The Complete Guide

Your first five minutes

There is nothing to download and nothing to pay. You open the site, make a character, and you are in the world.

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Which browser and device to use

Ancient Warden draws a full 3D world in your browser. Every browser can do that, but some do it better than others.

Use Chrome if you can

We build and test the game on Google Chrome first, so Chrome is where it looks best and runs fastest. Chrome tends to get the most out of your graphics chip, has the best support for installing the game as an app, and gets fixes for 3D bugs quickly.

Browsers built on the same engine behave almost the same, so Microsoft Edge, Brave, Opera and Vivaldi are as good in practice.

Phones, tablets and computers

The same character works on every device, so you can fish on your phone at lunch and carry on at your desk in the evening.

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Installing the game as an app

You can install Ancient Warden on your device like a normal app. It is the same web game with its own icon and its own window, and no browser bars around it.

Why bother

How to install it, device by device

Each company allows something different, so the steps depend on your device.

The site shows the install button when your browser supports it. On iPhone, iPad and Safari on Mac the button shows the steps above instead, because those browsers have no one click install.

Fullscreen without installing

In game, open Settings and use the Fullscreen toggle. On a computer that fills the whole screen. On an iPhone the browser has no fullscreen button, which is why adding the game to your home screen is worth it there.

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Your screen explained

The game screen, with its parts numbered in the list underneath.

• 1The health orb, top left. The number is your current health and the coloured fill shows how much is left. Green is healthy, orange is getting low, red means eat something now.
• 2The info line, beside the orb. Your combat level and how many coins you are carrying.
• 3The quest tracker, under the orb. The quest you are following, what to do next, and an arrow that always points at where you should go. Tap it to open your quest journal.
• 4The minimap, top right. White dots are other players, green dots are friends, yellow dots are townsfolk and red dots are monsters. Tap anywhere on it to walk there. Scroll the mouse wheel over it to zoom. On a phone, drag a finger up on it to zoom in and down to zoom out.
• 5The compass, on the corner of the minimap. Tap it to turn the camera back to north.
• 6The map button. Opens the full world map. Keyboard shortcut M.
• 7The boot button. Switches between walking and running. It glows when running is on, and the game remembers your choice.
• 8The message log, bottom left. Short notes about what just happened, colour coded: green for skills, yellow for quests, red for warnings, blue for the game talking to you.
• 9The tab bar, bottom right. Eight buttons that open your panels. On a phone these sit along the bottom of the screen.

There is also a chat panel in the bottom left corner. On a computer it starts open. On a phone it starts as a small bubble you can tap. Press Enter to type.

The eight tabs

Tap a tab button again to close its panel and clear the view.

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Controls

Everything in the world works the same way. Click it, or tap it on a touch screen, and your character walks over and does the sensible thing.

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Getting around

Walking and running

Click or tap the ground and you walk there. Tap the boot button beside the minimap to run instead, which is faster on long trips. The button glows while running is on, and the game remembers your choice.

The world map

The map button, or M, opens a map of the whole realm. Tap a place on it to travel there, which saves a lot of clicking on long journeys. You still walk the whole way, so it takes time, and anything hostile on the road can still attack you.

To plan a trip before you log in, use the world map on this site.

Doors, upstairs and downstairs

• Buildings are real places, not painted scenery. Walk through the door and the roof lifts away so you can see inside.
• Stairs lead up in inns and some larger buildings. Click the staircase to go up, and click it again to come back down.
• Caves have a marked entrance on the surface: a dark hole ringed with rocks, a grate in a street, or a stair tucked into a ruin. Click it to climb down, and use the lit exit inside to climb back out.

Teleporting

Once you have some Magic, teleport spells replace most walking. There is a free Homeward teleport from level one that gets you out of anywhere, and city teleports unlock as your Magic level climbs. See Magic and sigils.

If you get stuck, Settings has a Stuck? Return to Brightmeadow button that always works and costs nothing.

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Talking to people and doing quests

Talking

Click any person to talk to them. A conversation window opens with what they say and your possible replies. Click a reply to continue. Some people also run shops. Right click them for a Trade with option that skips the small talk.

Talk to everybody. People point the way to nearly every secret in the realm, and many quests only appear after you talk to the right person.

Starting a quest

A quest starts when you talk to the person who has the problem. There is no quest board and no accept button. Once a quest starts it appears in your Quests tab.

The quest journal

Tracking a quest

Open a quest and choose to track it. Its next step appears in the small panel under your health orb, with an arrow that points at where you need to go and says how far away it is. Tap that panel at any time to jump back into the journal.

