PK Basics

Everything you click has an “info” option.  Read it.  Monsters tell you how to kill them, items tell you what they’re good for.  Click Everything.  Read Everything.

The most confusing thing for new players is the circle you can't get out of.  This is always true - you will always be in a circle and you can't ever walk past its boundaries.  The way you get around in pk is by jumping to something (a flag, a building, somewhere in your travel list, etc.) and this puts you into a new circle to walk around in.  If you want to get out of that circle you'll have to visit (jump to) someplace else and be in a new circle.

First of all, you’re going to want to make yourself a territory and put your house in it.  You want as much land as you can grab for this, so try not to build near anyone else’s area.  One of the best ways to make sure you’re out in the open is to call your dog to hunt.  Call your dog using the whistle in your items then tell him to walk, or click the "Find Open Land" option in your travel list.  He’ll take you to empty land.  If he can't find any, use your city ticket (in items) then travel as far to the edge of the city as you can, visiting the farthest black (city) flag you can see, repeat until you can't go any farther out, then walk your dog again.  If you still can't get to open land, ask someone in Help Chat to invite you somewhere empty in your state.  Once you're in open land build your cabin.  Then build a territory around it.

You create a territory by planting flags.  In order to plant flags you’ll need leather and wood.  You should have some already, but pretty soon you’ll need to get some more.  So find an empty spot, menu -> create -> build -> flag.  Then walk out to the edge of it, not in the colored area and not next to any trees or anything, and plant another.  Sometimes it’ll tell you there’s something too close even though you can’t see anything.  That means it’s out on the other side of the circle where you can’t see it.  Just move to the side a bit and try again.  Then click the flag and “visit” it.  Now you’re in your new circle.  Keep doing this.  Somewhere in the middle of your territory, build your house.  If you don’t, you won’t have any way to get back to that territory again.  (You’ll have other ways later, but that’s a long way off.  Weeks.)

Let me repeat that: you can't get back to any flag you build right now, unless you can see it!  You can get back to your house, your city if you join one, the nearest trade hub, and any city you visit.  And your kingdom if you join one.  But if you travel out into the wilderness and put a flag out there, you won't ever get back to it again.  Accept that and move on.

Flags (and buildings and mines) have 3 states: normal (which is the default), private, and public. Private means only you can use them for travel EVER (and for mines it means only you can mine them).  Normal means they can be used by anyone you've granted passage to (and you set their individual passage costs in your items).  Public means they can be used by anyone who isn't set as your enemy (and you set public passage costs in your items also).  Set your house, and the flags around it, as PRIVATE.  And when you have enough stone, start "hardening" those flags.  Hardened flags are harder to burn.  If they can't travel to your house easily, it's less likely to be attacked.

Your next task is to start leveling up as fast as you can.  You do this by earning experience, and then you have to spend food to buy the upgrade.  DO NOT spend food on ANYTHING else just yet.  You don’t need anything else that costs food until you’re level 5 (except a purse).  So to gain experience (and gold) you want to kill anything you see, gather anything you see, chop anything you see except ferns.  Feel free to back off from something and stand by a mourning tree to heal.  Or eat a berry if there are no trees nearby.

You’ll want to have one sword, one spear, one shield, and one breastplate.  Dump anything else for gold.  You’ll also want a bow, but you can't use it until you have archery skill, and you can't just find a bow - you'll have to craft or buy one.  Don’t forget to EQUIP your stuff.  Equip your sword, your bow, your breastplate, and your shield.  (You don’t have all of those yet, but as you kill monsters that carry them, they’ll drop them for you, except the bow.)  Change from equipping sword to spear if the monster is killed better that way.  You'll probably stop using the spear as you get stronger, but it's a good starter weapon for certain monsters.

One of the level bars (the brown one) is the weight you’re carrying and the total you can carry.  This is controlled by backpacks.  Keep any of those you pick up.  I carry over 500 of them, each upgraded once.  Also keep wood, leather, berries, sap, larva meat, stone, and iron if you have backpack room for them.  Pretty much everything else you can dump for gold right now.  Use the gold to upgrade your weapons and armor.  Later on you'll sell things and make more gold or to get food, but for now focus on upgrading.

The weapons and armor have two numbers.  A repair percent, and an upgrade level.  As you use a weapon its repair percent goes down.  Eventually you’ll have to repair it.  You do this with resin, which you craft from fern sap and larva meat.  The upgrade level is something you do with gold.  BUT it costs less to upgrade a weapon if it isn’t repaired, so always try to do that first.  Repair after..

GET A PURSE!!!  When you die, you'll lose 10% of the gold you're carrying... and new players die a lot.  A purse allows you to protect a certain amount of gold from this (the amount depends on the upgrade level of the purse).  It costs food to upgrade your purse so that it protects more gold.  Since you don't have much food to start out, and you're not going to make much gold right away, don't upgrade your purse past what you actually need to protect.  How much for each level?  Read the info on the purse!

That should be enough to get you going.  When you're ready for more advanced concepts, please read the other posts I've written here.

Have fun!