# Midgarth: the game guide The in-game help, as text. How to connect a bot is in /llms.txt and /protocol.md. ## Controls ### Arrows / WASD Walk — hold to keep walking, tap for a single step ### Q E Z C Walk diagonally ### Numpad Walk in all eight directions ### Shift+direction Turn to face that way without stepping ### Drag a finger On a touch screen, **double tap and drag** — tap, lift, and put the finger straight back down — and you walk the way it points for as long as it stays down. **Or hold a finger down until a ring comes up under it, then drag**: the ring is a joystick. **Two fingers dragged together** walk too; **spread or pinch them** to zoom. A plain tap is a click, and one finger dragged without the double tap moves the view ### Click ground Walk there, on the floor you are on. Click or tap a stair, hole or ladder to go through it, even down or up to a floor you have never seen. Something lying under you or next to you is picked up instead. If there is no way there you are told so and do not move ### Click monster Attack it: it becomes your target, outlined in red, and you chase it (unless Chase is off). Click it again to let it go. A target that goes out of sight stays picked for a few seconds, then is let go ### Click player Follow them. If your stance allows you to fight them, they are attacked instead ### Right-click player A menu: Look, Follow, Attack, Trade and Message. Attack is greyed, with the reason, when you may not fight them ### Click a person The world’s people, whose names are orange, can be talked to. A click walks you up to them and opens a menu of what you can ask: quests first, marked with a **!** (ticked once done), then Trade if they keep a shop, then whatever else they will talk about. You can also just say things to them in the chat when you are within three tiles ### Right-click Pick up what lies there, at any distance — you walk over and take it — or look at the tile if there is nothing to pick up. On a bag slot, a stored item or a button it opens that thing’s menu ### Shift+click Look at a tile: who or what is there. Looking at a player names their level and the gear they are using; looking at an item gives its numbers, the same as its tooltip. Pressing both mouse buttons together does the same ### Long-press On a touch screen, holding a finger down is the right-click ### Tab / Next target Target the next monster, nearest first ### Shift+Tab / Next player Target the next player, nearest first: attacked if your stance allows it, followed if not ### Esc / Stop Drop the target and stop attacking, chasing, following and walking ### Drag the world Hold the left button down and move, or drag one finger, to look around. The view stays there until you take a step ### Back to you / Reset view The mouse wheel over the world, or a pinch, zooms. The mark just left of the floor chip in the top right corner of the world puts things back: **Back to you** once you have dragged the view away or are looking at another floor, **Reset view** once only the zoom is off, back to the everyday view, which fits 11 tiles across the narrower side of the world wherever the tiles can stay between 32 and 64 pixels ### Trade Choose Trade from the menu on another player within two tiles. Once they accept, both offers show side by side: click a bag slot to offer one, right-click for the pile, click your offer to take one back. When both of you press Accept, everything changes hands at once. Any change takes the accepts back; walking apart or Cancel ends it ### Stance The stance button in Controls says whom you may attack: a **white hand**, only whoever attacked you; a **yellow hand**, those and anybody protection zone locked; a **red fist**, anybody. A new character is white ### Auto What you swing at without picking it: **none**, only your target; **aware**, monsters in reach that know you are there; **all**, any monster in reach. Never another player. Something you swing at by reflex is outlined in yellow ### Chase On, you walk after whatever you pick a fight with. Off, you fight from where you stand — good for holding a doorway or shooting from range ### Ride If you have a horse, the horse’s head below the info button gets you on and off it. It is red, with the reason, while you cannot ride ### F1 / ? Show this help ## The screen ### Statuses Round badges in the top left corner of the world say what is true of you right now: protected, in a fight, protection zone locked, skulled, hasted, lit, poisoned, burning and so on. Hover or hold one for what it means and how long it has left ### Info panel Your Stats, your Skills and the Players list, behind the info button in the top left corner. On a wide screen it stands down the left of the page; on a phone it opens above the world. Drag its edge to resize it ### Panel icons Every panel has an icon: a bag for the Inventory, a tunic for the Equipment, a star for the Spells, crossed swords for the Controls, and while you are at one, a chest for the Depot and coins for a shop. **Press an icon to show its panel** and again to hide it. Several can be open at once. **Drag an icon** to move its panel to the other side or change the order. Long-press or right-click the bag or the star to choose how many columns or rows it