On a collection step, you get a message as soon as your bag holds everything the step needs. Follow the arrow back to whoever sent you.

The main story

The main storyline is The Ancient Warden, fifteen quests in three acts, played in order. Each one opens the next. The first is an errand out of Brightmeadow.

The table leaves the story out on purpose. For more detail, the wiki has the full quest list.

The Sere

The Sere is a storyline of four quests in two acts, south of the Rainwall. See Where to go for the way there.

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Fighting

Click a monster and your character walks over and fights it. Fights carry on by themselves until something dies or you walk away.

There are no classes

You fight as a warrior, an archer or a mage by holding a sword, a bow or a staff. Swap the weapon to change how you fight, with no penalty and no wait. One character can be all three.

The Combat tab

This tab changes to match whatever is in your hand, so you never see a choice that makes no sense, like training Attack with a bow.

Styles with a melee weapon

• Accurate trains Attack, which helps you land hits.
• Aggressive trains Strength, which makes your hits bigger.
• Defensive trains Defence, which makes enemies miss you more.

Styles with a bow

• Accurate for the best aim.
• Rapid for faster shots.
• Longrange for two extra tiles of reach, splitting the experience with Defence.

Styles with magic

• Accurate for the best chance to hit.
• Defensive to split the experience with Defence.

Every fight also trains Vitality, which raises your maximum health, whatever style you picked. Each kind of weapon remembers its own style choice, so switching from a sword to a bow and back does not lose your settings.

The combat triangle

Each way of fighting beats one of the others and loses to the third. Magic beats melee, melee beats range, and range beats magic.

Fight something with the style it is weak to and you land hits a little more often and hit a little harder. Fight it with the style it is strong against and both drop a little. The effect is small, and your levels and gear still decide the fight.

So against a wizard a bow does better than a sword, and a spellcaster's bolts hit a swordsman harder than an archer. The wiki says how every monster fights.

A hit can never take more health than a monster has left. If it is down to its last 4, the biggest hit you can land on it is a 4.

Fighting with a bow

Fighting with magic

Open the Magic tab and tap a combat spell to set it as your autocast. Then attack a monster and you cast it over and over. Each cast spends a few sigils, the small magical stones in your bag.

The Combat tab shows which spell you are casting and has a Clear button to stop. The details are in Magic and sigils.

Knowing what to fight

Every monster shows its name and level above its head, colour coded against you:

• Aggressive creatures like wolves and skeletons attack you on sight, but only while you are around their strength. Once your combat level is more than double theirs, they leave you alone. An area that was dangerous at level 20 can be safe at level 50.
• Bosses attack you whatever your level.

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Food, healing and dying

How to heal

Food comes from Fishing and Cooking, which is why almost everyone trains them early. Catch and cook your own and you never need to buy food.

What happens if you die

You wake up at the Brightmeadow chapel with everything you were carrying. Death costs you the walk back, not your gear.

Two exceptions:

• In the Eventide Colosseum the stewards prop you up outside the door. Arena fights give no experience and no loot. They test your gear against monsters far stronger than anything else in the game.
• If a world has player versus player switched on, other players in that world can attack you. It is off unless someone turns it on, and everyone in the world gets a warning badge on their screen when it is on. See Worlds and realms.

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Skills and training

There are twelve skills, and each runs from level 1 to level 99. You do not choose which ones to have. You get better at whatever you do.

The Skills tab

What the levels feel like

The twelve skills

How to do each job

Chopping wood

Buy an axe, keep it in your bag, and click any tree. Your character does the rest, and logs land in your bag as they come. Trees run out for a moment and grow back.

Regular trees at level 1, oaks at 15, willows at 30, maples at 45, yews at 60, magic trees at 75 and elders at 90.

Mining

Buy a pickaxe, keep it in your bag, and click a rock. Copper and tin at level 1, iron at 15, coal at 30, gold at 45, cobalt at 55, verdite at 70 and arcanite at 85.

Fishing

Each catch needs its own tool. Right click the water (or press and hold it) and pick a method from the menu. It lists only the methods you are carrying the tool for.

Cooking

Click a fire or a stove while carrying raw food and you will cook it. You burn some at low levels, and that stops as your level climbs.

Making a campfire

Carry a tinderbox and some logs. Right click the logs in your bag and choose Light fire. The fire starts where you stand, so you can cook what you just caught without walking back to town.

Smithing

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Items, your bag and your gear

Your inventory

Your backpack holds 28 things. Coins, arrows, sigils and other stackable items take a single space however many you have.

