How to play Mythwild

Your first five minutes

1. Open the game. Press Play. There is nothing to install and no sign-up. You join as a guest in a world shared with up to 24 players.
2. Take the tour. Nine short cards show what the world has: vehicles, places, people, animals, fighting, levels and leaderboards. It takes about a minute, and you can skip it.
3. Make your character. The tour ends in the character creator. Pick a body, face, hair, clothes, shoes and colours, and see each change on yourself. Locked items can be tried on, so you know what to work towards. Open it again any time with ⇧O.
4. Get moving. Walk up to the nearest car and press E, or head for the Hall of Records, a short walk from where you start, to see the leaderboards on its walls.
5. Open the map. ⇧J shows the whole world and where you are in it. Pick a place and go.

Keyboard and mouse

A strip along the bottom of the game screen always lists the keys, so you do not need to learn these up front. ⇧ means hold Shift.

Moving

Animals and fighting

Powers, once earned

Races and other players

Menus

Phone and tablet

Turn the phone sideways. The game is built for landscape and fills the whole screen.

• Move by dragging on the left side of the screen. A stick appears under your thumb. Push further to run.
• The round button always says what it will do right now: Ride, Talk, Exit and so on.
• In a vehicle the button cluster turns into pedals.
• The ☰ menu holds everything else: the map, the garage, the shops, the wardrobe, goals and all 31 actions.
• Pin a favourite. Tap ☆ beside any action in the menu to put it on a quick button.
• Left-handed? Swap thumbs (🔁 in the menu) mirrors the whole layout and remembers it.
• For the whole screen on iPhone, use Share → Add to Home Screen and start the game from the new icon. On Android, Chrome offers to install it.

Game controller

Plug in or pair a standard gamepad and press any button. It walks, drives, fights and turns the camera. The prompts on screen change to show controller buttons for as long as it is the thing you are holding, and a controller lying untouched on the desk will not move you.

Where to go

• The city: roads, traffic and the Hall of Records, close to where you start.
• The big lake: jet skis, ducks, and the island where Nova lives.
• The savanna: elephants, giraffes, zebras, rhinos, hippos, crocodiles, and a lion's den to keep clear of.
• The forest and the World Tree: climb to its crown for the Rootcaller power.
• Stonehenge, a cave, a road tunnel and a 312 m suspension bridge.
• The race circuit (17 checkpoints) and the drag strip.
• Bruce's estate: a two-storey house, stables, paddock, pool and livestock. A family lives there on a daily cycle, and they will show you out after dark.
• Kaléa's bike park: ramps, rails and benches, and two acts of six challenges.
• The Alps and the Summit: a climbable range, opened with the Wanderer's climbing gear.
• The Hollow: a hostile valley with its own enemies and two bosses, the Warden and the Hollow King.
• The Rift: two hidden realms, the Sky-Realm and the Underworld. No flight, no healing, extra jumps, and a fall is fatal. You will have to find the way in.
• The Arena: a portal opens now and then for two minutes. Step through for a fighting world with four classes (blaster, cannon, guardian and mender), its own shop and seven badges.

Every landmark you reach is written into your logbook (J), and counts towards your level.

People and their challenges

Walk up to someone and press E, or Talk on a phone. Each of them has challenges that pay credits.

• Bruce runs Bruce's Mod Shop, where cars get tuned and styled, and owns the estate.
• Reneé keeps the horses and sets a five-challenge riding arc.
• Kaléa runs the bike park, two acts of tricks, and rides it better than you do.
• Wick the Bootwright makes running shoes over five foot races. His last pair gives super speed.
• Tao-Shan builds off-road rigs at Tao-Shan's Off-Road.
• Walt fishes the north pond. Nova runs the island with her dog Biscuit.
• The Wanderer asks four riddles, and gives the climbing gear that opens the Summit.
• The Lion-Man, the Sun-Chief and the Mayan chief have stories and powers of their own.