shows. Each panel has its own help: Stats Skills Players Inventory Equipment Spells Controls Depot Vendor Market ### Inventory Your bag, in the Inventory panel. Click a slot to use it, right-click (or hold) it for its menu: use, drop, sell while a shop is open, or store at the depot. Ctrl+right-click drops the whole pile ### Within reach Whatever lies under you or next to you shows as an icon in the bottom right corner of the world. Click one to pick it up ### Floor chip The rounded piece in the top right corner says which floor you are seeing: G for the ground, +1 for a floor up, −2 for two down. Press it to look at the floor above or below without moving ### Area names When you walk into a new area, its name shows over the world for a few seconds ### The ⋯ menu In the top right corner: sound and music, pixel font, pixel scaling (capped is quicker on a phone that struggles), button size, debug, highscores, changes, the encyclopedia, your world’s Discord channel, this help and log out. Your choices are remembered in this browser ### Button size In the ⋯ menu: how big the panels’ squares and buttons are, 44, 38 or 32 pixels. Smaller fits more into a panel and leaves more of the screen to the world ### Debug In the ⋯ menu: the numbers behind things. The sum behind every blow you give or take goes to the log under the **debug** filter, squares round you and every monster show how far each hears and is heard, and the **Speed**, **Clank**, **Position**, **HP regen** and **Mana regen** rows are behind it too. Off by default ### Full screen The four corners in the top right corner of the world; Escape gives the screen back. On a phone, press and hold it for its name. On an iPhone, add the game to your home screen instead ### On a phone Long-press stands in for right-click everywhere. The panels open from the row of icons under the world, and the chat line opens from the speech bubble in the log’s corner. The game fits either way you hold the phone ### Sound Blows, misses, arrows, spells and levels all have sounds, quieter the further off they happen. There is quiet music under them too, and it changes with where you are. Both can be turned off in the ⋯ menu ### Colours Every character has a colour of their own: tunic, name and the damage they deal. Monster names and monster damage are red; the names of the people you can talk to are orange ### Ping On the stats panel: how long the server takes to answer you. Green under 100 ms, amber to 300, red past it ### FPS On the stats panel: how many times a second the world is drawn. If it is low, try Pixel scaling on capped ### Highscores In the ⋯ menu: the top characters by level, by each skill, by gold, deaths, kills and more. Click a name for that character’s page ### Changes In the ⋯ menu, and on the login screen: what has changed in the game, newest at the bottom, grouped by day. Anything new since you were last in is marked ### Encyclopedia In the ⋯ menu: tables of the weapons, armor, potions, food and special items in the game, with what each does. Press a column’s heading to sort by it, and type in the box to find a piece by name ### Worlds There is more than one world, and they share nothing: each has its own characters. The login screen shows every world with its ping and how many are online; pick the one with the lowest ping, or the one your friends play in ### Discord The game has a Discord server for talking with other players and for its news. Join us on Discord at the bottom of the login screen opens your world’s channel ### Log out From the ⋯ menu. You can always log out in a protection zone, and elsewhere once twenty seconds have passed since your last fight. You cannot log out while protection zone locked. The button is greyed while you may not, and its hover says why ## Chat ### Enter Chat — Enter again to send, Esc to cancel. Everyone within 15 tiles of you on your floor hears you, and your words hang over your head. On a phone, tap the speech bubble in the log’s top right corner ### Yell The loudspeaker button at the start of the chat line, or start a line with **/y**: said in capitals and heard twice as far ### Private messages **/w Name words** (or /tell, /msg) sends one player a message wherever they are; **/r words** answers whoever last wrote to you. You can also choose Message from the menu on a player, a name in the Players list or a line in the log ### Shift+Up / Shift+Down In the chat box, step back through what you have said before ### Filters The button at the end of the chat line chooses which kinds of message the log shows: say, private, noise, damage dealt and received, loot, levels, events, server messages, spells, debug and more. Noise and debug start switched off. The number beside each switch is how many lines of that kind the log holds, hidden ones included. The **𝕋** button beside it puts each line’s kind at its start ### The log’s height The console is **directly under the world** and as wide as it. Drag the strip between them to make the log taller or shorter ### Newest messages Scroll the log back and it stays put however much comes in; the arrow in its corner, with a count of new lines, takes you back to the newest ### Copying from the log Right-click a line, or hold a finger on it, and