One hearth, four people,
and a very good start.

01 / Open the game

A name, a PIN, and three codes to keep.

Creating a village asks for a name and a PIN of six to twelve digits. The name is what other players see if you ever share the village. The PIN is what proves the village is yours.

1. Write the codes down before you build.

   The game gives you a manage code, a view code and a recovery code. The manage code plus your PIN reopens the village on any device. The view code lets someone watch without touching anything. The recovery code is the only way back if you forget the PIN.

2. Nothing personal is needed.

   No email address and no account. A village is the codes and the PIN, so keep them somewhere you will still have them next week.

3. Your village keeps running without you.

   Closing the game does not stop the village. Reconnecting with the manage code restores the saved state and its clock.

02 / What you start with

150 timber, 100 stone, 100 food.

A new village opens on a lit Hearth in an empty meadow, with four residents around it: Wren and Tolm build, Isla forages and Bram gardens. The Hearth’s beds are temporary shelter, not homes.

Spend that stock on things that produce. A Moss Hut costs 20 timber and 6 stone, a Forager Shelter 15 timber, a Timber Workshop 10 timber and 8 stone, and a Garden 8 timber. Two huts and those three workplaces come to 73 timber and 20 stone, which leaves enough for a Well at 15 stone and a few more huts.

The Hearth also adds 6 timber and 10 stone every minute. It needs no worker, fuel or food, so even a village that has spent everything still has materials coming in.

03 / Somewhere to sleep

Build two Moss Huts first.

Open Homes, choose the Moss Hut and move the preview onto clear ground near the Hearth. Read the quote before you accept it: the preview shows the materials, the entrance and the path the village will build to reach the door.

Two huts give your four starting residents permanent homes, which is the housing the next settlement level asks for. Leave a little space around each one; you will want room for a workshop and a garden nearby, and the automatic path needs its full width.

04 / Food and timber

Three small workplaces keep the village fed.

1. A Forager Shelter for 15 timber.

   Food without crops, so deer leave it alone. Isla is the village forager and starts work once it is finished and the walk there is done.

2. A Garden for 8 timber.

   Crops that ripen on their own schedule and need a gardener at work. Bram is already the gardener.

3. A Timber Workshop for 10 timber and 8 stone.

   Timber is what everything else is built from, and a staffed workshop is one of the conditions for reaching village level 3.

A workplace produces nothing until construction is complete, a suitable resident is assigned, and that resident has actually arrived. If a building looks idle, check those three things in order before anything else.

Stone keeps coming in after the starting stock is spent. The Hearth adds 10 a minute, and at village level 2 the Stone Workshop opens: it is built with 25 timber alone and, once staffed, makes 8 stone every 40 seconds, as quickly as the Timber Workshop makes timber.

05 / Water

The Hearth waters eight people.

Water will not stop anyone moving in, but the village counts every resident without it and suggests where a Well would help. The Hearth supplies 8 residents, and only those whose home lies within 20 metres of it. A Well costs 15 stone, can be built from the start, and supplies 20 residents within 24 metres of the well itself.

So the first rule of the opening layout is simple: build your homes close to the Hearth. Level 2 asks for 10 residents, two more than the Hearth waters, so place a Well before then, where its circle covers the homes that fall outside the Hearth’s reach rather than somewhere convenient.

06 / The first visitors

Deer will find your garden.

Deer first look in half an hour after the village is founded, and after that about every half hour, up to ten minutes sooner or later. They only come when there is a finished garden to visit. The village announces the visit about half a minute ahead and names the garden they are heading for.

A visit takes at most 6 food, less the higher the garden’s Deer score, and never takes the stores below 30 food. While nobody is managing the village, a visit waits for your return instead.

A Deer Enclosure keeps most of it: a fence that unlocks at village level 2, costs 24 timber and makes everything inside count 3 against deer, so a garden inside loses at most 2 food a visit. A garden’s own decorative fence is scenery and protects nothing. Read the enclosure preview carefully, because a fence can move an automatic path and the gate has to stay reachable.

07 / What comes next

Trade a hut for a cottage, and let the village grow.

Once level 2 arrives you can replace a completed Moss Hut with a Family Cottage on the same plot for 45 timber and 20 stone. A cottage houses more people and brings its household more comfort; improving a building instead raises its quality without adding beds.

New households arrive on the village’s own schedule when there are two spare beds in a completed permanent home, at least 20 food in store, and a food balance that has not fallen over the last three minutes. Meeting the conditions is an invitation, not an instant arrival.

Arrivals also need room. A village holds 20 residents at the start, and each completed Graveyard connected to the Hearth adds 20 more, so the 24 residents of level 4 need one. Read the graveyard guide →

The full conditions, including food reserves and a steady food balance, are listed in the player guide. Read the full level requirements →

And then the night arrives

A full day lasts an hour, and a new village begins at 06:00 with forty minutes of work before bedtime. Between 22:00 and 06:00, twenty minutes of real time, your residents finish what they are doing and walk home, most production pauses, and food is still eaten. It is a good moment to place buildings for the morning rather than to wait for output.