HOW TO PLAY
Start here
VOXEL runs in the browser. Nothing to download, nothing to install. Press Play, connect a Cardano wallet, and you are in.
You can also spectate without a wallet — you will see the map, the day turning to night and everyone playing. You just cannot move or pick anything up.
Moving around
| Key | Does |
|---|---|
| WASD | Walk. Arrows work too. |
| Left click | Walk to where you clicked, pathing round obstacles. |
| Scroll | Zoom in and out. + − 0 also work. |
| E | Do the thing in front of you — fish, chop, mine, catch, cook, farm, shop, travel. The prompt above the bar says which. |
| Seed & bait slots | On your bar: click to change to the next one, or hover to pick from the list. The switch above the bait slot turns bait on and off. |
| OPEN | On the dailies panel: the journal — your bag, skills, daily quests, the collection book and events. |
| Your name | Top right: your profile — nickname, linking your X account, disconnecting your wallet. |
Your first hour
- Quick start: mushrooms and deliveries. Mushrooms sell for twice as much as herbs, and deliveries need no tool and pay the moment you hand the parcel in — the fastest gold on day one.
- Follow the starter quests. The gold panel at the top left walks you through gathering, selling, a delivery, planting and your first tool, and pays 1,100 gold on the way.
- Buy a tool. The market stall stands in the corner where the north and east roads meet. Press E beside it. An axe or a basket is sold from the start; the fishing rod, handcart, bug net, lantern and pass from level 3, the pickaxe from level 5.
- Gather. Foraging, felling and later fishing fill your bag with goods rather than paying you directly.
- Sell. Carry it back to the merchant. That is where gold comes from.
- Check your dailies. Three a day, each worth gold and skill experience — plus the Share on X daily.
The trades
Fishing — E beside water. Open water fishes a better table, but only with the Deep-Sea Rod (rod level 3). Some fish only bite after dark — the world has a full day every real hour, with night from a quarter past to a quarter to; the clock under your name counts down to it. Bait from the market makes rarer fish bite: hover the bait slot on your bar to pick a kind.
Felling — E beside a tree, with an axe. Six swings brings it down, fewer with a better axe. Damage is shared with anyone else working the same trunk, and whoever lands the last swing takes the timber.
Foraging — walk over herbs and mushrooms along the treeline. Glowcaps only sprout after dark, and only a Forager's Basket can carry them.
Courier — E at the depot on the east road, then carry the parcel to the marker. Pay scales with distance, and the next parcel is ready a few seconds after you hand one in.
Mining — E beside a rock, with a pickaxe (sold from level 5). A broken rock gives stone, sometimes coal, and now and then an amethyst, then lies as rubble until it regrows. The Stone Quarry is full of them, and richer in coal.
Farming — six plots in the south-east field of Meadowcross, your own. E plants a seed from the market, E again waters it, and it grows while you do other things: carrots in 30 minutes, potatoes in 2 hours, pumpkins in 6. Click the seed slot on your bar to change which seed you plant. Three plots are free; the other three are bought.
Cooking — E at the campfire west of the market. Turn fish, herbs, crops and coal into dishes that sell for about a third more than their ingredients. Better recipes open as your cooking level rises.
Bug catching — E to swing a bug net at a butterfly by day, or a firefly or moth at night. Rare ones slip away more often, and a miss scares any bug off.
The collection book — every fish and bug species you catch gets a page in the journal. Finish a set — all the rare fish, every night flyer — for a one-off gold reward.
Events — weekend contests with prizes: most fish landed, most rocks broken. A running event shows under your quest panel, with your rank.
The fruit machine — north-west of the crossroads, near the campfire. Pick a quick bet of 5 to 25 gold or type any amount you like. Over time it pays back about 60% of what goes in, and winnings never count toward your score or level. It is for fun, not for a living.
Leaving the map
Follow any road to the edge of the map. An arrow marks every way out. Stand on it and press E.
