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Food, water and staying warm

Keeping yourself going: the bars, eating, drinking, the cold, sleeping, and dying.

You've got energy, health, food and water. Food and water only go down while you're logged in, and they go down faster while you're working. Once either one drops under a quarter, your energy comes back at half speed. If one runs out, your energy stops coming back and you start losing health. Thirst hurts you faster than hunger does.

Water#

Drink at the river, a creek, a pond or a well. A canteen lets you carry water with you, 4 drinks at a time, and you make one from a hide at a fire. Fill it any place you can drink.

Food#

Feeding yourself is the hard part of your first few days. You turn up with 2 potatoes and 1 strip of jerky, not quite full, and a full bar only lasts about 45 min of play. It gets a lot easier once you've a fire going, a few crops in and some skill at cooking.

Food bar	How you are	What it does
Over 80, after a meal	Well fed	Work goes 10% quicker, and you rest and heal quicker
50 and up	Not hungry	Nothing
Under 50	Peckish	Work takes 15% longer
Under 25	Hungry	Work takes 30% longer and your energy comes back at half speed
Empty	Starving	Work takes 50% longer, no energy back, no healing, you lose health and you walk slower

Plain food and meals#

Not everything you eat is a meal. Berries, raw potatoes and carrots, raw meat, milk, eggs, jerky and the like keep you going, but they only fill you up to 65. Past that they don't do anything. To eat your fill you need something cooked, a dish that leaves you fed. Being fed means your energy and health come back quicker, and if your food bar is over 80 too you're well fed, which makes your work go quicker as well.

Raw meat is a gamble. About 35% of the time it turns your stomach, and for 5 min you don't get your energy back, you don't heal, and you get hungry twice as fast. Cooked meat never does that.

The same dish over and over does less for you each time. The game remembers your last 5 meals, and each time a dish was one of them it fills you 25% less and keeps you fed for less, down to a quarter of what it would. Mix up what you eat and every meal counts in full. The big hearty dishes, the ones that keep you fed for 13 min or more, also keep 50% of the cold off while you're fed from them.

Food	Food bar	Energy now	Fed for	Keeps
Shepherd's pie	60	55	17 min	9 h
Fish chowder	55	50	15 min	9 h
Meat stew	55	50	15 min	9 h
Roast beef	50	50	11 min	9 h
Bacon and eggs	50	45	13 min	9 h
Cooked meat	45	45	10 min	9 h
Roast venison	45	45	10 min	9 h
Roast pork	45	45	10 min	9 h
Roast mutton	45	45	10 min	9 h
Bread	35	30	7 min	15 h
Pancakes	35	35	8 min	9 h
Buttered potatoes	32	30	7 min	9 h
Roast lobster	30	35	8 min	9 h
Roast fowl	30	30	7 min	9 h
Fried potatoes	30	28	7 min	9 h
Baked potato	25	25	5 min	9 h
Roast hare	25	25	5 min	9 h
Cheese	25	20	5 min	30 h
Grilled fish	22	25	5 min	9 h
Fried eggs	22	22	5 min	9 h
Roast carrot	20	20	4 min	9 h
Jerky	15	10		Doesn't go off
Smoked fish	15	10		Doesn't go off
Boiled egg	12	10	2 min	9 h
Raw meat	10	0		1.5 h
Venison	10	0		1.5 h
Beef	10	0		1.5 h
Pork	10	0		1.5 h
Mutton	10	0		1.5 h
Fowl	10	0		1.5 h
Hare	10	0		1.5 h
Potatoes	8	5		Doesn't go off
Milk	8	8		1.5 h
Carrots	6	5		Doesn't go off
Butter	6	4		15 h
Maple syrup	6	25		Doesn't go off
Eggs	4	2		6 h
Maple sugar	4	15		Doesn't go off
Wild berries	2	1		3 h
Spruce tea	2	12		Doesn't go off
Medicinal herbs	1	5		Doesn't go off

Food going off#

Food doesn't keep forever. Raw meat and fish go off in about 1.5 h of play, milk about the same, berries in 3 h and eggs in 6 h. Cooked dishes last 9 h or so, bread and butter 15 h and cheese 30 h. Potatoes, carrots, wheat, jerky and smoked fish don't go off at all.

Like your hunger, food only goes off while whoever owns it is in the world. Every piece has the same small chance of turning, so a big stack loses a piece more often than a small one, and a hoard from one big hunt won't last. Food keeps 4 times as long in a chest, a cupboard or a barrel as it does in your pack, a cart or a pile on the ground, and on a market stall it doesn't go off at all. For a long trip, dry meat into jerky or smoke fish at a fire. See Cooking.

Energy and the cold#

Everything you do costs some energy, and once it's below 12 you're too tired to work. Stand still and it comes back. It comes back more than twice as fast by a lit fire, under a roof, or near a chimney.

There isn't a separate bar for the cold. Out in the open in the evening, and more after dark, the cold slows down how quick you get your energy back, and in the cold months it gets at you through the day as well. A fire, a roof or being down a mine keeps it off, and so do warm clothes. In winter it can wear you right down until you're numb, though it never takes your health. See The cold.

Fires#

A campfire takes logs and stone. A log keeps it lit for 5 minutes and a lump of coal for 15, but coal only catches in a fire that's already going. Rain makes an open fire burn through its fuel faster, so in a wet spell put a roof over it or bring plenty of wood (see the weather). You can tell when a fire is running low just by looking at it. Over its last couple of minutes the flames sink down and go red, and the light it throws pulls in closer around it. Out in the rain an open fire hisses and spits now and then as it fights the wet. You can cook, whittle arrows, and make canteens, halters, snares and yarn at any lit fire.

Sleeping#

You can sleep in a tent or anywhere under a roof once evening comes, any time from six at night until five in the morning. There's no sleeping through the middle of the day. The night only passes once everyone out in the world is asleep, wherever they are, so if you're playing with others you'll need to agree on bedtime. Anyone down a mine doesn't count. When the last of you turns in, you all wake up at dawn with full energy.

Sleep in a bed and you wake up better than that: 30 health back, and fed for 15 min, so you rest and heal quicker for a while. Sitting on a bench or a chair gets your breath back as quick as a fire does.

If you die#

Everything in your pack is left in a grave where you fell, and you wake up at your home (or the camp, if you haven't made one). You keep the clothes you're wearing. Go back to the grave and tap it to get your things back. You come back a bit worn out, so take it easy for a minute.

You come back hungry too. Your food bar starts at 30 whatever it was before, so dying is never a way out of being hungry.

For 90 minutes, a game day, only you and the people you trust can open your grave, so you've time to get back to it. After that it's like anything else left on the ground: anyone can open it, unless it's inside someone's settlement.

Tap a fire, a tent, or a spot under your own roof and choose "Make this home" so you wake up somewhere handy.