The item menu

Right click any item in your bag, or press and hold it on a touch screen, and you get its options.

On a computer, hovering over any item shows a card with its stats, the levels it needs and what it is worth. Requirements you do not meet yet show in red.

Your equipment

You have six slots. Click anything in the Equipment tab to take it off again.

Gear tiers

Gear comes in tiers, and each tier needs the matching level in the right skill. Swords need Attack, armour needs Defence, bows need Range, staves and robes need Magic.

Shops sell gear up to about the middle tiers. Above that, you smith it yourself or take it from whoever carries it.

Shadow gear comes from shadow knights, draconite from the dragon and the great drakes, ancient gear from the guardians of the Old Keep, and keeper's gear from the Warden himself.

Every piece keeps its own bonuses, so you can mix pieces from different sets freely.

Legendary weapons

The realm's bosses drop unique weapons that no shop stocks, each with its own look and trick. Among them are the fast Gnawer's Shiv, the crushing Golemfist Maul and the smouldering Emberfang. They are rare drops.

Above them are three Ultimate weapons, each needing level 90 in its skill:

• Dawnbreaker (melee) heals you for a third of every hit you land, so you never need food. Nothing in the realm drops it any more.
• Skypiercer (range) makes its own bolts of light and never needs arrows. Only The Freeze, at the bottom of the Hoarfrost Deep, carries one.
• Staff of Creation (magic) casts every spell in every book without spending sigils. The Ember hoards the only one, deep in the Ashen Cellar.

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Shops: buying and selling

Shops turn what you gather into the gear you want, and every town has some. One window handles buying and selling. The top half is what the shop sells, and the bottom half is what you can sell to it.

Opening a shop

Buying, step by step

• 1Find the item you want in the top grid. Each card shows its picture, its name, the price in gold, and how many the shop has in stock.
• 2If the item needs a skill level, it is written under the stock in red, like "Attack 20". You can still buy it, but you cannot use it until you reach that level.
• 3Press Buy 1 or Buy 5 for the quick amounts, or Buy X to type in exactly how many you want.
• 4The coins come out of your bag and the item goes into it. The coin count at the top updates straight away.

Shops restock over time, so come back later for anything sold out.

Selling, step by step

• 1Scroll down to Your items. Everything in your bag that the shop will take shows up there, with the price you would get.
• 2Choose your Sell amount first: 1, 5, a number you type with X, or All. Whichever is highlighted is what a tap will sell.
• 3Tap the item. The coins go into your bag right away.

Quest items cannot be sold, and neither can anything with no value. If something is not in the sell list, that is why.

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The bank

Your bag holds 28 things, and the bank holds the rest. Look for a bank chest in any decent sized town and click it.

The bank holds up to 128 different kinds of item, and each kind stacks without limit, so a hundred thousand oak logs take one of your 128 spaces. A Keeper account has no limit on kinds, and nothing already banked is ever lost if that upgrade lapses.

How to use it

• 1Pick an Amount at the top: 1, 5, 10, a number you type with X, or All. It applies to deposits and withdrawals alike.
• 2To store something, tap it in the lower grid, which is your bag.
• 3To take something out, tap it in the upper grid, which is the bank.
• 4Deposit inventory empties your whole bag into the bank in one press.

Your bank travels with your character, so anything you put in is available at any bank chest anywhere in the world.

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Where coins come from

No shop sells coins, and there is no premium currency or wallet. Every coin you spend, you earned. These are the sources, roughly in the order you meet them.

What to spend it on, in order

1. An axe and a tinderbox, before you leave your first town. Cooked food from your own fire is free healing.
2. A pickaxe, a net and later a rod.
3. A weapon and armour set roughly matching your level. A new sword every 10 levels makes a clear difference.
4. Arrows and sigils, if you are using a bow or magic. These are the ongoing costs.
5. Later on, a home and the portals to go in it.

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Magic and sigils

What sigils are

Sigils are small stones that spells burn as fuel. Every spell lists which ones it needs and how many. They stack, so a thousand of them take one space in your bag.

Hold a staff and you are a mage. There is nothing else to switch on.

You buy sigils from magic shops. Eldric at the wizard's tower in Duskmoor is the usual first stop. Rarer ones come from specialist sellers, like Mystic Zara in Zahara, once you have earned her trust.

The spellbook

How to cast

The three spellbooks

Elemental is the book everyone starts with. It runs from Gale Dart at level 1 up to Flame Fury at level 95, with teleports to eighteen towns and cities. The free Homeward teleport, open from level one, gets you out of anywhere.