Each road opens at a level — 5, 10, 14, 19, 26 and 32. Levels come from your lifetime score, and each asks a little more than the last (level L needs 1,000 × L1.5): level 5 is 11,180, level 10 is 31,623. The first road out is a few days of play; the last, about a month. The way home is never gated.
Every day
Three quests, drawn fresh at midnight UTC, each paying gold and experience. The prize wheel in the middle of the crossroads turns free once every 24 hours, from your first day.
Share on X — 1,500 gold once a day. Link your X account (from your profile or the journal), repost the day's VOXEL tweet, post about $VOX, then press CHECK in the journal. The game finds both itself; press CHECK straight after posting, as only your five newest posts of the day are looked at.
DOCS
Account & identity
Your Cardano wallet address is your account. Connecting asks the wallet to sign a short message the server issued; that signature is the whole login. There is no password and no email.
Nickname, gold, score, bag, skills, tools, daily progress and which map you are standing on all save automatically. Click your name at the top right of the game to change your nickname, link your X account or disconnect your wallet.
Gold & score
Two different numbers, and it matters which is which.
| Gold | Score | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Spendable balance | Lifetime earnings |
| Goes up | When you earn | When you earn |
| Goes down | When you buy | Never |
| Used for | The market | Leaderboard, levels, map gates |
Because score never falls, buying gear can never cost you a level or a place on the board. Most activities pay in goods — wood, fish, herbs — which the merchant buys at a fixed price. Delivery fees, quest rewards, the Share on X daily and the wheel pay gold directly.
The daily limit. Merchant sales and delivery fees pay in full for the first stretch of each day, then at half, then a quarter, and stop once you reach your limit — 2,500 gold plus 100 for every 1,000 lifetime score, up to 6,000. Unsold goods keep for tomorrow. Dailies, Share on X and the wheel are never limited. Everything resets at midnight UTC.
Gold & $VOX
From level 2 you can offer gold for $VOX from the Bank button at the top right, once a day. Each UTC day releases a pool of 1,000,000 $VOX — and 2,500,000 $VOX on each of the first three days from launch. When the day ends, the whole pool is shared out by gold offered — offer 80,000 of the 100,000 gold asked for a 1,000,000 day and you get 800,000 $VOX — and your share lands in your $VOX balance automatically. Playing more wins you a bigger share, but the pool itself never gets bigger.
| $VOX supply | 1,000,000,000 |
|---|---|
| Play-to-earn | 40% — 1,000,000 $VOX a day (2,500,000 the first 3 days) |
| Liquidity | 15% |
| Treasury | 15% |
| Team (vested) | 15% |
| Community & rewards | 10% |
| Reserve | 5% |
Any amount of gold, one request a day; you can cancel it before the day ends and get the gold back. The Bank's Daily history tab shows each day's total gold, your own request and your share: your gold ÷ all gold requested that day × that day's pool. To get $VOX out, press Withdraw in the Bank: the team sends it by hand to the wallet you play with. A 4% burn tax comes off every withdrawal — 96% is sent and 4% is burned. A withdrawal that is turned down goes back into your balance.
Playing is free and always will be. Exchanging and withdrawing need a little $VOX already in the wallet you play with — the amount is shown in the Bank — which keeps the pool for players rather than for farms of throwaway wallets. Wallets caught farming lose the right to exchange.
Skills
Eight, each levelling on its own from the work you do. Levels raise what an activity yields — they never lock you out of one.
| Skill | Trained by |
|---|---|
| Woodcutting | Every axe swing; more for the one that fells |
| Fishing | Landing a fish |
| Foraging | Picking herbs, mushrooms and glowcaps |
| Courier | Deliveries and travel |
| Mining | Every pickaxe swing; more for the one that breaks the rock |
| Farming | Harvesting a plot |
| Cooking | Every dish cooked; opens the better recipes |
| Bug Catching | Every swing of the net; more for a catch |
Every eight levels adds a unit to what that trade brings in. Level 2 is 100 experience; level 50 a little over 110,000.
