The Emberwild guide

Getting started

Emberwild drops you on a wooded island ringed by mountains, with a lake in the middle and sea cliffs on one side. You start with nothing: everything comes from the island.

Installing

• Mac: unzip and move Emberwild to Applications. It isn't notarised by Apple, so the first time, right-click it and choose Open (or System Settings > Privacy & Security > Open Anyway).
• Windows: unzip and run Emberwild.exe. Keep Emberwild.pck in the same folder or the game won't start. It's unsigned, so if SmartScreen says "Windows protected your PC", choose More info, then Run anyway.

The title screen

• Continue picks up your most recent world.
• Tutorial starts a guided first game, or carries it on.
• New World asks for a name, a seed and how fast food spoils. A blank seed gives a random island; any number or word gives a repeatable one; 1337 is the original island. Food spoils Normally (raw meat lasts 2 days), Slowly (twice as long) or Never.
• Load World lists your worlds with their seed and time played. Delete asks you to click again first.
• Host Game runs a server on your computer and puts you in it.
• Join Game connects to someone else's server.
• Profile sets your name and look for multiplayer.

The version number is at the bottom right, with a card there when a newer release is out.

The tutorial with Old Tam

The tutorial takes about 20 minutes. Old Tam, a hermit who has lived on the island longer than he'll admit, walks you through five chapters: first tools, fire and food, hunting, fishing, and shelter and night. Each step is a real goal (gather sticks and stones, craft an axe, roast a mushroom, hunt a rabbit, build a hut, sleep) and ticks off as soon as you've done it. Nothing is on a timer.

• H hides or shows his panel.
• Enter moves on from steps that only want you to read.
• The pause menu can skip a step, or leave the tutorial to carry on later.

The tutorial island is calm: no wolf pack (just one demonstration wolf), no bear, no thieves and no barrow guards. At the end you can Start your own world or Keep exploring.

Controls

• W A S D move, the mouse looks.
• Shift sprints (uses stamina).
• Space jumps, or swims up. At the water's edge it kicks you up onto the bank.
• E interacts: pick up, open, add fuel, butcher, pick berries, open doors, use a bed.
• Left click uses what you hold: swing a tool or weapon, place a piece, cast or reel in a fishing line.
• Hold Left click with a bow to draw, release to shoot.
• Right click eats held food, puts on a held cloak, or throws a held spear.
• R rotates the piece you're placing (building pieces in quarter turns, other things in smaller steps).
• X dismantles the piece you're looking at.
• 1 to 8 or the mouse wheel pick a hotbar slot.
• Tab or I opens your inventory and crafting.
• In the inventory: Left click picks up or puts down a stack, Right click splits a stack or puts down one, Shift + click moves a stack to or from a chest, Shift + click on Craft makes up to five.
• Esc closes the inventory, or opens the pause menu.
• Enter respawns from the death screen, and continues tutorial steps that just want reading.
• H hides Old Tam's tutorial panel or tip card.
• T opens chat on a server.

Staying alive

Four bars sit at the bottom left: Health, Stamina, Food and Warmth, each out of 100, with three short Diet bars below for meat, fish and greens. Your statuses show as words above them. The clock and weather are top right.

Health and stamina

Health comes back slowly on its own when you're fed (Food above 40), warm (Warmth above 35), not short of any diet group, and haven't been hurt for 6 seconds. It drains while you're starving, freezing or malnourished.

Sprinting, jumping, swinging, drawing a bow, throwing and casting cost stamina, which comes back a second after you stop. When you're spent, actions fail with "Too tired".

Food and diet

A full stomach empties in about a day and a quarter, faster when you're cold. Under 25 you're Hungry; at zero you're Starving and losing health. You can't eat when you're nearly full.

Each food also tops up one diet group, and each group runs down from full in about a day and a half:

• One group low (its bar blinks): Poor diet. You stop healing naturally.
• Two or more low: Malnourished. Health slowly drains and stamina recovers more slowly. Berries alone will kill you.
• All three kept well up: Balanced diet, and you heal half as fast again.

Warmth

Warmth drifts towards what your surroundings allow, rising quickly and falling slowly.