choose **Copy message**. The same menu replies to whoever said it, or looks at them ### /commands Every command you can use, with what it does. A word after it keeps only the ones with that word in them ### /stats Your numbers: level, experience, health, mana, gold, food, deaths, kills, skills and most cast spells ### /kills and /deaths The players you have killed, and what has killed you, newest first, with the level each fell at ### /rates The experience and training rate the world is running at, and how long any temporary rate has left ### /race Choose your race again at your next login ### /password Type /password and your new password to change it. Nobody else sees the line ## How things work ### Race Every character is an elf, a man, a dwarf or a hobbit, chosen when you first log in. Each people is good at something and pays for it somewhere else. **Man**: 10 hitpoints and 5 mana a level, and every skill learnt a tenth faster. **Elf**: 8 hitpoints but 7 mana a level, magic and ranged learnt a fifth faster, quieter than a man, and snow is no slower than grass underfoot. **Dwarf**: 12 hitpoints but only 4 mana a level, melee and shielding learnt a fifth faster. **Hobbit**: 8 hitpoints and 5 mana a level, ranged and fishing learnt a fifth faster, the quietest, and a meal lasts half as long again. Every race is medium, an orc’s size. /race lets you choose again. A character with no race counts as a man until they choose ### Hitpoints What you can take before you fall: 100 at level 1, and more every level (see Race). You heal over time while you are fed. The bar over a creature is drawn bigger the tougher it is, so you can see what you are walking up to. While a potion is working, the pale stretch on your bar is the healing still to come ### Mana What spells cost. A level one has none; every level adds some (see Race). It comes back slowly while you are fed, faster as you level, but not in a protection zone. A mana potion puts some back over a few seconds ### Food You heal and get mana back only while fed. You do not eat by hand: whenever your stomach is empty, the bag eats a food for you. With nothing to eat you lose a hitpoint every 10 seconds, down to your last, except in a protection zone ### Potions Click one in your bag to drink it. A health potion heals and a mana potion restores mana, over a few seconds rather than at once ### Experience and levels Killing monsters earns experience, which floats up over your head. Everybody who hurt a monster gets its whole experience. Each level gives you more hitpoints, mana, speed and carrying capacity, and makes health and mana come back faster. The stats panel shows your XP rate an hour and how long the next level will take ### Skills Fist, melee, ranged, shielding, magic and fishing. Each is trained by using it: every swing, shot, blocked blow or catch. Magic is trained by spending mana. Higher skill makes your gear hit, block or catch better. See the Skills panel’s own help ### Spells A spell is cast by saying its words into the chat box, or by pressing its icon in the Spells panel, which lists every spell your mana can pay for, cheapest first. Hover or hold an icon for what it does. Green will go off, gold will go off but waste the mana, red will be refused, with the reason. Spells have cooldowns. Everyone near you hears the words. A spell that calls up a creature opens a list of the ones you can call; press the **☆** beside one to pin it to the top of that list, and the **★** to unpin it ### Fighting Your attack, defense and armor are on the stats panel. Every blow is rolled: it can do anything from a little to its most. Your **defense** — your shield’s block and your weapon’s parry — meets each blow first, but only the first two blows every two seconds, so a crowd gets past it. Your **armor** meets every blow after that. **Shots go past your defense** and meet your armor alone, and do not count among those two blows. A shield is armor as well as a block: its block, before skill, counts in your armor too. **Changing what is in your hands takes a moment**: a weapon just taken up swings no sooner than a second later, and a shield just raised blocks nothing for a second. The log says what hit you and with what ### Ranged weapons A bow or crossbow shoots your target from a distance, along a clear line: over water, but not through walls. Every shot uses an arrow or bolt from your bag, and with none you do not shoot. Shots miss more often while you are moving; stand still to shoot true. A shot goes past a monster’s defense and meets its armor alone, as shots at you meet only yours ### Cleave and reach A weapon marked **cleave** carries a killing blow on: whatever the blow had left over after the kill goes into the nearest monster within the weapon’s reach, where its armor and defense meet it as they would any blow, and if that kills it too the rest goes on again. It never goes into a person. A long weapon marked **reach** strikes that many tiles away along a clear line, thrust rather than shot ### Poison and other harm Some attacks poison, burn, slow or hold you. Poison bites every two seconds, a little less each time, and armor is no answer to it. The badge in the top left shows it, and your health bar turns green for what