How to Play

Controls

You never need a keyboard. On a phone every action is a tap, and gathering and fighting repeat on their own until the job is done.

Settings has text size, colorblind modes, reduced motion and a left handed layout.

Your first ten minutes

Press Play free and you are in Dewmeadow Landing with an axe on your belt. Tally, a small floating lantern, shows you the way. The tutorial takes about 7 minutes and you can skip it at the first step.

1. Chop 3 Twigwood Logs. A chest drops with your first piece of gear.
2. Defeat 3 Hoplings, then pick your path: sword, shortbow or staff.
3. Cook the haunch at the campfire.
4. Mine 2 Ochre Ore.
5. Smelt 2 Ochre Bars and forge an Ochre Pickaxe at the Landing Forge.
6. Catch a Pondling. When a Big Bite splashes, tap Reel.
7. Walk into Wayhearth and touch the Waystone to unlock fast travel.
8. Put something in the Coffer Hall, your bank.
9. Talk to Warden Ysolde at the Bounty Wall to get a Wanderer's Cache.
10. Toss a coin in the Wishing Well and meet the Waykeeper, who starts the story.

After that there is always a next goal on screen: a bounty timer, the story marker, the next world boss countdown and your login streak.

Skills

Eight skills, each from level 1 to 60. You level a skill by using it.

Your Combat Level is your highest of Melee, Archery and Magic. Your Total Level is all eight added up, up to 480. Time offline fills a Rested XP pool that gives +50% XP.

Combat

Blade beats Bow. Bow beats Spell. Spell beats Blade.

Tap a mob and your character attacks on its weapon speed until the target falls or you move. Each mob shows its armor and what it is weak to on its nameplate. Hit their weakness and fights end sooner.

• Melee: sword, dagger or warhammer, wears plate.
• Archery: shortbow with arrows, wears leather.
• Magic: staff with Spellshards, wears robes. Staff users also get Mend, a heal on yourself or an ally.

Each weapon has one special attack on the big button, paid from a Special energy bar that refills in 2 minutes. Eat food to heal between fights. If you fall in a safe realm you wake at your last Waystone with everything you carried.

Gathering

Tap a tree, rock or fishing spot. You try once every 2 seconds and keep going. When the node runs out you move on to the next one of the same type nearby.

• Sparkle: about 1 in 25 actions a sparkle appears on the node. Tap it within about 1.5 seconds for a roll on the rare table at 5 times the odds. Fish show a Big Bite splash with a Reel button instead.
• Bountiful: a 5% chance of a double yield, more with top tier tools.
• Rare finds: Geodes from mining, Bird Nests from woodcutting and Sunken Coffers from fishing hold crystals, jewelry, dyes and more.
• Herbs drop while you gather and from some mobs.

Crafting

Crafting uses one skill across stations in Wayhearth's Forge Row: the Forge for bars and metal gear, the Workbench for bows, staffs, leather, robes and ammo, and the Salvage Bench to break gear back into materials. Cook at a range or a campfire and brew potions at the Kettle.

Every craft rolls for Masterwork, which can lift the item to Uncommon, Rare, Epic or Legendary. Your first craft of each item is at least Uncommon. Gear comes in six tiers: Ochre, Greyfell, Mossgleam, Tidesilver, Cinderite and Wayshard.

Upgrades

At the Tempering Anvil you upgrade any weapon, armor piece, shield, quiver or tool from +1 to +10. Each level adds stats. At +5 your gear glows, at +7 it has an aura and at +10 it leaves a trail.

• Items are never destroyed. From +6 a failed attempt drops the item one level.
• A Ward Scroll stops that drop. Fortune Oil adds to your chance.
• The Fortune meter adds 3% after every failure at the same level until you succeed.
• Guests can upgrade up to +5. Holders can go to +10.

Bag and bank

Your bag holds 30 slots as a guest and 36 as a holder. The Coffer Hall in Wayhearth is your bank: 48 slots for guests and 96 for holders. Materials stack to 999 in the bag and 9,999 in the bank. Gear wears with use and never breaks. Repair everything in one tap at the smith.