The Ancient Rites are a second book, written by nobody from these lands. You learn them far to the east, on the Gilded Coast, from scholars who can still read the old script. The book opens chapter by chapter as that story unfolds.

The rites are not attack spells. They are workings you switch on and leave burning:

• The trade rites (Magic 50) summon a ghostly violet axe, pickaxe or fishing tackle of the highest tier. One trade rite can be armed at a time, and it spends its sigils when the work starts.
• The Rite of Healing (Magic 50) heals you a little at a time for as long as it burns.
• The Rite of Levitation (Magic 80) opens later in the story, and the Violet Zenith (Magic 99) is its final chapter.

While any rite burns, small chips under your health orb show each sigil being spent and a running count of what the rites have taken.

The Fabled Magicks are the war-spells of the same dead people, and the last thing the story teaches you. They hit harder and each carries an extra effect:

• Blight spells poison your target.
• Wither spells weaken its attack.
• Leech spells heal you for part of the damage.
• Ice spells freeze your target where it stands.

Each comes in four strengths: Curse, Hex, Siege and Cataclysm. Ice Cataclysm at level 94 bursts on impact and can freeze a whole pack at once.

You switch between the books with the toggle at the top of the tab. Switching books keeps your autocast spell and leaves any burning rites running. Until you have done the quest that opens a book, its locked tab names that quest.

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Sailing

If you can see an island on the horizon, you can sail to it and walk around on it. There are no painted backdrops in this game.

Sailing opens up the coasts, plus Gullwing Isle, Corsair's Hold, Mirrormere and the Wreck of the Gulls' Wager, the whole southern tropical sea, and the crossings to two other continents. High level mages can skip the voyages with city teleports.

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Your own home and farm

Once you have found your feet you can build a private house of your own.

Farming

Your home comes with plots out in the sun. Till a plot and sow a seed won from skilling, and the crop grows in real time, even while you are logged out. The growth is worked out when you next visit.

Harvesting gives you power food, which heals well and briefly boosts your stats. By design it is not the best food in the game. Now and then you get a seed back, so you can keep replanting.

Getting home, and getting out again

• The Hearth Teleport spell (Magic 30) takes you back to your own hearth from anywhere. It stays locked until you own a home.
• Inside, you can place city portals, each one a teleport to that city straight from your own hall. A home portal costs 200 times the sigils the matching teleport spell would normally burn.

Visitors

Friends who are in your session can visit while you are there, but only you can build or farm. Guests can only look around, and you can send one back to the ElderHeart at any time.

The wiki has every room, crop, portal cost and grow time if you want the numbers.

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Games, arenas and treasure

The games of Castle Greyhold

Castle Greyhold, in the south, is a walled castle given over to games. You win Greyhold tickets and trade them for prizes.

The Eventide Colosseum

Three monsters wait on the sand: the Pit Behemoth (level 138), the Storm Revenant (124) and the Iron Colossus (146).

Arena fights give no experience and no loot. If you fall, the stewards prop you up outside the door with everything still on you.

Use it to test endgame gear against monsters far above anything else in the game before you risk that gear for real.

Treasure chests

Every proper cave hides a treasure chest in its deepest room, and the Coronmar sewers keep one per level. Chests refill after a few minutes, and the deeper you go, the better the haul.

The two sealed lairs have no chest. Each holds one monster far above anything else in the game, and the single weapon it carries.

The Warden Vaults

Twenty-seven sealed trial chambers lie under the three shores, each with its own puzzle behind the door. A vault pays its prize once, and then its seal goes dark for you for good.

No map marks them and no tracker points the way, so finding them is part of the trial. An old man by the Vault of the Harvest, south-east of Brightmeadow, keeps the tally. He says he has a wage for whoever empties all twenty-seven.

Hidden collectibles

Small floating glints are scattered around the world. They are easy to miss, and you collect one by clicking it.

Three of the ten cave systems are hidden. Rumour says certain lonely ruins hide a stair down to mines the maps never marked.

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Friends and playing together

Adding a friend

Open the Friends tab, type their username in the box at the bottom and send the request. They accept it from their own Friends tab. After that you can see when each other is online.

The Friends tab

Getting into the same world

Chat

Press Enter to type, Enter again to send. On a phone, tap the chat bubble in the corner. You can collapse chat down to that bubble at any time, and the game remembers your preference.

There are a few typed commands, mostly for whoever is hosting:

Typing an unknown command lists all of them for you.

