How the game works

• Take the starter chest's kit. It carries the bed, a Workbench, walls, two doors and floors, so the first room is a placement job rather than a gathering job.
• A room counts as sealed when a walled-in area is fully enclosed and at least four of its boundary cells were placed by you. Doors count as boundary: they seal a room without blocking the doorway.
• Sleep in a bed to end the day. Mornings are when the homestead helpers run and crops advance, so a night's sleep is also the farm tick.
• Open the Field Book for the route card, the map and the notice board. It is the one screen that always tells you what the Bureau wants next.
• The beginner's guide walks the opening in order; this page is the reference behind it.

• Tilling. Equip a Shovel and hold the mine button on grass or flower carpet to turn it into tilled soil. Only grass-type ground tills.
• Planting. Interact with tilled soil or a Garden Bed to plant a seed from your bag. Crops advance one step per morning you spend at home, not on a real-time timer.
• Untended soil goes back to meadow. Bare tilled soil that is left unplanted folds back into grass after four mornings. A Garden Bed never expires.
• Garden Bed versus tilled soil. Growth time and yield are identical. The Bed is permanent and counts toward the morning helper loop; tilled soil is free but temporary.
• Reseeding. Most crops replant themselves when harvested. Herbs and Pumpkin do not, so replant those by hand.
• Harvest Moon doubles a harvest. The calendar event is worth saving a ripe field for.
• Rain Barrel. On a wet morning at home, each barrel adds Resin, up to two, and only if you have at least one Garden Bed. On a dry morning it does nothing.
• Ore Sorter. Each morning it turns 2 Stone into 1 Scrap, up to two runs.
• Greenhouse. Its six interior beds grow slightly faster than outdoor soil and ignore the weather.
• Ranch. Feed an animal a crop today and collect tomorrow: a cow gives Milk, a sheep gives Wool, a chicken gives two Eggs.
• Seasons. The year runs Thaw, Green, Harvest, Frost, seven days each. Seasons change what the Commissary stocks — Pumpkin Seeds appear in Harvest, Strawberry Seeds in Green — and every crop can be planted in any season.
• There is no watering step, and no watering can.

• No rod required. Fishing is an interaction with the water, not an equipped tool. The craftable Fishing Net is a trade good you sell, not tackle.
• Where. Open water in the overworld, the authored Falls Fishing Spot beside the waterfall, and over the side of a boat at sea when the weather is calm and you are moving gently.
• How. Press Interact to cast, then hold and release Interact to keep the line inside the safe part of the tension meter. Push it too far and the line snaps.
• Limits. Two catches per pool per day, a few seconds of cooldown between casts, and you cannot fish while swimming.
• The catch. Rill Minnow, Foamback Trout, Reef Ribbonfish, Glacier Pike, Ember Eel and Ledger Carp. Each is edible for a small heal and sells at the Commissary; the bigger species sell for more.

• Reach. You build within a short radius of yourself; skills extend it.
• Refusals are rules, not bugs. The game will not let you place into an occupied cell, box yourself in with no walkable exit, block the apron a door needs to open into, or build on a cell a person or creature is standing in.
• Kits. A structure kit places a whole footprint in one go, oriented by where your cursor sits relative to you. The whole footprint is validated at once, so one blocked cell refuses the placement and tells you which.
• Roofs. Auto-roof is on by default; a roof fades out while you are inside the room it covers.
• Only chests feed crafting. This is the one that catches people out. Nearby chests contribute their contents to what you can craft; crate stacks, barrels, cabinets and dressers do not, however large they are.
• Crafting reach. The sweep starts at a few cells around you and widens as you complete storage home projects. Station recipes need the matching station within about three cells.

• Health. You start at six hearts and can reach eight. A hit grants a short mercy window, and health regenerates slowly once you have been out of combat for a while.
• Stamina pays for dodging, sprinting, swimming, parrying and charged swings, and refills quickly once you stop spending it. Run dry and the game tells you you are winded instead of silently ignoring the button.
• Dodge. Moving plus dodge is a roll with real invulnerability for the whole roll, then a short cooldown.
• Parry. Dodging while standing still parries instead. A hit caught in that short window is refused outright — no damage, no knockback, and the attacker staggers itself.
• Light and charged attacks. Tapping attacks quickly; holding past a moment charges for roughly double damage with more reach, arc and knockback. Heavy weapons each do something different on the charge: picks lunge, axes sweep wider, mauls break poise, blades open a riposte.
• Tools fight. A pick or shovel is a real weapon with no hidden penalty; a dedicated weapon simply adds damage and reach.
• Armour fills head, chest, accessory and back slots. Each piece absorbs a fraction of incoming damage, the fractions add up to a hard ceiling, and a landed hit always costs at least one heart. Some pieces resist a specific status, and back-slot packs raise how much you can carry.
• Status effects. Burn, Bleed and Poison tick damage over time. Frost is a slow rather than damage. Muck, ice and rubble slow your footing, shown as Mired, Chilled and Footing.
• Eating takes a moment to commit. Getting hit during it cancels the meal without spending the food.

• The Bureau is the quest system. Assignments are filed on the Notice Board under a main path, local requests and special audits.
• There is no hand-in. The Bureau notices when you have met an assignment and files it itself, paying out items, Gold and experience. Your materials are not taken unless the assignment says so.
• Letters arrive as Bureau Post and are read at a placed Mailbox.
• Skills. Skill Paths is a grid with four branches — Surveying, Masonry, Diplomacy and Arcana. You earn a point per level, and a skill unlocks when one of its neighbours is already learned. Some are one-or-the-other keystones. You can pay to respec.
• Gold is the currency: it buys from the Commissary and pays quick-travel fares.

Story structure, later chapters and the ending are deliberately left out of this page. The campaign keeps going after the audit you are first pointed at, and the game would rather tell you about it than have a wiki do it.

• Walk and sprint. Sprinting is the dodge button held while moving, and it burns stamina.
• Swim. No unlock, but only in island water. The open sea turns you back, and running out of stamina washes you to shore.
• Boat. The rowboat at the home dock starts beached. Inspect it to file the plan, then rig it once with wood, resin, scrap, dock posts and a lantern. After that the sea routes are open.
• Car. Build the Car Garage kit at a Workbench; it needs no landmark first. Overworld only.
• Rail. Every rail piece unlocks once you have found the Railhead Line. Lay at least three cells of track, stand on a platform and interact; short hops ride a handcar, longer legs a locomotive.
• Rocket. Rocket parts unlock once you have found the Moonrise Pad. Build on a launchpad and interact to fly; the Moon is the first destination.
• Field Book quick travel. Six stops — Home, Railhead Line, Moonrise Pad, Frost Camp, Marsh Boardwalk and Quarry Waystation — each revealed by finding its landmark. The fare is a flat two or three Gold, and you must be standing within a few tiles of a stop you have already charted to use it. It files as a Transit Requisition, which is the game being funny about a menu teleport.