How to play GenZ vs Dictator: the complete beginner's guide

You do not need to read this whole article to play. Thirty seconds will do: open tree55.com, type a nickname, step onto the street, grab flowers from a kiosk, carry them to the tree marked 55 and press E. The rest of this guide is what keeps you alive longer — and keeps the whole room's Hope from draining.

Up and running in 5 minutes

1. Open tree55.com. No install, no account; it runs straight in a desktop or mobile browser.
2. Create a profile. Pick Nam (male) or Nữ (female), choose the Bee life (Kiếp Ong — toil your whole life, the honey ends up in someone else's hands) or the Cicada life (Kiếp Ve — sing all summer, no pension), enter your birth year — required, because Em needs to know what to call you — then press the gold Vào game (Enter game) button.
3. Gather flowers. Flower kiosks sit at the edges of the map. Hold the basket (key 2), then press E or left-click while standing close.
4. Lay them down. Find the tree with the number plate 55 in the middle of the street. Press E to lay flowers.
5. Scatter. Soldiers will pour out of the guard post to confiscate the flowers. Do not stand there arguing with them — go fetch the next bouquet.

Two tools: keys 1 and 2

You always hold one of two things; switch with the number keys or the toolbar buttons:

• Key 1 — 🏏 The dog-beating stick. Left-click to swing. Landing a hit on a "propaganda piggy" (the game's pun on Vietnam's paid pro-government commenters) nudges Hope upward. It has a cooldown; a whiff costs you nothing but dignity.
• Key 2 — 🧺 The basket. Left-click to pick things up and interact with whatever is in reach. Press the basket button again while holding it to open your inventory (flowers, seeds, ingredients, mooncakes, balloons) — tap an item to place it, plant it, or drop it on the ground as supplies for teammates.

The three propaganda characters around town — Thằng Lol TV, glued to his seat at the Cà Phê Vọng coffee shop, and Đạt houthi and Tifòsi circling the square — are parodies of propaganda accounts on social media, satirizing what those accounts have publicly said. Smacking them is not the point of the game; it is a pressure valve and a small source of Hope.

The full control list

• W A S D or arrow keys — move relative to the camera. Walking is discreet.
• Shift — run. Fast, but soldiers notice.
• Left mouse — use the tool you are holding.
• Right mouse (hold + drag) — turn and tilt the camera. Scroll wheel — zoom.
• E — context action: pick up, place, rescue, STAND STILL.
• G — 🌱 plant a seed, anywhere.
• Space — jump. In the holding cell it stamps paperwork; while you are being carried, it struggles.
• B — 🎈 release a balloon: soldiers can only see what is right in front of their faces, and checkpoints stop searching for 18 seconds (a 100-second cooldown shared by the whole team).
• X — 🛌 lie flat.
• M — mute/unmute.

On a phone: touch the left half of the screen and the joystick appears right under your finger (push to the edge to run), drag on the right half to turn the camera, pinch to zoom, tap to use your tool. Landscape orientation recommended.

The mechanic that matters most: being witnessed

If you remember one thing, make it this:

No one sees it → HOPE bleeds. Someone sees it → HOPE holds.

But "someone sees it" has a precise threshold, and this is where most new players go wrong: you standing there alone is NOT enough. An arrest only counts as witnessed when there are at least 6 people — counting the game's passersby — within about 8 meters of the spot. Fall short, and the whole room's Hope bar drops.

The practical consequence: do not play alone in a corner of the map. Stick close to crowds of NPCs or move in a group, even when that is slower.

Co-op: the numbers to remember

• 2 players touching someone who is being arrested → they are rescued.
• 3 players lying flat together (key X) → a "movement" erupts: the machine's budget takes a hit, and the chainsaws on the pass drop to half speed. Soldiers hauling a limp body also move at half speed and are always witnessed by the whole street. The trade-off: lying down means not laying flowers, so pick your moment.
• 5 players surrounding the parked Black Car → the driver has to back off.
• 6 people or more → everything is witnessed.
• 50+ flowers on the tree → it glows, and everyone detained gets released faster.

The garden: an infinite flower supply

Kiosks are not the only source of flowers, and in the long run they are not the best one. Seed crates are scattered across the city and up on the pass — walk up and their name appears, press E to take seeds, then G to plant them anywhere. Overnight, sprouts become flowering bushes: harvesting adds +2 flowers to your basket each time, and the bush never withers.

Every tree you plant also offsets one of the ancient trees the Vought corporation has felled on the Hai Van Pass. You cannot stop the chainsaws — but you can plant faster than they cut. To see the pass with your own eyes, catch the train at Central Station.

About the Black Car

The later the match runs, the harder the machine gets: more patrols, more checkpoints, a curfew — and the Black Car. All the while, Vought's chainsaws have been felling trees on the pass since the first second of the match. When the Black Car starts rolling, anyone can press E to step out and STAND STILL in front of its hood.

We will not explain that moment any further. You will understand when you meet it.

You cannot lose forever

Hope running dry, or the last tree falling, is only a temporary darkness. Laying flowers and planting trees lights it back up. Reach a Memorial Points milestone and the whole city bows its head — then the journey continues toward the next one. This world has no "GAME OVER" screen.

And however your match ends, every flower you laid is added to the Eternal Tree — the number on the homepage that has never once gone down since the server first opened. Why we designed it that way is a story of its own: Why we made a video game about Tree Number 55.