorsal fin can help identify them even through the distortion of the water.

For Fruits specifically, it may helpful to note which one or two types of tree are the most common on their World, and cut all of that type down (don't worry, they grow back on subsequent days). This makes the remaining trees easier to see, and with fewer distractions, overlooking what may be the sole example of its species is less likely. That's no guarantee the rare Tree will have any Fruit on that day, but once its location on the World is known, returning to check it on subsequent days should be easier, even as the other trees grow back. As with Fish, Trees and their Fruit may not be present on a World's initial disc, but instead spawn only after the World's first or second expansion.

The slash-and-reap method outlined above can also be helpful in revealing a rare Flower or Insect, or a rare Shrub (where Nuts grow) or Rock, hidden in a thick-set grove of Trees; the same caveat regarding when such rare Resources will spawn (i.e., possibly only after the World's initial or final expansion) applies as well.

Nuts are not always visible on a Shrub, but the Glove and Mallet icons will appear over a Shrub with at least one Nut once the Apprentice approaches close enough.

Rare Rocks are sometimes present in Boulder form, and need to be cracked open with the Mallet in order to collect them.

Stuck!

It is possible for the Apprentice to become stuck on uneven terrain or even partially inside a tree. At such times, movement in any direction is often impossible, and attempting to jump is usually fruitless, although a combination of directional movement, jumping, and/or using tools such as the Axe or Mallet may do the trick.

Options to attempt to un-stick the Apprentice:

Outdoors and during daylight hours. the best solution is to call for their mount and be lifted out of their predicament.
- However, this solution will not work inside a Building, Cave, or Vault.
- This method will also fail if the Apprentice is stuck in a jump or falling animation.
Tool animations combined with changing movement/jump directions can occasionally un-stick the Apprentice.
Outdoors or inside a Building in Alaria, Kazumi will bring the Apprentice home automatically (this will occur at sunset if stuck on a planted World, but at midnight if in Alaria).
- This method will not work for locations where time does not pass (Caves, Vaults, Treeheart Chamber).
Finally, as a method of last resort, backing out to a recent manual save or autosave can be used — to load a save from before becoming stuck, it's best to use Load Game rather than Continue from the Main Menu. Note that the thumbnail associated with a save may not always accurately reflect the time of the save.

For this reason, it is advisable to always save before entering a Cave or Vault.

Note: To help others avoid getting stuck in the same place, please consider reporting the location details, ideally with e screenshot, at the official Grow Discord bugs channel here: https://discord.com/channels/841409179192524820/910048964252950549

Vault sentry strategies

One of the most challenging features of Vaults can be evading its Vault sentries — constructs which patrol a number of Vaults, consisting of a hovering automaton at the center of a sphere of snapping, zapping electrical aura. Touching, or being touched, by a sentry's aura has much the same effect on an Apprentice as falling into deep water: the Apprentice is returned to a last known safe location to try again.

However intimidating they may seem, these sentries can be evaded by taking the time to learn their movements. (Remember that time does not pass inside Vaults, so there's no rush.) An excellent place from which to watch the sentry or sentries in a given Vault is from the safety of a Vault respawn point, marked by a glassy ovoid mounted within a metal armature (see image at right). A sentry's aura will never penetrate the square of tiles which delineate a respawn point.

Also, sentries will never chase the Apprentice; each sentry follows a pre-programmed path and does not deviate from it. In some cases it is even best to follow behind a sentry — at a safe distance, of course — in order to progress through a particular section of a Vault. Do note that two sentries can overlap to some degree, so that it may be necessary to veer to one side if following a sentry which is about to pass another. Also don't forget that a sentry's aura will penetrate objects, even stone walls, so care must be taken not to walk too closely to the wall in some Vaults. In general. when it comes to bypassing sentries and recovering a Song Fragment, slow and steady wins the race.

Where-Ever navigation

Finding one's way out of Where-Ever is easier once the trading stalls have been erected around the portal back to Alaria, as the stalls are easier to spot from a distance. Before that point, it's necessary to look for a path leading away from the Everkin town up a hill towards the sea, as illustrated in the images below. The stone tower marking the location of the closed portal is at the center of the horizon in each image.

Go over this bridge...
...through this crossroads...
...and the portal is just ahead!