• The air is mild by day and cold at night: a night out in the open leaves you Cold.
• The higher you climb, the colder it gets.
• Cloud, rain, storms, snow and blizzards each take more warmth away.
• A lit campfire or hearth makes you Warm. A held torch gives a little warmth.
• Cloaks add warmth: the hide cloak +15, the wolf cloak +25, the alpha cloak +35. They also cut the chill of being wet, the better ones more so.
• A proper shelter keeps most of the weather out and adds a little warmth. Mostly stone walls add a bit more, and a fur rug more again.

Below 30 you're Cold and get hungry faster. Below 12 you're Freezing and losing health.

Wet

Rain soaks you without a roof overhead, and so does waist-deep water. Wet lasts a minute and a half after the soaking stops and costs a lot of warmth. A fire dries you three times as fast. Snow doesn't wet you.

Sheltered, Rested and Cozy

• Sheltered: a roof overhead and walls in at least six of eight directions within 8 m. Windows count as wall.
• Rested: 20 seconds sheltered close to a fire makes you Rested for 5 minutes: stamina comes back 50% faster. A night's sleep gives 10 minutes.
• Cozy: sheltered near a fur rug. A little warmer, and Rested twice as fast.

Food poisoning

Raw meat (about a third of the time) and raw fish (about a fifth) can make you ill. For a minute stamina comes back at half speed and you can't eat. Cooked, smoked and salted food is safe. Raw meat also costs a little health, but never kills you by itself.

Death and graves

The death screen says what killed you. Everything you carried, cloak included, goes into a grave where you fell (on the nearest shore if you died in the lake). After 3 seconds you can respawn: at your bed if it's still standing, otherwise at the island's start, with half health, half a stomach and your diet topped up to a safe level. Press E on the grave to take your things back; it crumbles once empty.

Food

Eating and buffs

Hold food and Right click to eat one. Food fills your stomach, may restore health and tops up its diet group. Cooked meat also gives Well fed for 10 minutes: faster stamina and double healing.

Foraging

• Berry bushes grow along forest edges and in meadows. E picks 2 to 4 berries and a little fibre; the bush is then bare for 10 minutes.
• Mushrooms grow in deep forest. Fine raw, much better roasted.

Both count as greens.

Cooking

Stand near a lit campfire or stone hearth and open your inventory: the Cooking tab shows what you can make. Raw meat cooks, mushrooms roast, perch and trout grill. A fire that has gone out cooks nothing.

Spoilage

Food goes off. Its slot shows a bar running from green to brown, and the tooltip says Fresh, Going off or Nearly rotten, with the time left. At the normal setting:

• raw meat and fish keep 2 days,
• berries 3 days and mushrooms 4,
• cooked meat and grilled fish 4 days, roasted mushrooms 6,
• smoked meat and fish 12 days,
• salted meat and fish 20 days.

Food rots wherever it is, chests included. Adding fresh food to an older stack gives a stack somewhere in between. Food on the ground disappears when it rots. Rotten food is good for nothing. A world's spoilage setting can make food last twice as long, or never spoil.

Smoking rack and salt

A smoking rack is a fire with a rack over it. Open it with E, put in raw meat or fish and some wood, and every minute it turns two raw meat (or two perch, or one trout) and a wood into two smoked. It keeps working while you're away and overnight.

Salt crusts the rocks on the cliff tops above the sea. Two raw meat (or two perch, or one trout) and a salt make two salted, by hand with no station. Salted food is safe as it is and keeps longest.

Gathering and crafting

Pickups

Look at something on the ground and press E. Sticks lie under trees, stones everywhere, flint mostly near water and on rocky ground, feathers in open meadows. Wild flax, the pale tall plants, gives 2 fibre a clump. There's always a little of each near the start. Further out you'll find iron nuggets in the scree at the foot of the mountains, clay on the lake shore and salt on the sea cliffs.

Trees and boulders

Hold an axe and Left click a tree. It takes 5 hits with a stone axe and gives 4 to 6 wood and a few sticks as it falls. Boulders need a pickaxe: 6 hits with a stone one, a stone every hit, then more stone and some flint when it breaks. Rust-streaked boulders also give iron ore. Iron tools hit twice as hard and the antler pickaxe three times. Every swing costs stamina.

