Play together

One village, however many of you there are.

A world is one shared save. The village, the warehouse and the research belong to everyone in it, and the Zips belong to whoever raised them. Every shared rule is written over the members a world actually has, so none of it needs a second player.

Start a world

It plays the same on your own.

On your own

Solo is a way to play, not a smaller one.

Most people arrive without anyone to bring. Nothing here is waiting for a second player, and nothing is switched off when there is only one of you.

Places are one pool

How many Zips the village keeps in play comes from the Den's level. How many watch posts it holds comes from the Wall's. Both are one pool that grows with every member, and anybody's Zip may take any free place in it, so a busy world has more room rather than thinner shares and a world of one is never short of it.

Every rule reads the members you have

A streak day is credited when enough of the world's members have been active that day: everyone in a world of one or two, and one absence forgiven for every three members after that. A prestige fires once every current member has armed it. With one member, that is you, and both rules read exactly the same.

A lost wave costs per owner

When poachers win, the roll to carry a Zip off is made per owner and capped at one each. A larger world does not get off lighter per person, and nobody is charged extra for playing alone.

Start alone, open it up later

Every world carries an eight character join code. Hand it over on the first day, on the fortieth, or never. A world currently takes a small group while the balance is being tuned, which is a temporary ceiling that will be raised. Whoever joins picks their own starter, the wave grows with what they own, and the village they walk into is the one you built.

One save

What the world owns, and what you own.

The line is drawn once and it does not move. Everything the village is made of is shared. Everything a Zip is belongs to the person who raised it.

Shared by the world

One of each, for all of you.

The village, and every building standing in it
The warehouse, and the wood, stone and silver inside it
The Den's places, the watch posts, and the Yard's benches and beds, one pool between all of you
The build queue and the item stores
Academy research, done once and held by everyone
The Temple, its favor, and the god being worshipped
The map, with its poacher camps, resource nodes, shrines, merchants and wild Zips
The wave clock, the daily streak, the shared board and the village's prestige level

Yours alone

One set each, per member.

Your Zips, with their levels, natures, moods and loyalty
Your starter, picked from the same five everybody in the world is offered
Your Zipdeck, filled in by what you have seen and caught, and open for anyone else in the world to read
Which of your Zips the Sanctuary shelters through a prestige
Whether anybody else may use your Zips at all

One building, one pool

The Den and the Wall are built once and paid for once, and what they hold is one pool the whole village spends. It grows with every member who joins, so nobody is squeezed by somebody else arriving, and which Zips are in play and which are standing watch becomes something you decide together rather than each on your own.

Trust, written into the rules

Pool for defense. Never for risk.

The watch belongs to the village, so anyone in the world may help stand it. The road out of the village can cost a Zip, so nobody but its owner decides that it gets walked.

Who may move whose Zips

Rest a Zip in the Den
Any member
Stand a Zip on watch
Its owner, and anybody at all once it is shared
Put a Zip back in the Zipbox
Any member
March a Zip out of the village
Its owner, and anybody at all once it is shared
Share a Zip, or take it back
Its owner, and nobody else

Using somebody's Zip can cost them it. A march can be ambushed on the road, and the Zips that go down are carried off to a poacher camp. That should never be a loss somebody else chose for you, so nothing you own is anybody else's to touch until you say so. Share a Zip and any member can do anything with it. Sharing is the one thing a co-manager cannot do on your behalf, because the entire point of it is that it is your call.

An empty watch never makes a wave smaller

A wave is sized against the strongest Zips each member owns, wherever those Zips happen to be, and it is fought only by the ones standing watch. Putting a roster away in the Zipbox does not shrink what is coming, it only leaves fewer to answer it. That is exactly why anyone may stand anyone's Zip on watch: it risks nothing the wave was not going to cost anyway. The posts are one pool, so the village can stand its strongest Zips whoever raised them, while the size of the wave is still worked out member by member. Arranging the watch together can only make you stronger, and it never makes the wave bigger.

Different hours, same village

Nobody has to be online at the same time.

Waves land on a timer, the game resolves them, and you read what happened when you next open the world. Sharing a village does not mean sharing an evening.

1
Away for an evening
The wave lands on its own clock, somewhere between three and five hours after the last one. Near enough to plan around, never so exact that you can set a timer by it. Resources accrue up to the warehouse ceiling, the build queue finishes on time, and the battle report is waiting with every turn of the fight in it.
2
Away for a week
Nothing pauses. The village keeps being attacked, because a wave is the game happening whether or not you are watching. Notifications tell you when a wave resolved, a march came home or a building finished.
3
Away for a fortnight
Once nobody at all has shown up for two weeks, the world goes to sleep. It stops being simulated, and nothing happens to it, because there is nobody there for it to happen to.
4
Back again
The first member to open it wakes it, and waking rebases the clocks rather than replaying them. A fortnight of missed waves is never fired at you in one batch. The world was not being attacked while it slept, so coming back never hands you a flattened village.

Being there is a bonus, never a requirement

If anyone is here when a wave lands, every defender on watch fights fifteen percent harder, the village loses half as much if it goes badly, and the poachers are half as likely to carry anyone off. That bonus is deliberately kept out of how the wave was sized, so turning up can only ever help. It is worth being there. It is never the price of playing.

Three things to hold together

The streak, the board, and getting a Zip back.

All three are written as goals for the world rather than for a person, and all three work perfectly well when the world is one person.

The daily streak

A streak day is credited when every current member has been active within the last twenty four hours. Not at the same moment, and not side by side. Anywhere inside the day is enough. Let a whole day pass and the count starts again at one.

Day 1Spark
Day 3Ember
Day 7Hearth
Day 14Bonfire
Day 30Everflame

Each tier pays production and build speed straight into the village, stacking with research, prestige and whichever god is being worshipped. Everflame holds at twenty percent more production for as long as you keep showing up.

Getting a Zip back

Lose an ambush and the Zips that went down are carried off to a holding camp on the map. That camp never expires. Nothing sweeps it up and nothing takes them further away, so the rescue is still there whenever you are ready for it. Any member of the world can march on the camp and free everyone held in it, and they come home to their owner's Den, back onto the watch post they were taken from if it is still open. A captive keeps its Den place the whole time it is held, so what comes back is the roster you arranged.

You are never left without a party to send. Poachers never take an owner below four Zips, because four is the first number that can reliably win the fight the capture just created. Clearing a holding camp advances nothing else in the world: getting your Zip back is the whole reward.

The shared board

Three things worth doing today and three worth doing this week, set for the village rather than for whoever is looking at it. Clear a camp, be home when a wave lands, bank a run down the Trail. Whoever does the thing ticks it off, and whoever gets there first can collect it for everyone.

It pays a purse sized against your warehouse, sometimes something for the bag, and once a week a day's lift on production for clearing the lot. A day's board is worth about a tenth of what the village makes on its own, which is deliberate: it is a reason to come back, not a reason to stop playing.

Claim a world. Bring somebody, or do not.

The village is the same either way, and so is every rule inside it.