Guide

The written half. Everything else on this site is generated from the game’s own tables; these pages explain how the systems behave and how to get things done, which no table holds.

In order

Each one assumes only the ones above it, so read them in this order the first time.

1. Your first ten minutes — Move, dig, and make the four things that matter.
2. The dark is not scenery — Light is what stops things spawning on you.
3. Making fire — Nothing else in the early game is hot enough.
4. Digging properly — The mining ladder, and what it does and does not buy you.
5. The crafting ladder — Hand to bench to anvil to furnace, and what each opens.
6. Ore into bars — What each metal needs, against what each fuel reaches.
7. Coke, and the sealed retort — The one process the game never tells you about.
8. Going down — Three layers, the seals between them, and when to try.
9. Fighting back — Damage lives on the module, not on the tool.
10. Gearing up — Slots, trinkets, and why two cheap ones never beat one good one.
11. Farming and eating — Seeds, soil, water, and what wheat is finally for.
12. Bees and wax — Three wild hives, and beeswax is not wax.
13. Circuits — Wires that carry information rather than sparks.
14. Item logistics — Pipes, chests, spouts and drains.
15. Leaving — The end of the game. Spoilers.

How it works underneath

Not tasks, but the behaviour the tasks rest on.

• How heat behaves — Conduction, thermal mass, and why the wall matters.