Regrowth

While you play (and while you sleep) the island grows back: ground pickups after 15 minutes, felled trees after 40, broken boulders after an hour, berry bushes 10 minutes after picking. Nothing regrows right beside you or under something you've built, and building over sticks, stones and plants clears them for good.

Crafting and stations

Tab opens your inventory beside the crafting list. Recipes you can't make yet are dimmed, with what's missing in red, and the panel says which stations are near.

The basics (stone axe and pickaxe, club, torch, campfire, workbench, charcoal kiln, smoking rack, salted food) need no station. Everything else needs one within about 6 m:

• Workbench: better tools and weapons, chests, the bed, cloaks, rugs, wooden building pieces, and the smelter, forge and stonecutter.
• Lit campfire or stone hearth: cooking.
• Forge: iron tools and weapons, iron arrows, nails, the lantern and the iron-banded door.
• Stonecutter: cut stone and all stone pieces.

Wear and repair

Tools and weapons wear with use and break when they run out. A bar under the slot shows what's left, and you're warned when it's nearly gone. Repair from the inventory screen, at the station it names, for a little of what it's made of: stone tools and wooden weapons at a workbench, iron tools and the antler pickaxe at the forge.

Inventory and chests

You carry 40 slots; the top row of 8 is your hotbar. A wooden chest holds 16 stacks and must be empty before you dismantle it.

Building

Placing and snapping

Select a piece on your hotbar and a ghost shows where it will go: green if it fits, red if not, with the reason in the prompt. Left click places it, R turns it.

Building pieces (floors, walls, roofs, gables, doors, windows, stairs, posts, palisades) are 2 m on a side and snap to each other: aim near a piece and the ghost lines up with it. On open ground a floor sits level and a wall sits flush. You can't build in water. A roof rises 1 m over 2 m, so two from opposite walls of a 4 m hut meet at the ridge; gables close the ends.

Support

Look at a piece to see its support. Anything on the ground has full support; each piece above or beside takes support from the best piece it's joined to, losing a little going up and a lot going sideways. Below 30% a piece can't be placed, and pieces left without support collapse back into your inventory. A hut, a second storey or a short overhang works; a bridge in mid-air doesn't. Posts and pillars carry their load straight down.

Wood and stone

Stone loses much less support going up, so it builds tall. Wood can sit on stone, but stone can't stand on wood. A room walled mostly in stone is a little warmer.

Dismantling

X takes a piece back into your inventory. Chests, kilns, smelters and racks must be emptied first. Graves can't be dismantled.

Doors

E opens and closes a door. Wolves can't bite through a closed door or wall. On a wolf moon the alpha can batter a wooden door in; mend it with E for 2 wood. An iron-banded door can't be broken.

Shelter, fires and rugs

You're Sheltered with a roof overhead and walls in at least six of eight directions. A roof alone keeps the rain off you and your fire. A campfire works fine indoors. The stone hearth warms a room half as wide again as a campfire, its chimney keeps the rain out, and it cooks. A fur rug in a sheltered room makes you Cozy.

Beds

E on a bed makes it your spawn point. Once it's yours, E sleeps until 06:00, if it's between 19:30 and 05:30, the bed is sheltered, and no wolves are prowling within 40 m. While you sleep, fires burn, kilns and smelters work, things regrow and food spoils. You wake dry, warm, full of stamina, Rested and a little hungrier, and the game saves.

Weather and seasons

Day and night

A day lasts 20 real minutes, starting on day 1 at 08:00. The sun rises about 05:00 and sets about 19:00. For sleeping and for wolves, night is 19:30 to 05:30.

Weather

Over many days it's roughly 40% clear, 30% cloudy, 20% rain and 10% storm. Fronts roll in over a minute or so, and a new world's first 10 minutes are always clear. Rain makes an uncovered campfire burn faster, up to four times as fast in a storm.

Cold days and the snowline

About one day in four (never the first) is a cold day: colder air, snow instead of rain, a blizzard instead of a storm. Snow settles over a few minutes and only melts on a milder day. High on the mountains it always snows, and it's colder still.

Hard winters

Every 12 days comes a hard winter: three bitter days in a row (days 12 to 14, 24 to 26, and so on), announced the day before. Every day is extra cold, snow and blizzards are likelier, only half as many animals are about, and the lake's edge freezes: you can walk on the ice but not fish through it.

