The Mapsworn Wiki

1. Getting Started

Mapsworn overlays a pixel-art fantasy world on the real world using your GPS location. You explore by physically walking (on a phone) or by click-to-move (on PC). You hunt monsters, gather resources, farm, claim territory with flags, found cities, and build kingdoms with friends.

1. Sign up with an email — you get a magic login link, no password.
2. Pick Phone or PC when prompted (see next section).
3. Your First Hunt starts by itself — three creatures appear beside you the moment the map loads. Tap one to fight.
4. Hunt monsters near you for Pages (XP) and loot.
5. Visit a Monk (in any city) to spend Pages + Food and level up.
6. Plant a flag to claim 500m of territory.
7. Found a city, then a kingdom, invite friends, and conquer the map.

2. Phone vs PC (Settler Mode)

Mapsworn is built for walking outside with a phone, but PC players are fully supported.

If GPS is unavailable or you're on desktop, the game shows a "Phone or PC?" picker. Pick PC, drop a pin anywhere on Earth (or search an address), and you play from there with click-to-move. If your account ever gets locked by a GPS misdetection, logging back in offers a one-click "switch to PC Settler mode" that unbans you.

3. Movement & GPS

• Your movement circle is ~600m. You can only act within it.
• Phone: walk and your hero follows your GPS. Tap the 🧭 button to re-lock GPS (e.g. after driving somewhere).
• Tap-to-move: tap inside your circle to walk there. This switches off GPS for the session.
• Drove somewhere? The game auto-refreshes GPS when you return to the app after 30s. Or tap 🧭.
• To go far, teleport via a flag or a bookmarked city (see §16).
• You can now see other players near you walk in real time — with their real class silhouette and equipped gear.

4. Combat

Tap a monster to engage. Combat is automatic — you trade hits every ~1.5s until one side dies. Hostile monsters within 30m auto-aggro you (but you get an 8-second grace period right after loading in, so you're never ambushed the instant the world paints).

• Damage = your attack (weapon + skills + spec) − enemy defense.
• Some monsters have behaviors: web (slows), heal, lifesteal, cast (ranged), death_dmg (hits you when it dies).
• On a kill you get Pages, gold, and a chance at loot / equipment.
• Drink a Potion from your inventory for +15 HP.
• Rest at a campfire (needs wood) to heal when out of combat.

If you die

Death is forgiving — you keep your level, all equipment, gold, and inventory. You only lose 3% of your current Pages, then instantly respawn at full HP where you fell with a few seconds of protection.

5. Leveling & the Monk

You don't auto-level. You collect Pages from kills, then visit a Monk in any city and spend Pages + Food to level up. Each level costs more Pages and more Food.

Every level grants +1 skill point. At level 10 you choose a specialization.

6. Skills

Spend skill points (1 per level) on passive skills. Re-spec is not free — choose wisely.

7. Specializations

At level 10 you pick one specialization. Each has 5 ranks and defines your playstyle — your hero also gets a distinct silhouette other players can see.

8. Equipment & Gear

Equip a weapon, shield, armor, and helm — your equipped gear shows on your hero sprite (and on other players' view of you). Gear drops from monsters or is bought at the Trade Post. Upgrade weapons at the Blacksmith (up to +5). Rarity: common uncommon rare epic legendary

9. Monster Bestiary

Monsters spawn procedurally near you. Passive ones (boar, stag, cat) won't attack first.

The world scales to you. Weak fodder always spawns (good for taming & easy Pages), but a share of nearby monsters track your level — so there's always a fair fight wherever you physically are. You can't out-travel the challenge in a GPS game, so it comes to you.

💀 Ancient Barrows are rare world dungeon-entrances (~1 per km²) that spawn on the open map. Their undead stand right on the real world — clear them for loot. Light one with a torch to awaken it.

10. Legendary Bosses

Rare wandering bosses. Boss Hour (00:00, 06:00, 12:00, 18:00 UTC, first 30 min) makes them spawn ~5× more often. There's no fixed boss location — walk around during the window. 100% equipment drop. Your pet will also sniff out nearby legendaries for you (see §11).

11. Relics & Rare Items

Three chases sit on top of the normal loot game. Each one is deliberately slow, and each one ends in something no amount of gold can buy.