the poison will still take. Dying clears it ### Noise and sight Monsters notice you by what they hear and see. Your **clank**, on the stats panel, is how much noise you make; the less, the closer you can get before something notices you. A creature can only see you within its sight, and at night or underground that is short unless you carry a light ### Running away A monster follows you only so far before it gives up and wanders home, but while you keep hitting it, it keeps after you. Some monsters run when badly hurt ### The dark Under the ground, and above it at night, you see only what is lit and the tile or so round you. A torch held in your off hand lights the ground round you, and so does a light spell. A torch burns only while held in the dark, and the next one in your bag is lit when it gutters out. A light can be seen from as far as it reaches ### Day and night Above the ground, seven minutes of day, then three of night, the same for everybody ### Protection zones Safe ground, such as the starting village, towns and the ground round the world’s people. Nothing can be fought there, monsters cannot come in, and you never starve, but mana does not come back. The shield badge shows while you stand in one ### Where you start New characters wake in Hobbiton’s protection zone with a little gear, food and a potion, and that is where you come back after dying ### Logging back in You come back where you logged out, or on the nearest free tile ### Death Dying costs a tenth of your experience and of the practice under every skill, and every coin you carry spills where you fell. Now and then something else in your bag drops too. Your gear and everything else come back with you to the temple. Store what you value in the depot ### Fighting players Your stance says whom you may attack. Whoever you attack may fight back. Nobody may attack a player under half their level unless that player wears a skull. Attacking a player who is not protection zone locked and has not attacked you locks you: your eyes go red, and you cannot log out until the fight is over. Killing such a player puts a skull on you for a time, and a skull keeps you out of protection zones ### Bosses A boss is a monster played by an admin: its name is in the monsters’ colour and a look says it is a boss. Fight it as you would a monster ### Gear The best weapon, shield, armor, helm, cloak and belt in your bag are used for you, and outlined. Click a piece to use that one instead; click it again to go back to the best. Rings are worn only when you click them. Hover any item for what it does. The colour of the outline round an item says who made it, and its tooltip says what that adds ### Wear and tear Gear can break in use. When it does it is gone, and the next best thing in your bag takes over ### Weight Everything weighs something, counted in coins (cn), the weight of one gold coin. What you can carry grows with your level, and a belt adds more. The bag’s icon fills as you load it. Past the line it turns red and fills again from the bottom: you can carry up to twice as much, but you walk at half pace, though a horse is not slowed. When the red is full you can pick nothing more up ### Your bag Holds any number of kinds of thing, limited only by weight. Everything stacks ### Loot A monster sometimes leaves loot beside its body when it dies: gold and other things, picked up off the ground like anything else. A body lasts a few minutes, then rots away ### Shops Some of the world’s people keep shops: click them and choose Trade. They sell their wares and buy most things for a fifth of what they are worth. While a shop is open your bag shows what it pays for each pile ### Depot Storage boxes stand in several towns, and every box opens the same depot. Stand beside one and press the chest icon. It holds anything, as much as you like, and what is in it is safe when you die ### Market The market is open at every depot box, for trading with other players: list things from your depot at a price, or buy what others have listed. Unsold prices fall over time. Gold from sales waits to be collected ### Quests Many of the world’s people want something: ask them about what they talk about. A quest pays once per life, and dying lets you do it again. When somebody sends you somewhere, it is marked on your map ### Your map The map fills in as you explore and is kept with your character. Zoom out for the map of where you have been. Click into the black to walk there if there is a way ### Floors Stairs, ramps, ladders and holes take you up and down. Buildings show their roofs from outside, and lift them while you are inside. Use the floor chip to look up or down ### Somebody in your way Walk into another player standing still and they step aside. A monster smaller than you is pushed aside too; one your own size or bigger stands its ground. Walking into things pushes them and never crushes them ### Fishing Take a fishing rod in hand and it casts by itself at any fish you can see within a few tiles. Every catch trains fishing ### Dropped skulls A death leaves a skull where it happened, its eyes in the colour of whoever died ### Announcements Everyone online is told when a player enters or leaves the world, is slain, or advances a level