Blizzards

A blizzard cuts visibility right down and its wind strips your warmth twice as fast, even by day. Shelter keeps it out.

Lightning

In a storm, roughly once every minute or two, lightning strikes a tree near someone, preferring tall trees near the rim. It burns for 40 seconds (warm yourself by it), then falls, leaving 2 charcoal. Buildings are never struck.

Snow on roofs

Snow piles up on roofs as it settles and melts off with it. It's only for looks.

Wildlife

Animals live around you, appearing out of sight 30 to 70 m away: up to 6 rabbits, 4 deer and 3 boars at once. You need a weapon (or at least an axe or pickaxe) to hurt anything. A carcass stays for 5 minutes.

Rabbits, deer and boars

Rabbits live in meadows and zig-zag when they bolt. Deer keep to forest edges, notice you from further off and outrun your sprint. Sprinting makes you noisy, so walk when stalking. Boars live deep in the woods and ignore you until hit; then they charge and gore you until badly hurt. All give meat; deer and boars give hide.

Wolves and the den

The wolves' den is a cave of piled boulders at the foot of the mountains.

• Days 1 and 2: the den is empty.
• Day 3: wolves move in, resting by day and howling at night.
• From night 4: the pack hunts, going home at dawn. It's 2 wolves at first, 3 from day 6, 4 from day 9. Wolves you kill are replaced while nobody's watching.

By day, wolves watch you within 14 m of the den and attack within 8 m. At night the pack circles you and takes turns darting in, one at a time. Within 8 m of a lit campfire or hearth they circle wide and never close in. A torch or lantern in hand makes them come in far less often. A lone wolf keeps its distance, and a badly hurt one runs off for the night. Wolves give meat and pelts.

The wolf moon and the alpha

Every 7th night (days 7, 14, 21...) the moon turns red and an alpha hunts with the pack. It has three wolves' health, bites harder, ignores fire, doesn't take turns and doesn't run. If it can't reach you it batters the nearest closed door: a wooden one gives way after about five blows. It leaves at dawn, dead or not, and drops meat, an alpha pelt and wolf fangs.

The bear

One bear lives in the densest forest near the rim. By day it ambles round its patch; at night it sleeps there. It won't start a fight but rears up and warns you inside 8 m, and charges if you then come within 6 m, or if you hit it. Badly hurt, it runs home.

From day 3 it raids food: a chest with food in it, or food on the ground, within 60 m of it, with nobody within 12 m. It eats every bit of food and wanders off. It can't reach what it can't walk to and doesn't break things, so a closed hut or palisade ring keeps it out. Killed, it's back 3 days later. It drops lots of meat, a bear hide and bear fat, which burns three times as long as wood.

Crows and foxes

Food on the ground that nobody has been within 10 m of for 20 seconds draws a thief. By day a crow pecks the stack away bit by bit, scared off if you come within 7 m. At dusk and night a fox grabs the whole stack and runs; come within 10 m as it creeps in and it bolts empty-mouthed, or kill it to make it drop the food. Food in a chest is safe from both.

Hunting and fishing

Weapons

• Wooden club: quick to make and hard-hitting. Blunt, so 50% more against skeletons.
• Spear: Left click thrusts with long reach, Right click throws for more damage; pick it up where it lands. On its last use it breaks where it lands. The iron spear is much deadlier.
• Crude bow: hold Left click to draw (just under a second for full power) and release. The fuller the draw, the faster and harder the arrow; a barely drawn bow fires nothing. Iron arrows are used first and do half as much again. Arrows that miss can be picked up.
• Axes and pickaxes make poor weapons, though the iron axe hits well.

Butchering

E on a carcass gives its meat, hide and so on, plus any arrows stuck in it. What doesn't fit drops at your feet.

Fishing

Hold a fishing rod and Left click to cast into the lake. The float needs water at least half a metre deep. The sea has no fish. Fish swimming near the surface, and the odd one jumping, show you where to cast.

• A bite comes after 5 to 14 seconds, sooner at dawn and dusk and a little sooner in rain.
• When the float dips you have a second and a half to click. Miss and it gets away.
• More than 26 m from the float and the line snaps. Switching away from the rod reels in.

