How to play
Everything you need for your first evening
Nothing to install, nothing to pay, and it plays on a phone just as well. Open play.lumenwick.com, pick a name and a password, and you are standing on the quay. Write down the recovery words you get: they are your only key if you forget your password.
Your first ten minutes
- Walk around. Click the ground and you go there. The market square, the harbour, the shops.
- Say hello. Press T, type something, press Enter. Anyone nearby sees it above your head.
- Talk to somebody who lives there. Click a townsperson. They are the ones who tell you what went wrong with the light.
- Take a small job. Fetch, deliver, sweep, catch a fish. It pays, and it is where your first coins come from.
- Go and fish. Stand at the water, press H, and press H again the moment something bites.
- Open your journal. Press J. It keeps what you have found and what is still waiting.
- Find a house with a FOR SALE sign. You will not be able to afford it yet. That is rather the point.
Walking and looking
Click the ground and you walk there, or use WASD and the arrow keys. Turn the scroll wheel to zoom in and out; on a phone, pinch with two fingers. Walk through a doorway and you are inside.
Talking and emotions
Press T and type your message; Enter sends it. Above the text box are five little faces — click one and your own face joins in, and a smiley in your sentence does the same. Start with /w to whisper or /s to shout.
Fighting and levelling
Click a slime to attack it. Key 1 is your strike, key 2 drinks a potion. In trouble? Resting in bed slowly brings your health back. Fighting and doing jobs both raise your level.
Fishing
Press H near the water to cast your rod, and press H again the moment something bites. Every spot has its own fish, and some of them only bite at night.
A home of your own
Walk into a house with a FOR SALE sign to buy it. Press B to build: furniture, walls, floors and wallpaper. Click an inner door to open or close it. Other players can ring your doorbell — you decide whether to answer.
Playing together
Press V to find friends and send messages. Click somebody standing nearby to trade. Right-click anyone for their card — on a phone, press and hold — and you can ask to be friends, trade, block or report from there.
Your companion
On faraway islands a little creature sometimes follows you home. Click it to tuck it into your bag, and click yourself to let it back out.
If somebody is unpleasant
Children play here, so this is worth saying plainly. Every player has a card — right-click them, or press and hold on a phone — and that card has Block and Report on it. Blocking is yours alone and you can undo it later. Reporting brings a moderator in, so it asks you once whether you are sure. And if something frightens or upsets you, tell someone at home about it as well.
Keys, and what to do on a phone
- I — backpack · J — journal · M — map · U — appearance
- T — talk · V — friends · B — build · H — fishing rod
- 1 — strike · 2 — drink a potion · Space — guard
- Esc — the menu, and the manual inside the game
- On a phone — tap to walk, pinch to zoom, press and hold for somebody's card. The bar along the bottom does what the keys do, and it plays best held sideways.