In late September the game was a set of separate good ideas: a pickaxe that bites, a tree that falls, a dog that follows. Between September 25 and October 3 they were joined into something you can describe as one evening, and the order below is the order a player meets it.

You wake on the floor of a granite valley, most of the time, facing the best view from your camp: a waterfall if one is in sight, otherwise the valley wall, a meadow or the water. A ring of stones and a log to sit on wait beside the camp. It is 9 in the morning, and a whole day lasts twenty minutes, so the sun is going down within nine minutes.

A granite valley wall with a thin waterfall running down it, pines and firs in front, two small animals grazing in a mossy meadow, and a log and a ring of stones in the foreground
Development capture · A new world’s first view, as it looked on October 1.

The first job is tools. Strike chert with a stone until two flakes break off and a head takes shape, twist plant fiber into cord, and lash the head to a stick: that is a stone axe. Your hands do all of it, in order, on the ground in front of you, and the field book on B lists what each recipe still needs. The same stones make a spear, and a little tinder makes a torch.

An open field book held in two gloved hands, the Crafting page listing recipes on the left and the Stone Axe card with its materials and a Lay Out button on the right
Development capture · The Stone Axe page of the field book, September 29.

Then the forest. Chop a tree from any side and it falls. Poles from felled saplings and boughs from the forest floor become a lean-to, the wood becomes sticks for a fire, and a trunk, if you want it, becomes rounds and then firewood. The fire lights from a spark or a torch and burns down on its own, so you feed it two or three times before dawn. You can cook meat on it, bank it for the night, or put it out and light it again.

Night is when the valley changes. From about 20:00 a pack of wolves circles outside the light of your fire and howls, and your dog lies down beside you facing the dark and growls at them. A sheep left out is taken. Lie down in the lean-to with a well-fed fire in front of it and the night runs fast until you wake in the blue before dawn. Away from the fire the cold starts to cost you, and a lone wolf will bite once.

A campfire of sticks burning in a ring of stones at night, three flames rising from the wood, with the dog sitting in the grass in front of it, its eyes glowing green
Development capture · The dog by a night fire, September 29.