Perch are the usual catch. Trout are rarer but bite much more often at dawn (05:00 to 08:30) and dusk (17:00 to 20:30).

Iron and progression

Finding iron

Iron nuggets lie in the scree at the foot of the mountains. Rust-streaked boulders, commonest near the rim, give iron ore to a stone pickaxe. Clay comes from the lake shore. The barrow holds bars and nuggets.

Smelting

• A charcoal kiln (stone and clay, by hand) turns two wood into one charcoal every 20 seconds.
• A smelter (at the workbench) turns one iron ore and one charcoal into an iron bar every 30 seconds. Three nuggets can stand in for one ore.
• A forge (six iron bars, at the workbench) is the station for everything iron.

Kilns, smelters and smoking racks work on their own while you're away, and glow while they work. Take the results out of the same slots.

What iron gets you

Iron axes and pickaxes take about half the hits and last far longer. The forge makes the iron spear, iron arrows, the lantern, nails (for wooden stairs, windows and palisades) and the iron-banded door. The stonecutter turns stone into cut stone and makes every stone piece, including the stone hearth.

The barrow

Out on open ground stands a burial mound in a ring of standing stones, with a passage to a chamber and a stone coffin. Three skeletal barrow guards stand inside. They wake if someone enters the stone ring at night (or any time after day 10), when the coffin is opened, or when one is hit. They're slow enough to walk away from but hit hard, ignore fire, and won't follow you far. A club does them extra damage.

E on the coffin takes 1 to 3 iron bars, 3 to 6 nuggets and one barrow key piece. It fills again 5 days after it's emptied, early one morning with nobody near, and fallen guards return then too.

The Old Stag

A ring of standing stones at the foot of the rim has an altar with three hollows for barrow key pieces, so you need three coffin trips. Set them in with E, over as many visits as you like. With all three in, E at night calls the Old Stag, a huge antlered spirit.

• It circles, lowers its antlers as a warning, then charges straight through where you stood. Step aside.
• After a charge it's stunned for a moment and takes half as much again from your hits.
• At two thirds health it calls three spirit wolves out of the mist.
• At one third it calls two more, moves faster and stamps the ground if you stay close.

It doesn't run and ignores fire. If dawn comes, or everyone leaves or dies, it fades away and the key pieces stay in the altar for another night. Beat it and it drops its antler and a trophy you can place; the key pieces are used up. At the forge, the antler, an iron bar and some wood make the antler pickaxe: faster than iron, longer-lasting and lighter to swing.

Multiplayer

Your profile and identity

Set a name (3 to 16 letters, digits, spaces, _ or -), tunic colour, hair colour and beard under Profile before joining. There are no accounts: the game makes a private key on first run that never leaves your computer, and servers know you by it. A server keeps your name for you.

Hosting

Host Game starts a server on your computer and puts you in. Pick a server name, a rules preset, an optional password, the port (24242 by default) and, the first time, a seed. As its first player you're its admin. A message tells you the addresses friends can join at. Leaving saves the island and stops the server; next time it carries on. On a Mac, allow incoming connections if asked.

Dedicated servers

A spare computer can run an always-on server with no window, set up in its server.json. The first player to join a new server becomes its admin.

Joining

Join Game takes an address (host or host:port, default port 24242) and a password if needed. On Tailscale, use the server's 100.x address or machine name. A lobby shows the server's message, rules and players, then the island loads. Your game and the server must be the same version; if not, you're told which side needs updating.

Playing together

The server decides everything, so the pause menu doesn't pause; it lists who's online and has Disconnect. Each player has their own bed. Only you can open your grave. Looking at someone's piece shows whose it is. More players means more animals about, and the wolf pack splits between the players it hunts, preferring those away from a fire. The night passes once enough players are in bed.

Rules and presets

• Co-op: no PvP, no raiding, locks for owner and friends, a grave when you die.
• Friendly rivals: as co-op, but with PvP.
• Adversarial: PvP and raiding on, locks for the owner only, and your things scatter on the ground when you die.