🥚 Eggs — hatch it, or spend it

The Roc Nest and Dragon Lair dungeons guard eggs. Clear the boss and you have a good chance of walking out with one. An egg can be used exactly one of two ways, and choosing one means never having the other:

🏆 Monster Tokens — wear where you hunt

Kill one of the three great climate beasts and it leaves a token bearing its mark. Twelve tokens, handed to any Wandering Monk, buy that species' trophy helm:

Trophies are soulbound — they can never be sold, listed or traded, because a trophy you bought off someone else isn't a trophy. They render on your hero, so anyone who sees you knows which part of the world you hunt in. Once you own a species' helm, that species stops dropping tokens: the chase has an end.

⚒ Special Metals — the world decides what you can forge

Those same three beasts drop shards. Three shards and 500 gold weld a special metal into a weapon or a piece of armour at any Blacksmith. A metal does something different depending on where you put it:

Shards are tradeable and listable — that's the whole idea. Eggs and trophy tokens are not.

12. Pets & Taming

There is no "summon". You tame a wild animal: fight one, get it low, and land the killing blow — there's a chance it joins you as a pet. You can only have one pet at a time; a full stat/chance table:

Your pet trails you and fights alongside you, and it shares in your Page XP. Train it at the Pet Trainer in any city: Feed (5 food → +20 pet XP), Heal (1 potion), and Boost Attack (gold + leather → permanent +1 atk). Want a different species? Release your pet at the trainer and tame a new one.

Pet Specializations

Once your pet levels up you can pick a spec: Brawler (+3 atk), Guardian (+15 HP), or Tracker (scouts farther and earns more pet XP).

13. Mounts

Buy at the Stable. Mounts extend your movement range and show on your hero sprite.

14. Farming

Grow your own Food and Pages instead of only hunting for them.

1. Buy a Berry Seed (40g) from the Provisioner in any city.
2. Plant it on the map where you're standing (+10 Pages on planting).
3. It grows: sprout (≈30 min) → sapling, which you tend 3 times (≈20 min apart, +10 Pages each) → a ripe berry tree.
4. Harvest for +8 Food and +15 Pages. It regrows ~60 min after each harvest, so a planted tree is a renewable food source.

You can keep up to 30 crops planted at once. Crops belong to you and persist on the map.

15. Water Hunting

Lakes and seas are prime hunting grounds. Craft or buy a Buoy, then place it from your inventory onto water. The area (~120m) around a buoy becomes open water:

• No trees spawn there — clear line of sight.
• Monsters spawn in packs (2–3 at a time instead of singles) — far more kills and Pages per trip.

Drop buoys along a shoreline or across a lake to build a dense hunting run. (Rafts, bought at a city, also add +400m range for crossing water.)

16. Flags & Territory

Plant a flag (costs 3 leather + 3 wood) to claim a 500m territory radius. Flags are permanently yours and persist even when you walk away.

• Name your flags — tap a flag → Name This Flag. The name shows on the map and in your My Bases list (great for managing a big territory).
• Harden a flag with stone so rivals can't easily destroy it.
• Roc Shrine upgrade → teleporting to that flag is free (no feathers).
• Guard Tower upgrade → auto-attacks foreigners attacking your flag.
• Flag states: Open → Hub → Sealed → Black Flag (PvP zone). Cycle a flag through them to control access.

Chain flags into lines, loops, or a wall to carve out a hunting network. Rival players can attack and seize unhardened flags, so fortify your frontier.

17. Teleporting & Travel

Getting around fast:

• Flags: tap one of your flags → Teleport. Costs 2 Roc Feathers (free with a Roc Shrine). Feathers drop from manticores, eagles, and the Roc Nest dungeon.
• Manor: tap your manor → teleport home + full heal, free, anytime (see §25).
• Visited cities (bookmarks): stand in any city's center — your own, another player's, or an ancient NPC city — and it's saved to your My Bases list. Teleport back to it later for 2 feathers. This is how you reach a good trade hub across the map.
• Summon a friend: from your Friends panel, invite an online friend to travel to you — they get a one-tap accept and pay 2 feathers to appear at your side. Great for teaming up despite living in different towns.

The My Bases panel lists all your cities, flags, and bookmarked cities with one-tap teleport, plus a Share Map button that renders a parchment map of your realm.