Postcards

You can mail a friend a postcard, a picture of wherever you are standing with a short note on the back. Pick a friend in the Friends tab and the camera becomes your viewfinder. Drag to orbit, zoom, write your note and send. A courier bird collects the letter.

The courier finds your friend when their hands are free. They choose to read it now or later.

• Received postcards live in the album on the Friends tab. It keeps the newest ten, and older ones fade as new mail arrives.
• Save the ones you want on your shelf. A shelf holds 5 postcards, or 20 with Keeper.
• Above ground the courier is the white bird, on the lawn of your own home included. Underground a mole digs up through the floor instead, so mail reaches you in the deepest cave.
• Each friend can get one postcard from you per hour. The picture shows your character as you stood there, gear and all.

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Trading with another player

Trading swaps items directly between two players. It has a couple of extra steps, and they make scamming very hard.

Quest items and a few special items cannot be traded at all. If an item refuses to go in, that is why. Either side can press Cancel at any point and nothing changes hands.

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Worlds and realms

Your character is the same wherever you play. What changes is the world you take it into.

Browse what is currently open on the realms page. Each card shows whether the realm is running right now, how full it is, and what it takes to get in.

World settings

If you are the host of your own world, Settings has a World settings button. Guests can open it too, but only the host can change anything.

If the host logs out, the world settings stay as they were.

Crowns beside names

Some names have a small crown next to them. It shows what authority that person has.

Everyone shows at most one crown, the highest that applies to them. A realm crown never shows outside the realm that granted it.

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The Settings tab

The gear icon at the end of the tab bar opens it. Every option the game has is in here.

Inside All settings, the Graphics page holds the preset, the device check and every effect on its own line. Sound has the volume sliders and the high-quality instrument pack. Accessibility has text size, motion and name tags. Controls has the camera zoom buttons and a reminder of the taps and keys.

You may also see a Warden's Menu row. That is a set of tools for testing the game. Using them marks your character for good, and marked characters only ever play with other marked characters. It warns you before anything happens. If you want your progress to count, leave it alone.

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Graphics settings explained

People ask about these settings more than anything else. This section covers what each option does.

The game picks a setting for your device on its own and adjusts it if frames start to drag. Change things here only if you want better looks or smoother play.

The four quality presets

Picking one of the four presets in the dropdown sets every other option to match it.

If you change anything on the Graphics page, the dropdown changes to say Custom, because the preset name no longer matches what you see. Picking a preset again replaces your changes with that preset's values.

The Graphics page, option by option

Open Settings, press All settings, and you are on the Graphics page. Every change here applies instantly and saves to this device.

Shadows

How shadows are drawn. This usually has the biggest effect on speed of any setting.

Ground cover

How much grass, flowers and scatter covers the ground: Low, Medium, High or Ultra. More cover means more small things to draw, so turning it down helps on a phone.

Tall grass

The knee-high grass of the open fields between towns, which bends as you and the creatures around you walk through it. Off, Normal or Lush. It is one extra draw, but a field of blades is a lot of triangles. Off removes it, which helps a slow phone.

With a sword or another blade in hand, right-click long grass and choose Cut grass. You swing at the grass in front of you and it falls, sometimes dropping a coin, a herb, a feather or a seed. Everyone in the world sees the cut, and it grows back after a few minutes. The setting only changes what you see. The grass is there for everyone.

Outlines

The dark edge drawn around things, which gives the game its storybook look.

• Off is the cheapest and flattest.
• Nearby outlines only things close to you.
• Everywhere outlines everything you can see.

Render scale

How many pixels the game actually draws, from 40% up to 100%. At 100% it draws at your screen's full sharpness. At 60% it draws a smaller picture and stretches it up to fit, which is softer but a lot faster.

This is the strongest performance setting you have. Dropping to 80% often costs little in looks and gives a lot back.

Auto-adjust under load

When this is on, the game lowers the render scale a little when frames start to drag, and raises it again when there is room.

It is on by default on High, Medium and Low, and off on Ultra, because Ultra never lowers anything on its own. Turn it off if you would rather keep a constant sharpness and accept a slower frame rate.

Auto-reduce quality

If frames still drag after the render scale has gone as low as it goes, this drops the whole quality preset down one step.

It happens at most twice in a session, and stops once you pick a quality preset by hand. Turn it off to keep your chosen preset no matter what.

FPS cap

A limit on how many times per second the game redraws.

• Uncapped draws as fast as your screen allows. This is the default on computers.
• 60 is the default on phones and tablets. Many phones run at 120 times a second, which in a point and click game costs heat and battery for no visible gain.
• 30 halves the work again. Use it to save battery, or on a device that cannot hold 60. A steady 30 feels better than a jumpy 45.

