Your first day
What to do when you first show up at camp.
You show up at Thole camp, a short walk from the river with the sea not far past it. The camp fire never goes out, so it's a safe place to warm up and get your breath back, and it's where you'll come back to if something goes wrong until you make a home of your own.
Right beside where you show up there is a signpost with an arrow over it. Tap it and give it a read. It says hello, tells you which settler you are (your Settler Identification Number), and points you at the few things worth knowing first. There is a bench by the fire if you want to sit a minute, and the flowers round it are there for anyone to pick.
A good first hour#
- Make yourself some tools. Tap a tree and Gather sticks, tap a boulder and Pick up flint, then open your backpack and make a stone axe, a stone pick and a wooden spade under Gear. You can't chop, mine or dig without them. See Tools.
- Chop a couple of trees near camp. Logs are what almost everything starts with.
- Break the grey boulders by the fire for stone, and grab the iron, copper and coal ones close by too.
- Till a little patch of ground and get your seeds in. Crops take a couple of real days, so the sooner they're in the better.
- Keep an eye on your food and water. Drink at the river and pick berries when you see a bush, but don't count on berries alone. You need a fire going and something cooked before long.
- Build a campfire and a lean-to of your own somewhere you like, and make it home.
How things work#
Tap something to see what you can do with it. If something can't be done, it'll tell you why, like "Mining 2", "Needs an axe" or "Needs 1 log". Most work takes a few seconds and costs some energy, and everything you do trains a skill.
A fire or a forge has a Make… button. It opens a list of everything you can make there, what each one takes, and what you still need for the ones you can't make yet. When something has more to do than fits on the ring, the rest is under More….
Stay put while you work. If you walk off partway through, the job stops. Building is the one exception.
What you build stays built, even when you log off. Other people can see it and walk through your door, but only you can take your own things down.
Looking around#
Drag across the land sideways to turn it, or up and down to tilt it, and pinch to zoom. The compass in the top right puts the view back the way it started, which is handy once you've lost track of north. Your coordinates sit beside it, and tapping them opens your places. On a computer there are turn arrows on either side of the compass as well.
The button beside the clock opens the menu, with your settings, your places, and the Atlas, the wiki and the Lantern. Those last three open in their own tab so the game keeps going.
If it runs slowly, or you want it sharper#
Settings has a Graphics part with four choices. Auto is where everyone starts, and it picks what suits your device, then draws fewer pixels by itself if the frames start to slow down. The other three are there if you'd rather choose. A new choice takes effect the next time the page loads, and there's a button to reload right there.
| Choice | What you get |
|---|---|
| Auto | Whatever suits the device. A computer gets soft shadows and extra-sharp edges, a phone or tablet gets plainer shadows and fewer lights. |
| Low | No shadows, only a couple of fires or lamps casting real light at once, less grass, and never sharper than the screen. For an older phone or laptop. |
| Medium | Plain shadows and a few real lights at once, and never sharper than the screen. Fine for most phones and tablets. |
| High | Soft, detailed shadows, lots of fires and lamps lit at once, and extra-sharp edges that stay that way even if things slow down. Best on a computer with a good graphics card. |
Lamps and fires past the ones casting real light still show a warm glow on the ground around them, so the choice only changes how many light up the walls and people nearby.
Keys on a computer#
| Key | What it does |
|---|---|
| Space | Do the main thing to whatever you're pointing at |
| 1 to 9 | Pick from the action ring |
| Q / E | Turn the view a quarter at a time |
| Arrow keys or W A S D | Turn and tilt the view |
| I | Your pack, and what you're wearing |
| B | Build |
| R | Turn the piece you're placing |
| [ and ] | Build a story down or up |
| Enter | Place it |
| K | Skills |
| M | Map |
| P | Your places and coordinates |
| O | Your character and clothes |
| C | Your cart |
| J | Settings |
| N | Sound on or off |
| Esc | Close or cancel |