The market
The stall in Meadowcross both sells gear and buys what you gather. Your bag holds eight tools. Anything sells back for half of what you put into it, upgrades included.
| Item | Gold | Unlocks |
|---|---|---|
| Felling Axe | 4,000 | Chopping trees |
| Forager's Basket | 2,000 | Picking glowcaps |
| Fishing Rod | 1,000 | Casting at all (from level 3) |
| Handcart | 3,000 | Long-haul deliveries, better paid (from level 3) |
| Bug Net | 2,000 | Catching bugs (from level 3) |
| Pickaxe | 3,000 | Mining rocks (from level 5) |
| Lantern | 7,500 | Night lifts around you (from level 3) |
| Traveller's Pass | 10,000 | Every road asks a quarter fewer levels (from level 3) |
Seeds. Carrot (20g), potato (40g, level 2) and pumpkin (120g, level 4) seeds for your farm. They take no bag slot.
Fishing bait. Four kinds, in packs of 50 casts: earthworms (100 gold) are the all-rounder, mealworms (50) the cheap one for the shallows, waxworms (125) bring epic fish, and bloodworms (300) the legendaries and mythics of open water, best at night. Click the bait slot on your bar to change the kind, or hover it to pick one; the switch above the slot turns bait off. A cast uses bait whether the fish is landed or not, and bait takes no bag slot.
Skins. Everyone starts as the Red Fox. Other looks are sold in the market's Skins tab for gold (3,000–20,000, some from a higher level), the rarest being Goofy, pipe and all. They're cosmetic only, kept forever once bought, and free to switch between.
Upgrades. The rod, axe, basket, handcart, pickaxe and bug net each go up to level 5, one level at a time, for gold. Each level asks for a player level too.
| Tool | Levels 2 → 5 | What gets better |
|---|---|---|
| Axe | 5k · 9k · 15k · 24k | 6 → 2 swings a tree, up to +2 wood |
| Rod | 3k · 6k · 12k · 20k | Wider catch zone; open water at level 3; a chance of a second fish |
| Basket | 4k · 7k · 12k · 20k | Up to a sure second plant on every pick |
| Handcart | 5k · 9k · 14k · 22k | Far runs pay ×1.5 → ×2 |
| Pickaxe | 5k · 9k · 15k · 24k | 8 → 4 swings a rock, up to +2 stone, gem chance 1% → 4% |
| Bug Net | 4k · 8k · 13k · 20k | Reach 1.3 → 2.1 tiles, up to +20% catch chance |
Maps
| Map | Level | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Meadowcross | — | Where everyone starts. Market, courier, wheel. |
| Pine Hollow | 5 | Close forest, a road that wanders. |
| The Shallows | 10 | Islands and causeways. Deep water everywhere. |
| Stone Quarry | 14 | A flooded pit ringed by a haul road. |
| The Mire | 19 | Braided channels, easy to get lost in. |
| Ringwood | 26 | One lake, one ring road, a lot of forest. |
| The Divide | 32 | A river splitting the land. Two bridges. |
Multiplayer
Everyone on a map shares it. Forage and trees are one world — a herb somebody picks is gone for everyone, and a tree two people chop takes damage from both.
Players on different maps cannot see each other. The leaderboard shows the top five by lifetime score, and the counter above it is how many are actually playing.
FAQ
Do I need a wallet to look around?
No. Spectating needs nothing.
Why did my score stop moving while I was fishing?
Gathering fills your bag rather than paying you. Score moves when you sell.
Can I lose anything?
No. There is no combat and nothing to lose on any map.
Someone chopped the tree I was working on.
Damage is shared. Whoever lands the last swing takes it.
My bag is full.
Sell a tool back at the market for half to free the slot.