Shore foam

The white foam where water meets the shore. Pretty, and cheap to turn off. It is off by default on the Low preset.

Antialiasing

Smooths stair stepped edges on things like roof lines and fence posts. On by default on High and Ultra, and also on phones and tablets, where the pixels are small enough that unsmoothed edges shimmer badly as you move.

This one needs a page reload to take effect, because your browser decides it once, when the game first starts drawing.

High-performance GPU

This one matters most on laptops, so it has its own section: see Making the game run faster below. In short, many laptops have two graphics chips, a slow efficient one and a fast hungry one. This asks your browser for the fast one. It only appears on computers, because phones have one chip.

It also needs a page reload to take effect.

View distance

How far away you can see before the world fades out. Short, Normal, Far or Very far.

Further means more of the world is drawn at once. Short helps a weak device, and you rarely miss the distance in a town. Very far is worth it on a mountain top if your machine can take it.

Recommended starting points

Settings save per device, so your phone can be on Low while your computer is on Ultra.

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Making the game run faster

If the game feels choppy, work down this list. The early items cost you the least and usually fix it.

Quick wins, in order

Laptops: making sure the game gets full power

This catches out nearly everybody with a gaming laptop.

Most laptops have two graphics chips. One is built into the main processor. It is slow and uses little battery. The other is a separate graphics card, much faster and much hungrier.

Your laptop guesses which one each program needs, and it often guesses wrong for a browser, because most browsing needs no power at all. So the game runs on the slow chip while the fast one sits idle.

Fix it in three places, in this order.

1. In the game

Open Settings, then All settings, and turn on High-performance GPU on the Graphics page. Then reload the page, because the setting is only read when the game first starts drawing.

This asks your browser for the fast chip. It usually works on its own. Some machines also need the two steps below.

2. In Windows

1. Open Settings, then System, then Display, then Graphics. On some versions this is under Display, Graphics settings.
2. Find your browser in the list. If it is not there, use Browse and pick the browser program yourself.
3. Set it to High performance.
4. Close the browser completely and open it again.

While you are in Windows settings, also check System, then Power & battery, and set the power mode to Best performance. Battery saver caps how hard the machine will work, which shows up as an oddly capped frame rate that no graphics setting will fix.

If you have an NVIDIA card you can also do this in the NVIDIA Control Panel, under Manage 3D settings, Program Settings: add your browser and set the preferred processor to the high performance NVIDIA processor. AMD's software has the same idea under its graphics or gaming section.

3. In the browser

Make sure the browser is allowed to use your graphics chip at all.

• Chrome or Edge: Settings, then System, and turn on Use graphics acceleration when available.
• Firefox: Settings, General, Performance. Untick "Use recommended performance settings", then tick "Use hardware acceleration when available".

Restart the browser afterwards.

If that option is off, your main processor draws the whole game. It is far slower, and no other setting will fix it.

Macs

macOS handles the two chip switch itself and usually gets it right. On an older Mac with a discrete card, turn off Automatic graphics switching in System Settings, under Battery or Energy Saver, and keep the Mac plugged in. Check that Low Power Mode is off too.

Phones and tablets

• Take it out of low power mode. Battery saver on a phone caps the processor hard, and no graphics setting can work around that.
• Let it cool down. A hot phone slows itself down until it cools. If the game was fine for twenty minutes and then got worse, this is almost always why. The phone is not damaged and recovers once it cools.
• Close background apps, especially anything playing video or running maps.
• Keep the FPS cap at 60, or drop it to 30. On a 120 times a second screen, uncapping doubles the work and the heat for something you will not see in a point and click game.
• Install the game to your home screen. Without browser bars the world gets more of the screen, and the page is slightly lighter.

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Sound and music

Open Settings, press All settings and pick the Sound page. The Mute sounds tile at the top of the tab silences everything in one tap.

Browsers play no sound until you interact with the page, and we cannot change that. If the game is silent when it first loads, click anywhere and the sound starts.

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Your account, saving and safety

Saving

There is no save button. The game saves your character roughly every 45 seconds while you play, and again when you log out.

Your progress lives on our servers, not on your device, so it follows you between your phone, your tablet and your computer.

Account or guest

A guest character is fine for trying the game, but do not put a hundred hours into one. You can make an account at any point from the account page.

Getting help and reporting problems

It is all under Settings, then Help & Support.

