Guide
How to play
You are a small bird in a large world. There is no tutorial to sit through, but a few things are worth knowing before you take off, because the flight model and the combat kit both reward understanding over button-mashing. This page is the short version of both. The full flight system has its own page.
Getting in
Open the game in a browser and press play. A guest character is created on the spot, with a real account quietly behind it: progress saves, race times count, and nothing about it is a demo. You are never asked for an email to start.
Worlds are kept deliberately small while the game is in development: about ten players share one. If yours is full you get an old-fashioned login queue, with your position on screen and automatic entry the moment a spot frees up. Most of the time there is no queue at all.
You will be asked to confirm you are human once, when you create your first character. It keeps automated accounts out of the world, runs once, and then leaves you alone.
Signing in, with an email code or with Google from Settings → Account, exists for two reasons: so your character can follow you to another device, and so you can make a purchase. It is never required to play. If you sign in later, the guest character you already have comes with you rather than being replaced.
The free game gives you one character and the first ten levels, with everything those levels contain. A single small unlock opens the rest of the ladder. The detail, including exactly what is and is not for sale, is on the Characters page.
Three control styles
There is no single control scheme. There are three, switchable at any time in Settings → Control Style, and the game picks a sensible default for your device.
| Minecraft (default) | WoW | Modern | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cursor | Locked, crosshair on | Free; hides while you drag | Locked; hold Alt to free it |
| Look | Mouse always looks | Left-drag orbits, right-drag steers | Mouse always looks |
| Targeting | Whatever the crosshair is on | Click, or Tab to cycle | Sticky soft-lock, Tab to cycle |
| Attack | Left click | Ability keys | Left click |
| Scroll wheel | Hotbar | Zoom | Zoom |
| Inventory | E | B | I |
| Chat | T | Enter | Enter |
Keyboard players start on the Minecraft scheme, because that is where most of our players grew up. WoW veterans will find the free cursor and drag-look exactly where their hands expect them. Modern is the locked-cursor, soft-lock layout that console MMOs ship. Movement is WASD in all three, and the ability keys never move.
On a phone or tablet the game always runs its touch layout: a movement stick, a look area, and a row of ability buttons with aim assistance. It is the same world and the same progression. Because thumbs are genuinely harder to aim with than a mouse, touch players carry doubled health and experience to compensate.
Flying, briefly
Double-tap Space to take off. Flight runs on Vigor charges, three at first and six by level 20, which refill steadily on the ground and barely at all in the air. The trick is to dive: hold enough speed and Thrill of the Skies starts refunding charges, faster the higher your level. A long journey is a chain of shallow dives rather than a level cruise.
Aim level and flap for a hard push forward. Aim up and the same flap becomes a climb. If you are falling, one tap opens a glide that prevents fall damage, and a double-tap mid-fall opens full flight. You cannot take off while something is actively fighting you, because disengaging is supposed to cost you something.
That is enough to get airborne. The full model, including the recharge curve, the aerial halt, the disrupt built into the forward flap, and why the altitude ceiling is measured from wherever you launched, fills the Flying page.
The four abilities
Four abilities, one job each, no overlap. If you are using the wrong one, the fight tells you.
| Ability | Key | Role | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bite | R | Melee | Your basic attack. A short charge window rewards timing over mashing. |
| Featherbolt | F | Ranged | A one-second standing cast: a direct hit plus a refreshing damage-over-time effect. Moving, taking off, or taking a hit cancels it. |
| Wing Buffet | C | Control | Instant and short-range. Knocks the target back and stuns it for three seconds, on a twenty-second cooldown. Your only hard control. |
| Feather Blizzard | hold R | Area | Hold for three seconds to drop a zone at your feet that pulses damage and heavily slows everything inside it for eight seconds. It stays where you cast it. |
The loop they were designed around
Pull a pack. Drop Feather Blizzard on them and leave, since the zone stays where you cast it. Back off to Featherbolt range and land casts while the slow does its work. Anything that reaches you gets Wing Buffet, ideally knocked back into the zone. Bite finishes the survivors.
Featherbolt is the part new players misread. It breaks if you move, if you go airborne, and if you take a hit mid-cast, which makes it the reward for a fight you have already brought under control. The zone and the knockback are how you buy the stillness it needs.
Area damage thins out against big groups. Five targets take full damage, and each one past five takes less, down to a floor. Pulling the whole valley is not a strategy the maths supports.
Reading a fight before you start it
Every creature's name is coloured by its level relative to yours, the convention Warcraft players already know. Grey is beneath you, green and yellow are fair, orange and red will hurt, and a skull means come back later. Higher-level creatures also notice you from further away, so the colours change how carefully you walk.
Creatures behave like they would rather stay alive. Hurt one badly and it runs for help at speed. Hurt it halfway and it calls, and anything nearby answers. Drag one too far from home and it gives up, walks back and heals, so you cannot tow a creature across the map and grind it down.
Elites are the step up, and they fight with their own health. Each empowered ranged shot costs the elite a slice of its own bar, and it leads its aim against a moving target. Close the distance and it has to stop shooting and meet you in melee, which is the counter-play. The elites in the first ring skip the trick entirely, so your first one is meant to be exciting rather than a wall.
Your first fifteen minutes
- You land in The Nest, the safe zone at the centre. Nothing can attack you here, and health recovers quickly.
- Walk out into the first ring and fight a few low-level creatures. Early levels take roughly ten kills each, because the opening is meant to move.
- Pick up what drops. Food heals, so keep some on your hotbar.
- Try all four abilities on something harmless, so the rhythm is in your hands before it matters.
- Double-tap to fly. It unlocks at level 1. Get a feel for diving to recover charges.
- Push one ring outwards when you are ready. The level bands climb with the distance from home.
The pacing after that is deliberately uneven: quick early levels, a long middle, and a genuine grind up to the cap at thirty. The shape is borrowed openly from Warcraft Classic, where the climb is meant to be the game rather than an obstacle in front of it.
Dying
When you die, the items on your hotbar drop where you fell and anyone can pick them up. Your backpack stays with you, and so does the Hearthstone in its reserved slot. A death costs you something real without costing you the evening.
Log out inside The Nest and you accumulate rested experience while you are away, a pool that makes your next session's kills worth more until it runs down. It fills over about eight hours, so ending the night in the safe zone is worth the short flight home.