Follow first steps
The translucent task card teaches controls first, then reveals the objective trail.
Welcome, wanderer
A field guide to a world that remembers.
Learn the controls, find what each region offers, turn timber and ore into a proper expedition kit, and make a shared wilderness feel a little more like home.
01
First daylight
Your first ten minutes
Find timber
Hold left click on a tree. One oak log becomes four sticks in the craft grid.
Follow the seams
Remove a natural surface first, then follow any coloured seam exposed beneath it.
Prepare for dark
Put food on the hotbar and make armour before treating the night casually.
Guest or account?
Guests can set out immediately but keep nothing after disconnecting. A signed-in character keeps its inventory, equipment, position, and progress on that server. Each world has a separate version of your character.
02
Hands on the world
Controls
W A S DMove
ShiftSprint (spends stamina)
SpaceDodge roll
Shift + ←/→Turn the camera west or east
Left clickSwipe through the region toward the pointer
Hold left clickMine, chop, or fish
Right clickPlace a block or open a chest
KOpen the Wayfinder paths (skill tree)
Mouse wheelMove the hotbar selection
1–8Select a hotbar slot
F / right clickUse selected food, flask, or knapsack
HCall a rune heist
GSet the rune down for somebody else
Shift + clickQuick-move an item stack
E / COpen pack / crafting
QDrop the selected stack
EnterChat
EscapeWorld menu and settings
RRespawn after death
TouchOn-screen controls in portrait or landscape
A new browser starts with a short guide in the task corner: one instruction at a time, cleared by doing the thing rather than by clicking anything. The later objective card replaces it after seven steps. It is translucent until hovered, shows touch equivalents on a phone, and can be turned off or restarted under Escape.
A quick left click swings, even when the workable tile under the pointer is out of reach. Holding the same button over a reachable tile commits to mining or fishing. Stay near the target until the progress bar finishes. Press Escape for audio, screen shake, camera heading, optional Ultra WebGL graphics, fullscreen, the field guide, or to leave the world. Shift plus a horizontal arrow turns the view west or east by 90 degrees with a short eased transition. Characters and standing scenery remain upright, and movement stays relative to the screen. Ultra adds directional relief, crisp cavity depth, soft bloom, weather-aware colour, canopy dapple, atmospheric haze, and layered moving water sparkle, with a safe fallback when WebGL is unavailable. Blows landing out in the world fade with distance and go silent about a screen away; your own steps, swings and menu clicks stay at full volume. On phones and tablets, drag the left stick to move, tap or hold the world to act precisely, and use the labelled action buttons for roll, use, inventory, crafting, chat, and the menu. Portrait works even with rotation lock; tap the centre prompt to begin.
03
Read the landscape
Explore the world
Meadow
Open green ground, deciduous trees, timber, and early iron.
Grove
Denser woodland with plentiful trees and early iron.
Steppe
Drier grassland, sparse trees, and long sight lines.
Fen
Spruce country with iron and the first blue azurite seams.
Beach
Sandy shores, useful metals, and access to open water.
Autumn
Low woodland of leaf litter, the thickest trees anywhere, and every gem in the game. Dark enough under the canopy that things stay out in daylight.
Snow
Ice fields above the treeline. Thin, sparse, and quiet.
Water
Wadeable past the visible shoreline at a fraction of walking pace, and a fishing ground.
Deep water
The darker blue further out. Too deep to stand in — there is no swimming yet.
Mining layers
A tree, harvestable plant, or placed block comes down first, then the natural surface, then any ore seam revealed in the rock. Soil, sand, snow, leaf litter, and volcanic crust all conceal what lies below. Chopped trees fall and leave a stump until its tile is dug or built over. Boulders occupy one tile. Spades work soil, pickaxes work ore, axes work trees, and smashing tools work placed blocks. Water cannot be mined at either depth, but it can be bridged. Cabins occasionally stand in open country; enter through the doorway and the roof lifts from view to reveal a one-room interior with a stocked chest by the wall. Supplies rather than treasure, and only the first person there gets them.
Shared skies
Everyone in a world sees the same time and rain. Rain falls as angled blue wayfinder shards that travel through the scene and open into angular ripples where they land. Wind crosses the map in long gusts, so trees and field plants lean together and lean harder in a shower. Night shortens sight. Clear daylight harms many exposed creatures, but sheltered and armoured threats can remain, so dawn is an advantage rather than a promise.