Staying safe

• Nobody from the team will ever ask for your password. Not in chat and not by email. Anyone who asks is not us.
• Check the trade window, not the promise. The five second countdown is there so you can check what is being offered.
• Only official staff have gold or silver crowns. A purple or teal crown is a realm role, with authority inside that one realm only.
• Report rather than argue. Use Report a player and move on.

Our privacy policy and terms of service spell out what we collect and what the rules are.

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Where to go

Roughly in the order a new player reaches them.

The old lands

• Brightmeadow (centre): your home base. Shops, quests, the smithy, the chapel that heals you for free, and the Gilded Tankard for hot food.
• The farmlands (south east): cows, sheep and chickens for easy first fights, plus a starter mine with copper, tin and iron.
• Reedmere (south west): the lakeside fishing village. The docks are on fresh water. Net crayfish from level 1, then use a rod for trout and pike as you level. Sea tackle (pot and harpoon, for lobster through shark) needs a real coast, and the nearest is the open sea past Mirefen.
• Eastwood and Oakhurst (east): goblins raiding the farms, then wolves, boars and bears as you level. Oakhurst sells the best axes and bows.
• Duskmoor (west): the wizard's tower and sigil shop. Skeletons and dark wizards roam the moor, and worse things further west.
• Mirefen (south west, in the swamp): monkfish waters and swamp horrors. Bring a net and a weapon.
• Frosthollow (north): the mining town. Iron and coal nearby, cobalt and verdite up the slopes, ice wolves in between.
• Zahara (north east): desert town with gold rocks, forbidden sigils, and the King Golem in the ruins next door.
• Frostpeak (far north): the dragon's mountain. Ice warriors and frost giants guard the way up.
• The Old Keep (far north west): shadow knights, ancient guardians, elder trees, arcanite rocks and the Old Keep Revenant. Do not go early.

The great cities

• Coronmar (south west): the walled Crown City. Three gates, a castle with several floors, the finest shops in the realm, and the Sewers beneath, which Steward Anselm wants someone to clear.
• Aurelia (south, on Solmara Bay): the Golden City. Grand markets, golden roofs, and Chancellor Elara, who pays a fortune to anyone who can kill a drake.
• Valeport and Solmara (east: Valeport on its lake, Solmara on Solmara Bay): harbour cities of trade and deep water fishing. Smugglers up the coast hold a shipment that is not theirs.
• Highspire (east highlands): a city of mages whose great beacon is guttering out.
• Castle Greyhold (south): a walled castle of games. The archery range, the Pit, and Lady Fortuna's dice. See Games and arenas.
• Thornwall (far east): a grim fortress city, the last safe wall before the ash.
• The Stormcrown and the Vale Heights: two massifs of snow capped peaks ringed in autumn forest. The heights are too steep to climb, but the maple country on their lower slopes is worth the trip.
• The Scorchlands (far north east): the endgame. A burning waste of ash and lava where ash stalkers, cinder wraiths, magma golems and the Ember Drake guard the greatest treasure in the realm.

The Sere

South of Aurelia the Rainwall catches the rain, and past it lies the Sere, a desert you reach on foot. The Isthmus Road runs from Solmara down the Horn Neck to Stonegate. The Ambermouth teleport, at Magic 69, is the quick way back.

• Stonegate (the pass in the Rainwall's east gap): where the caravans form up. Caravan Master Ruel is losing camels to jackals on the road south.
• The Tombs (between the pass and the Pan): a great pyramid and four lesser ones. Keeper Ashet guards a door that has not opened in her lifetime. The Sealed Door starts the Sere's storyline.
• Whitebrink (on the Pan's west brink): the salt town. Salt golems rise out of the crust on the flat.
• Deepwell (the oasis, where three roads meet): every caravan in the Sere waters at its pool.
• Dryford (the east coast, on Dryford Bay): the Sere's one harbour on the lee coast, with deep water fishing off the horn.
• Ambermouth (the south coast, on the Slake's estuary): the Sere's white city and its market, with a bank, a forge and an arcanum.
• The Sunken Court (south of the Ambermouth road): the lair of the Sand Queen, a level 82 boss, and her brood.
• Gullhithe (the west coast): the realm's holiday spot. Villas round a warm lagoon, the Tipsy Tiki bar, easy fishing, and sand crabs on the strand for new fighters to train on. The beach south of the village is more dangerous.