Market Hall and trade

Open the Market Hall from the HUD anywhere to search, filter and buy. Listing and selling need 10,000 $Journey held for 24 hours in a row. Listings last 48 hours. At launch the sale fee is 5% of the price and the listing fee is 0.5% (at least 5, at most 250).

Holders who have held 10,000 for 24 hours can also trade face to face: both sides add items and $Journey, then confirm twice. Adding $Journey also needs accounts at least 3 days old. A warning shows when one side is worth far more than the other.

Bounties

The Bounty Wall in Wayhearth is where most $Journey is earned.

• Personal bounties: 3 slots matched to your skills. Each refreshes 4 hours after you take it.
• Community bounty: one per realm each day with a shared progress bar.
• Grand Bounty: one multi step bounty a day for holders.
• Player bounties: holders post a reward for items and it is held in escrow until a trusted holder (10,000 held for 24 hours) delivers. This works as a buy order.

Parties and guilds

Parties hold up to 5. Each member within 16 tiles gets +5% XP for every other member in range, up to +20%. Everyone gets their own loot. A party member at 0 HP is Downed for 12 seconds; another party member can tap them for 3 seconds to revive them at 30% HP. No revives in the Brokenway.

Holders create guilds. Guests join as Recruits. Guilds have ranks, a guild bank, a weekly guild quest and levels 1 to 10 that add bank tabs, an XP bonus of up to 5%, a glow on the guild cape, a daily guild recall and a guild title.

PvP

• Duels: challenge anyone in a safe realm. Nothing is lost.
• Ranked 1v1: join the queue from any safe realm and fight in the Proving Ring. Ratings start at 1,000.
• Wagers (holders who have held 10,000 for 24 hours): both players stake $Journey in escrow. Even rules give both the same kit so skill decides. Open rules use your own gear.
• Kilnspire (holders): PvP only between two players who both turn their flag on.
• The Brokenway (holders): open PvP. If you fall you keep your 3 most valuable items (none if you are Marked) and drop the rest in a tombstone.

Realms

Walk through the glowing portal strips at the map edges to travel. Touch each Waystone once to add it to fast travel. A Homeward Charm takes you back to Wayhearth. Guests who walk up to a holder gate see a flyover of the realm behind it.

Holders

Everyone plays free. When your linked wallet holds 10,000 $Journey you unlock everything at once: the holder realms, levels past 15, tiers 3 to 6, upgrades past +5, selling and trading, wagers, guild creation and the Trailstrider mount. XP you earned past level 15 as a guest, up to the XP of level 25, was kept as Held XP and releases on unlock. Listing, selling, trades, guild bank deposits, wagers and withdrawing need the 10,000 held for 24 hours in a row.

Everything about holding

Linking a wallet

Linking is one signed message, no transaction. Your wallet shows a sign in message for this site that says it costs nothing. The game then reads your $Journey balance. Linking keeps your guest character and lets you play it on any device. If the wallet already has a character, you choose which one to keep; a character that holds $Journey is always the one kept.

Phantom, Solflare, Backpack and other Solana wallets work on desktop. On phones, open the game inside your wallet's browser.

Deposits and withdrawals

You never need a transaction to play, unlock, earn, trade, list or wager. Those all use your in game balance.

• Deposit (optional): a plain transfer of $Journey from your wallet, signed only by you. Minimum 100 at launch, no fee. It can be withdrawn again after 24 hours.
• Withdraw: the game sends $Journey to your linked wallet. You sign one message (never a transaction) if you have not signed in within 12 hours. You need 10,000 held for 24 hours, an account at least 7 days old, the tutorial done, a Total Level of 60, a trust score of 60 and no wallet relink in the last 7 days.
• At launch: minimum 500, one withdrawal per 24 hours, a 4% fee on earned tokens and 1% on your own deposits. Earned tokens are capped at 20,000 and $200 a day, 60,000 and $700 a week.
• Pool rewards ripen for 7 days before they can be withdrawn.

Full numbers are in the docs.