Watch for local wildlife
Meadows and grasslands carry farm animals and horses, while wet ground and shores attract ducks, geese, frogs, and bees. Capybaras stay in lake shallows and leave a wake as they swim. Wonderune's crests, belts, fern backs, wing shapes, and reed-like silhouettes give every species its own look; they are visual styling rather than different abilities. They wander and shy away when startled. Get close and right-click to pet one; it will react and follow you for a while. Most wildlife can also be hunted with left-click attacks for shared food drops: livestock yields roast meat, birds yield eggs, and bees yield honeycomb. Frogs remain ambient. This is temporary trust, not permanent taming or breeding.
04
Recipe book
Crafting, equipment & storage
Right click to split a stack or place one ingredient. Click the output to craft. Extra ingredients block the recipe, and the finished item needs somewhere to fit. Shift-click quick-moves a whole stack between hotbar and pack, or between an open chest and your pack. Select a Firebrand after dark to cast a small pool of light around you.
You do not have to use the grid at all. The recipe book beside it shows every recipe with pictures of what it needs and how many of each you are carrying; Make builds one straight out of your pack and Make all builds as many as your materials and space allow.
Raw materials
| Make | Bring |
|---|---|
| 4 Sticks | 1 Oak Log |
| Iron Ingot | 1 Iron Ore |
| Gold Ingot | 1 Gold Ore |
| Azurite Ingot | 1 Azurite Ore |
| Diamond | 1 Diamond Ore |
Storage & wayfinding
| Make | Bring |
|---|---|
| Chest | 4 Oak Logs |
| Knapsack | 3 Oak Logs + 6 Sticks |
| Wayfinder Lantern | 2 Gold Ingots + 1 Diamond |
Tools & weapons
| Make | Bring |
|---|---|
| Sickle | 1 Iron Ingot + 1 Stick |
| Flint Spade | 1 Iron Ingot + 2 Sticks |
| Iron Sword | 2 Iron Ingots + 1 Stick |
| Machete | 2 Iron Ingots + 2 Sticks |
| Iron Axe | 3 Iron Ingots + 1 Stick |
| Iron Pickaxe | 3 Iron Ingots + 2 Sticks |
| Iron Hammer | 4 Iron Ingots + 2 Sticks |
| Iron Labrys | 5 Iron Ingots + 2 Sticks |
| Firebrand | 3 Sticks + 1 Coal Ore |
| Fishing Rod | 2 Sticks + 1 Iron Ingot + 1 Oak Log |
Armour
Iron, gold, and azurite sets use the same piece counts. Bronze armour is found.
| Make | Bring |
|---|---|
| Helmet | 5 matching ingots |
| Chestplate | 8 matching ingots |
| Leggings | 7 matching ingots |
| Boots | 4 matching ingots |
Advanced crafts
| Make | Bring |
|---|---|
| Flame Blade | 2 Azurite Ingots + 1 Diamond + 1 Stick |
| Gilded Crown | 3 Gold Ingots + 1 Ruby |
Tooltips show an item’s role, rarity, reach, protection, and durability.
Grow your backpack
Craft a knapsack, put it on the hotbar, select it, and press F or right click. Each one permanently opens another row until the pack is fully unlocked.
Store it in the world
Place a chest and right click it to open 18 shared slots. Public-world chests are communal, not private vaults.
Fish open water
Select the fishing rod at a shoreline and hold left click over the water until the progress bar completes.
05
Leave prepared
Combat & survival
Win the space around you
- A swipe strikes the region in front of you, so aim through a group rather than at one exact pixel.
- Enemy weapons move through their wind-up. Evade before the committed swing reaches its impact pose.
- Dodge for a brief safe window, then respect its recovery.
- A hit makes your Wayfarer recoil and flash; the grounded collapse means you are out.
- Nothing can be escaped at a walk. Sprinting and dodging spend stamina — run it flat and you are winded until it recovers, so leaving a fight is a decision.
- Fill all four armour slots and keep food selected before a hard encounter.
If you fall
Press R to respawn elsewhere with a fresh starter kit. Everything you carried or wore remains where you fell for a limited time. Objective progress survives, and a companion can guard or recover the shared pile.
| Threat | What to watch for |
|---|---|
| Mossling | Hops the last of the gap, so one step back does not clear it. Dangerous in a group, because a group does not arrive together. |
| Knocker | Shows a red lane and charges down it, aimed where you were standing. Step out of the lane; if it finds scenery instead, it is down for a moment. |
| Thornback | Cannot be staggered. Hitting it does not interrupt the swing, so roll rather than trade. |
| Wispkin | Darts to your flank the instant it strikes. It will not stand still and be traded with. |
| Cairn Warden | Guards the way it is facing — the blue arc. Blows into the arc barely scratch it. Get behind it. |
| Emberhart | Fights straight until its last third, then takes on a fire aura, moves faster, swings sooner, and gains a charge. Details in the spoiler guide below. |
Weapons, tools, and armour wear through use. Ground loot is shared and collected by walking over it; a full pack leaves the item where it lies.