Across the seas

• The Gilded Coast, east across the Sunfall Sea: the richest land in the game. The gilded capital Auremont, the mining town Vessa with gold and runite in its hills, terraced gold country, and the Hollowvale, a grey dead crater every local will tell you to stay out of.
• Velmora, further south west: a marble city in three tiers, with the domed Pearl Palace at the top. It has a full city's shops and services, plus cutpurses in the arcades and marble sentinels guarding the palace tier.
• Vespera, west across the Dusk Sea: the biggest landmass in the game. A frozen north, prairie heartlands, a desert basin and a warm southern taper. Your port of entry is Westhaven.
• Vesperion, inland on Vespera: the greatest city in the world. Its one gate opens only for the Warden's seal, which comes late in the main story. Inside are the best stocked shops in the game, the Silver Vault bank, and the Eventide Colosseum.

Everything above, and every monster, spell, item and secret in the realm, is catalogued in the wiki. There is also a full world map.

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Tips for new players

1. Do The Road from Brightmeadow first. It walks you through fishing, cooking and woodcutting and pays for your first upgrades.
2. Buy an axe and a tinderbox before you leave town. Cooked food from your own fire is free healing forever.
3. Match your gear to your level. A new sword every 10 levels makes a bigger difference than you think.
4. Check a monster's colour before you swing. Red names hit back harder than you expect.
5. Wolves stop chasing you once you outgrow them. If somewhere feels too dangerous, come back 20 levels later and stroll through.
6. Keep sigils for one teleport spell on you at all times.
7. Sell your spare pelts, logs and fish. Coins buy arrows, sigils and better tools.
8. Train Fishing and Cooking together by cooking what you catch.
9. Before a boss, fill your whole bag with the best food you can cook.
10. Sleeping in a bed heals you completely, for free. Every inn has beds upstairs.
11. Right click everything. It is the fastest way to learn what a thing can do.
12. Talk to everyone. The people of the realm point the way to its secrets.

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Problems and answers

The screen is black, or the game will not load

• Reload the page properly: Ctrl Shift R on Windows, Cmd Shift R on a Mac.
• Update your browser. The game needs a reasonably recent one.
• Turn on graphics acceleration in your browser settings, then restart the browser.
• Try it in Chrome to rule out a browser specific problem.
• Check the status page in case it is us and not you.

It says my game is running an old version

Your browser served you a cached copy of the game. Do a hard reload with Ctrl Shift R, or clear this site's cache. If that does not do it, an update is rolling out right now. Wait a minute and try again.

The game is choppy or slow

Go to Making the game run faster. If you are on a laptop, the section about the two graphics chips most likely has your answer.

I clicked something and nothing happened

• You may not have the level for it. A level 60 tree will not budge for a level 59 woodcutter.
• You may not have the tool. Chopping needs an axe in your bag, mining needs a pickaxe, fishing needs the right gear for that catch.
• Your bag may be full. 28 items is the limit.
• Check the message log in the bottom left. The game almost always says why.

I cannot buy something

Not enough coins, a full bag, or the shop is out of stock. The message in the bottom left tells you which. Shops restock over time.

I am stuck somewhere and cannot get out

Open Settings and use Stuck? Return to Brightmeadow. It is free and always works.

I lost my items when I died

You did not. Dying puts you back at the Brightmeadow chapel with everything you were carrying. Check your inventory and equipment tabs. If something is missing, use Report a bug and tell us what happened.

There is no sound

Click anywhere on the page first. Browsers block audio until you interact with the page. After that, check the Sound page under Settings, All settings, and your device volume.

My friend cannot join me

• You both need real accounts. Guests cannot use friends or invites.
• You both need to be friends already, with the request accepted on both sides.
• Your world may be full. A free host seats 2 players and a Keeper host 5, counting the host, and the host can lower that in World settings.
• Marked and unmarked characters always play separately. If one of you has used the Warden's Menu, that is why.

Can I play on my phone and my computer with the same character?

Yes, as long as you have an account rather than a guest character. Your progress is saved online, so log in anywhere and carry on. One character at a time, though.

Can I play offline?

No. The world runs on our servers, so you need a connection. Installing the game as an app makes it open faster and shows its own page instead of a browser error when you lose signal, but it does not make the game playable offline.

Is it really free? Is there anything to buy?

It is free. No download, no battle pass, no energy timers, no premium currency. Everything you get, you earn in the game.

I forgot my password

Use the password reset page. If you cannot get in at all, the support page is the place to go.

What is the Warden's Menu, and should I use it?

It is a set of testing tools. Using them permanently marks your character with the Warden's Mark, and marked characters can only ever play with other marked characters. It warns you before anything happens. If you want your progress to count, leave it alone.