The rules themselves:

• pvp: players can hurt each other.
• raiding: players can dismantle each other's pieces.
• locks: who may use chests, doors and beds: off, owner or owner_and_friends.
• death_penalty: grave, keep (keep everything) or drop_all (scattered for anyone).
• sleep: who must be in bed for the night to pass: all_online, half, anyone, or off.
• difficulty: easy, normal or hard: hunger and diet drain, animal damage, and one fewer or one more wolf.
• rot: normal, slow or off.
• wolf_grace_days: days before wolves move in (3 by default, 0 to 10); they hunt the night after.
• pause_when_empty: the clock stops when nobody's on.

A server also sets its own day length.

Chat and commands

T opens chat. Plain text goes to everyone; / starts a command.

• Anyone: /help, /players, /rules, /friend <name> (they may use your doors, chests and beds), /unfriend <name>, /friends.
• Admins: /kick <name>, /ban <name>, /unban <name>, /admin <name>, /save, /backup, /backups, /time 08:00, /weather clear|cloudy|rain|storm|snow|blizzard|auto, /set <rule> <value>, /say <message>, /release-name <name>.

A dedicated server's terminal takes the same commands without the /.

The Old Stag with friends

Each extra player at the stones when it's called gives the Old Stag 60% more health and one more spirit wolf (up to four more). Everyone who struck it is named when it falls.

Settings and sound

The pause menu

Esc opens it (and pauses your own world). It has Resume, Controls, Fullscreen, Mouse sensitivity, volumes for Music, Sounds, Ambience and Old Tam's voice, Old Tam's tips on or off with Show again, Check for updates at start, and Save & Quit to the title or desktop. The game autosaves every 2 minutes and when you sleep. In the tutorial it also offers Skip this tutorial step and Leave the tutorial.

Old Tam's tips

In your own worlds Old Tam offers a one-off tip the first time something comes up: cold, freezing, soaked, hungry, a poor diet, food poisoning, rotten food, nightfall, the first howl, a red moon, snow, storms, a hard winter, running out of stamina, your first shelter, your first death. Each shows once, under the clock for about 14 seconds. H puts it away.

Music and sound

The music follows what's happening: calm by day, a night theme after dark, a storm theme in storms, blizzards and wolf moons, danger music when something is coming for you, and a boss theme for the Old Stag. Between pieces there's ambience: birds by day, crickets and owls at night. Indoors everything is quieter, and the music dips while Old Tam speaks.

Updates

With the update check on, the title screen tells you when a newer Emberwild is out and offers a Download button or the release page.

Tips for your first days

• Gather sticks, stones, flint and fibre straight away and craft a stone axe and pickaxe by hand.
• Keep your campfire fed: wood burns a minute, sticks 20 seconds, and a fire holds 15 minutes of fuel.
• Carry a torch at night for light, a little warmth and hesitant wolves.
• Have a roof, walls, a door and a bed up before night 4. Press E on the bed so you respawn there.
• Keep a fire in or right by your hut: rest by it, and wolves won't close in.
• Eat a bit of everything and never let two diet bars run low.
• Cook meat and fish. Raw food often makes you ill.
• Don't leave food lying about: thieves take it from the ground, and from day 3 the bear raids chests it can reach.
• Make a hide cloak before the first cold day, and stock wood and food before day 12.
• Walk, don't sprint, when stalking deer and rabbits.
• Leave boars alone until you have a spear or bow.
• Repair tools before they break: a stone tool costs one flint at the workbench.

All items

Every item in the game, from its own data. Food values are how much a bite fills each bar; diet groups are meat, fish and greens.

Materials

Tools and clothing

Weapons

Food

Building pieces

Things to place

All recipes

What you can make and where. By hand needs nothing nearby; the others need that station within about 6 m (a campfire must be lit).

By hand

Workbench

Campfire

Stonecutter

Forge

All creatures

Health, how hard each hits (on normal difficulty), its top speed and what it leaves when butchered. Your walk is 5 m/s and your sprint 8 m/s.

Fish

What bites where. Bites come 5 to 14 s after the float settles, sooner at dawn (05:00-08:30) and dusk (17:00-20:30) and in rain.

Server settings

Everything in a server's server.json, with its default. Admins can change those marked live while it runs with /set <setting> <value>; the rest take effect when the server restarts.