06
Steal it, carry it, get it home
Rune heists
Press H to call a run in any world, alone or with friends. An unstable rune surfaces a good walk away and a marker appears in the corner list. Pick it up by standing on it — that is what starts the storm — and carry it back inside your camp before the clock runs out. Nothing about the world you already have changes: your holes, chests, pack and character are untouched before, during, and after.
Hands full
Whoever holds the rune cannot attack, moves slower than anything that hunts them, and cannot sprint. Dodging, mining and building all still work — bridging water or walling a gap is often the fastest way home.
Hand it around
Press G to set it down for somebody else. You cannot immediately take it back, so a pass is really a pass. A carrier who falls or leaves drops it where they stood — it is never lost.
It gathers on the rune
Waves arrive around the rune itself, larger each time and in worse company, and daylight does not call them off. Leave it lying in a field and you come back to whatever gathered there.
Your first run fixes that world’s camp where you were standing, and every future run extracts to it. Each rune you bring home pays everyone in the world — better for a longer storm — and adds another ring of posts around the camp, so the settlement grows with the runs you finish. Both the camp and the tally survive a restart. Only the clock ends a run: a party wipe is survivable, and losing costs you the run and nothing else.
07
A shared wilderness
Multiplayer & worlds
One world, one weather
Terrain edits, enemies, ground loot, chests, time, rain, and chat are shared.
Host a world
Where enabled, a registered account can name one world and invite anyone with a link. Wonderune+ members can keep five. Each has a separate character and pack.
Cooperate, don’t duel
There is no player-versus-player damage. Trade with ground drops, share storage, build routes, and recover each other’s gear.
Wonderune+ stays fair.
The optional pass is $2.99 USD monthly or $29.99 USD yearly. It adds four more hosted-world slots and the Wayfinder and Emberbound outfits—never damage, health, drops, quest rewards, or skill points. Extra worlds are kept if the pass ends. Visit the Wonderune+ shop.
08
Optional spoilers
The full objective chain
Reveal late-game regions and the final enemyNothing here exposes hidden coordinates or secret probabilities.+
Dig up 3 Iron Ore
Remove a natural surface and mine a seam once exposed.
Smelt 3 Iron Ingots
Put ore in the crafting grid and click the output.
Forge an Iron Axe
Use 3 Iron Ingots and 1 Stick.
Disperse 3 Mosslings
Aim a swipe through them and use the dodge roll.
Wear a full set of armour
Fill the head, chest, legs, and feet slots.
Find Azurite
Search blue seams in the autumn woods or the fen.
Bring down a Knocker
Find the copper mask and upgrade your equipment.
Bring down 2 Thornbacks
Range beyond the Knockers and wear your armour.
Slay the Emberhart
Craft and carry a Wayfinder Lantern.
Wayfinder paths
Every objective above pays one skill point, so a finished story is nine. Press K — or Paths on a phone — to spend them. Three branches of three, and a rung costs its own depth: one, two, then three. Filling the tree would take eighteen, so nine buys one whole branch and a little else, or the first two rungs of two. There is no way to take everything and no way to give a point back.
Hunter hits harder and loots more. Delver gets more out of the ground and keeps its gear. Warden takes less damage, carries two more hearts, and at its deepest rung stops death spilling your pack. The repeating bounties after the chain pay loot rather than points, so the number of points in the world is fixed.
Finding the volcano
The Emberhart lives in a volcano — a rare field of basalt where valuable seams remain hidden under the natural crust until you prospect for them. Craft a Wayfinder Lantern from 2 Gold Ingots and 1 Diamond. Carrying it adds the nearest volcano to the company readout as a coarse direction and distance, and widens your light for the journey.
After the Emberhart
The ending card clears after a few seconds and the objective panel begins a repeating circuit of Thornback, Knocker, and Wispkin bounties. Each contract pays out and resets before the next one begins.
09
When something won’t work
Quick answers
Why will mining not finish?
Stand closer, keep holding left click, and make inventory room. Water cannot be mined, and a tree or placed block may be the top layer.
Why does my recipe show no output?
Remove every extra item and match the exact counts above. Right click is the easy way to split a stack or place one ingredient.
Why can’t I place a block?
Select it on the hotbar, stand within reach, and right click an open tile. You cannot place beneath your own body, inside a tree, or through solid scenery.
Where did my character go?
Check whether you joined as a guest, changed servers, or selected another world. Accounts are server-local and each world has a separate character.