Skip to content
Asciilands
Chapter 01Start here

Your first hour, as five camps

The tutorial ends at a workbench. That is roughly ten minutes into a game that runs for weeks. This page picks up there: five material ages, one goal each, and 34 steps you can tick off. Progress stays in this browser, so you can close the tab and come back.

Checked22 October 2026build ca54ab855359

0 of 34 steps done · progress is saved in this browser

Play freeJump to the camps
01How to use this

One goal at a time, and a reason to stop

Each camp ends at a milestone rather than a checklist item, and the next camp is worse until you have it. If you are unsure what to do next, you are almost always missing the goal of the camp you are in.
  1. Start at the first camp you have not finished. The order is not optional: bronze needs a smelter, and a smelter needs sixteen stone.
  2. Read the goal before the steps. It is the only thing you have to achieve.
  3. When a camp is done, take the watch-out note with you. Each one is the mistake that most often undoes the camp you just finished.
A character chopping a tree beside a stack of logs.
Every tree, rock and plant is a glyph you can interact with. Promotional screenshot © Asciilands.
02The route

Five camps

Ordered by material, not by menu. Each one names the tool that defines it, because that tool is usually the only thing you actually need from the age.
01

Bare hands

Wood, stone and fiber

Nothing. This is the tutorial, and it lasts about ten minutes.

Goal

A workbench standing on the ground.

0 / 7 done

02

Stone camp

Stone tools

Copper becomes minable, and dying stops being a walk back to the start.

Goal

A stone axe, a stone pickaxe, and a lit campfire you have sat at.

0 / 7 done

03

Bronze camp

Copper, tin and bronze

Iron ore and bog iron, which is everything after this.

Goal

A bronze pickaxe in your hand.

0 / 9 done

04

Iron and steel camp

Iron, steel and repair

Buildings that stay repaired, armour that matters, and the pickaxe that can touch a meteorite.

Goal

A steel pickaxe and an anvil you can walk to.

0 / 7 done

05

Star camp

Star Iron

The top of the tool ladder, and not much else — this camp is for people who want the last rung.

Goal

A masterwork Star Iron pickaxe.

0 / 4 done

03Before you log off

What a first night actually needs

Not a house. Five things, four of which take under half an hour together.
01

A campfire you have sat at

Sitting (Z) sets your respawn. Without it, death sends you back to where you first spawned.

02

A stone axe and a pickaxe

Bare hands work, but slowly, and slow gathering is how the first night runs out.

03

Cooked food in the pack

Being Hungry stops health regeneration entirely. That is what kills new characters, not wolves.

04

Walls and a roof, or a hillside

Fire and a roof both speed healing while you rest.

05

A chest behind a closed door

Chests are public. Anyone in reach can empty one.

And one thing it does not

A house. Walls are for keeping chests private and for the roof bonus while you rest. Neither is worth dying of hunger over on day one.

04Common failures

Seven mistakes that cost people their start

Every one of these is cheap to avoid and expensive to discover.
  1. 01

    Sawing planks by hand forever

    One log gives one plank by hand and four at a workbench. Every minute spent splitting logs by hand after you own a bench is a minute of wood thrown away.

  2. 02

    Wandering off without a rest point

    A campfire is four stone chunks and three logs. Walking back from the spawn point because you never sat at one costs far more than that.

  3. 03

    Investing in copper tools

    Copper lasts sixty uses — fewer than stone. Go stone to bronze directly unless you are stuck for tin.

  4. 04

    Leaving a chest outdoors

    Storage chests are public to anyone in reach, and windows do not stop hands. A metal chest or a closed door inside walls does.

  5. 05

    Stopping when stamina empties

    An empty bar slows your swings but never stops gathering. Walking away is what wastes the trip.

  6. 06

    Ignoring the hunger bar

    Hungry does two things: stamina returns slower, and health regeneration stops. Any bite fixes it.

  7. 07

    Taking a building apart from the bottom

    Removing a support collapses everything resting on it. Disassemble from the top down, and recover half the materials instead of a quarter.

  8. 08

    Playing muted and missing the cues

    “BITE” when fishing and “Tin retained” when panning are audio cues first. With sound off, watch the float and the pan rather than the corner of the screen.

05Reference

The eleven tutorial steps, and what each is for

Useful if you skipped it, or if you want to know which part you never finished.
The eleven tutorial steps in Asciilands, in order
#StepWhat it is for
01A short tutorialAn intro card. Skip one step with V, or the whole thing with X.
02WalkingW, A, S, D, and Shift to sprint.
03CameraClick the world and move the mouse. Hold Alt to get your cursor back.
04Collect some suppliesA tree, a rock and a fiber plant: wood, stone and fiber.
05Make a plankCrafting (C), by hand.
06Open your packI. This is where Equip, Eat and Sharpen live.
07Open the mapM, including the World view.
08Open BuildB. Everything you place comes from here.
09Open settingsO: controls, zoom, glyph size, sound.
10Choose a goalJournal (J). Pin one to keep its steps on screen.
11Open HelpH. The Field guide, and where the tutorial can be replayed.
Next: every recipeOr find out where the copper is