Starting out
Press Play. The island takes a few seconds to build, then you see a welcome card with a Start button. You begin as a guest: there is no account to make.
The first time, the character creator opens. Choose a name, skin, hair colour and style, tunic and trousers, or press Surprise me. Everyone you meet sees you this way, and you can change it later from Settings.
A short tutorial then points a gold arrow at the nearest birch tree. Follow it, or press Skip if you would rather find your own way.
Controls
The game is built for touch first and works just as well with a mouse.
- Tap or click the ground to walk there, and a tree, rock, fishing spot, person or monster to use it. You walk over by yourself.
- Drag to turn the camera. Pinch or scroll to zoom.
- The buttons along the bottom open your pack, your equipment and your skills; the others open the map, chat and settings.
Keyboard
| Key | What it does |
|---|---|
| A D or Q E | Turn the camera |
| W S | Tilt the camera |
| Arrow keys | Turn and tilt the camera |
| I | Pack |
| G | Equipment: what you wear, and your tool belt |
| K | Skills |
| M | The full map |
| Enter | Chat |
| T | Social: groups, who is playing, emotes |
| B | Spellbook |
| F | Eat |
| H | Home teleport |
| R | Ride or dismount |
| O | Settings |
| Space | Stop what you are doing |
| Esc | Close panels |
Your first hour
- Chop birch. Birch trees stand just outside town and need no level. A tree falls after a few logs and grows back in a few seconds.
- Mine copper. Copper rocks are in the quarry. Each rock gives one ore, then refills.
- Catch trout. Look for rippling spots along the shore.
- Make something. Take your haul to the workshops round the square: bars at the furnace, planks at the workbench, weapons and packs at the crafting table.
- Talk to Elder Maren in the town hall. Her first quest wants birch logs, and each one after it sends you a little farther out.
- Bank what you are not using. Your pack is small. The bank chest keeps everything safe.
- Sell the rest to the merchant at his stall, and buy a better axe and pickaxe when you can.
Walk farther for better things. Trees and rocks get tougher, and more valuable, the farther you go from the clearing. If something says you need a higher level, it is telling you where to come back to.
The square
Hollowmere is a market town round a fountain. The town hall and the bank stand in stone at the north end of the square, with the church and its clock tower on a green beside them; the merchant trades from his stall in the square; and each workshop has a hanging sign.
| Building | What you do there |
|---|---|
| Smithy | The furnace and the anvil: smelt ore into bars at the one, and hammer out tools, weapons and armour at the other |
| Carpenter | The workbench: saw logs into planks, build furniture, fletch bows and arrows. Up the alley behind the smithy |
| Tannery | The crafting table: weapons, packs and traps |
| Alchemist | The cauldron for potions, and the enchanting table |
| Town hall | Elder Maren and her quests |
| Bank | The bank chest |
| The Rusty Kettle | The inn. The cooking stove is in its kitchen, through the taproom; the barkeep sells ale and stout and buys what you brew |
| Church | Pray at the altar once a day for a blessing: for ten minutes you turn aside more attacks, and out of a fight your health comes back twice as fast |
| Tailor | Change how your character looks |
| Fishmonger and jeweller | On Market Row, south-east of the square. They pay 15% more than the merchant for fish, and for gems and jewellery |
| General store | Behind the merchant, who trades from his stall in the square |
Villagers with a ! over their heads have a request for the day. Helping them earns the town's trust, and in time new buildings go up: a bakery, a library, a trading post and a bathhouse.
Staying alive
- Cows in the western pasture are the gentlest way to learn combat. Wolves in the northern woods are not.
- Eat to heal. Cooked food is better than raw, and the stove is in the inn's kitchen.
- Night is harder. Wolves hunt in packs and the dead grow restless, but they carry more.
- If you are knocked out you wake up back in the clearing. Your pack and gear are safe.
- Bosses are meant for groups. When one wakes, anyone nearby can join the fight.
Getting around
- Waystones stand at places worth returning to. Once you have found one you can travel back to it.
- Home teleport takes you back to town from anywhere, with a short wait between uses.
- Dobbin's cart runs between Hollowmere and Thornbury over the causeway. Board it while it is waiting.
- A horse from Hollis the stablemaster, west of town, makes long walks short.
- Boats are built with Sailing, starting with a rowboat, and reach the other islands.
- The old watchtower west of town is worth the climb. Look through the spyglass once a day.
Other players
Everyone on the site is in the same world. You see other players walking about with their name, level and title over their heads.
- Chat with T or the social button. Tap a player to trade or challenge them to a duel.
- Trees and rocks are shared. When anyone fells a tree it is down for everybody until it grows back.
- The market board lets you sell to players who are not online at the same time as you.
- Guilds have a shared bank and projects that give every member a small bonus.
- The party finder gathers people for bosses, the beacon defence, the angling contest and more.
Keeping your progress
The game saves by itself as you play. As a guest, your character lives on the device and browser you started on.
To play the same character anywhere, open Settings and choose Sign in with Google. Your guest progress comes with you.
Settings also shows a save code you can copy and paste back later, if you ever want a backup of your own.
On your home screen
On a phone or tablet you can put Eldarwyn on the home screen. It then opens like an app, with none of the browser around it. It is the same game, always the newest version, and it still needs a connection.
- Android: open the game in Chrome. After a little while Settings in the game shows an Install button; or open Chrome's menu and choose Add to Home screen, then Install. The game fills the whole screen, and your character is the one you already have in that browser.
- iPhone and iPad: open the game in Safari, tap Share and choose Add to Home Screen. The game fills the screen under the clock and battery.
On an iPhone or iPad the game on the home screen keeps its own save, apart from Safari, so a guest would start again there. Sign in with Google in Safari first, then sign in the same way in the game on the home screen, and your character is there too.
If something is slow
- Open Settings and set Graphics to Low. It turns off shadows and the extra scenery.
- Close other heavy tabs. The whole island is drawn in your browser.
- If the page seems stuck on the loading screen for a long time, reload it. Your save is not affected.