Vehicles and mounts

Thirty-two kinds, each with its own body, handling and engine sound. Walk up to one and press E. Cars you own can be called from the garage (N).

• Car
• Sports Car
• Supercar
• Exotic
• Hypercar
• F1
• Classic F1
• GT3
• Rally Car
• Drift Machine
• Track Monster
• Top Fuel Dragster
• Baja Trophy Truck
• Bighorn 4x4
• Survival SUV
• Monster Truck
• Mega Truck
• Avalanche
• Landslide
• Battle Buggy
• Hover Tank
• Quarry Hauler
• School Bus
• Backhoe Loader
• Mountain Bike
• Kaléa's Stunt Bike
• Bicycle
• Stunt Scooter
• Skateboard
• Roller Skates
• Hoverboard
• Wave-Jet

Mounts: horses, including Bluey the black mare, the unicorn, and a dragon for those who beat one. Wings, gliding and a parachute get you off high places. An alien warp and the Bifröst get you across the world.

Animals

Twenty-eight kinds, each with its own behaviour. Feed them with F and pet the tame ones with ⇧F. Keep your distance from bears and lions. Each kind you meet fills a page of your bestiary (B).

• Rabbit
• Deer
• Boar
• Fox
• Bear
• Wolf
• Goat
• Duck
• Cow
• Horse
• Sheep
• Cat
• Dog
• Chicken
• Elephant
• Giraffe
• Rhino
• Zebra
• Hippo
• Crocodile
• Lion
• Marmot
• Ibex
• Snow leopard
• Chamois
• Alpine hare
• Red stag
• Yak

Weapons, powers and bosses

Fifteen weapons

Each one has its own signature move. Draw with Q, attack with a left click.

• Rusty Sword
• Iron Sword
• Cipher Blade
• Champion's Edge
• Hunter's Fang
• Starcleaver
• Stormlord
• Worldender
• Mjölnir
• Astral Bow
• Leviathan Axe
• Hollowbrand
• Gravewarden
• Leviathan Fang
• Dawnbringer

Powers

• Super speed: 72 seconds at a sprint no car can hold, on a two-minute cooldown.
• The Rootcaller: roots bind up to five targets in a cone in front of you.
• The power blast: hold to charge, release to fire.
• Shape-shifting: twelve forms, from a rabbit or a bear to a ghost, a slime or a dragon.
• Flight, gliding and a parachute.

Bosses

The Warden and the Hollow King in the Hollow, the lion in its den, the Yeti, the Shark, Bigfoot, and Níðhöggr: a world-event dragon with layers of armour that everyone in your world can fight at once and share the hoard of.

Levels, tracks and leaderboards

Your level comes from what you have done, across ten completion tracks:

Levels bring titles, more health and new characters to play, from the Robot at level 6 to the Mythwild Titan at 50. Goals (G) shows what is left.

The leaderboards (⇧L) rank fastest laps, longest glides, the deepest Arena wave, quickest boss kills and more, and Overall ranks everyone across all of them. The top places earn rewards every day.

Playing with friends

• Invite a friend with ⇧I, or from the menu on a phone. The link puts them in your world if it has room; if it has just filled, they join another one.
• Race: press R at the circuit's start line to open a race, and other players get an invite they can accept with Y or a tap. At the drag strip, R stages a drag race, and if nobody takes you on, an AI driver does.
• Foot duels: walk up to a player and press ⇧R for a sprint down the drag strip. Wins go on a leaderboard.
• Chat with Enter. Anyone can be reported from the chat, and bad language is filtered.

Tips

• Nearly everything counts towards your level, so it is worth trying a bit of everything early.
• Talk to everybody. Each character's first challenge is an easy one, and they pay.
• Your progress saves as a guest on this device. Make an account from the menu to carry it to another device.
• If the game feels slow on an older phone, it lowers its own detail after a few seconds. Closing other tabs helps too.
• Watch for the Arena portal's glow. It only stays open for two minutes.