18. Cities

Found a city for 5,000g + 50 wood + 50 stone. Must be 1.5km from any other city. A city is a 600m hub with a trade post, dungeons, and ~25 services. New players get an auto-seeded ancient city (Ashenvale, Brimstead, etc.) spawned near them so there's always a hub within reach.

19. City Services (full list)

Tap a city to open its menu. Everything available:

20. Building Interiors

Some buildings are more than a menu. Enter a Tavern, Trade Post, or Castle and you step into a walk-around pixel interior — a room you move through, where you can see other players who are inside at the same time. It's the social heart of a busy city.

21. Dungeons

Instanced wave-based runs. Need 1 torch + the level requirement + a weekly cooldown per dungeon. Bigger dungeons = bigger rewards.

22. Kingdoms

⚑ The Wanderers' Compact — you already belong to one

Every new adventurer is sworn into the Wanderers' Compact the moment they sign up. It is a real kingdom in the ways that matter socially — a roster of everyone new in the realm, and /g chat that reaches all of them at once — and deliberately thin in every other way: its bank is a one-way vault, it raises no stronghold, plants no outposts, and declares no wars. You can leave any time, and you leave automatically the moment you found your own kingdom or accept an invitation to a real one. It exists so nobody's first hour is spent alone.

Founding a real kingdom

Found a kingdom for 10,000g + 100 brick + 100 stone + 100 wood (level 5+, must be 5km from any other kingdom). A kingdom is a player faction with a shared bank and members.

• Invite-only membership. There's no self-join — a member invites you. Open your Friends panel while your friend is online and tap the ⚑ Kingdom button; they get a one-tap accept and join your banner. (This also keeps strangers from joining and raiding your bank.)
• Shared bank: deposit/withdraw gold, food, wood, leather, stone, brick — pool resources for big builds.
• 🏰 Kingdom Stronghold: the whole kingdom builds one great keep together, paid for out of the shared bank. 5 tiers — Keep Foundation → Stone Keep → Fortified Hold → Great Castle → Grand Citadel — each costing escalating gold + stone/brick. Every tier grants all members +3% Pages (up to +15% at the Grand Citadel), and your Stronghold tier is your kingdom's prestige. Any member can contribute toward the next tier from the KING menu.
• Outposts: drop an outpost from the Kingdom menu to stake and expand your borders.
• Travel together: members can teleport to each other's cities.
• Build city walls to defend territory. Scheduled kingdom-vs-kingdom war is on the roadmap.

23. Friends, Parties & Tutors

Friends

Add friends with /add name in chat, or from the Friends panel. From there you can PM, invite to a party, invite to your kingdom, and summon them to your location.

Hunting Parties

Invite up to 4 players to a party (from the Friends panel or by tapping a player). While a party member is within 200m of you, everyone earns +15% Pages. Use /p for party chat and /leave to exit. Parties dissolve when everyone disconnects.

Tutors & Referrals

At level 10+ you can volunteer as a tutor (a checkbox in the Friends panel). New players who finish the tutorial are automatically paired with a tutor — both get a mail intro so the newcomer has someone to ask for help. Share your referral code to earn gold per friend who uses it, plus milestone titles (Herald → Kingdom Herald → Legend-Bringer).

24. The Living World

Mapsworn is played on the real planet, so the nearest other player is often hundreds of kilometres away. Several systems exist purely so the world never feels abandoned — and none of them fake a human being. Everything below is either a real player's real work, or is clearly labelled as not a player.

👻 Ghosts

Translucent blue figures drift near territory that real players have claimed. Hover one and it names them — Ghost of Asmodyr — and tapping tells you what they claimed and how long ago. They are echoes of genuine claims, never a live person, and never you.

🧭 The nearest wanderer

A blue compass sits on the right edge of your screen pointing to your nearest recently-active fellow player, with the live distance. Tap it to pan the map to their territory. It only ever uses public things — their flags and cities — never anyone's live position, and coordinates are rounded before they leave the server. If somebody is close enough to simply meet, the compass steps out of the way.

⚔ Wandering Adventurers

Named NPC heroes walk the roads — Torvald the Wayfarer, Maera of the Long Road, and a good many others. Tap one for a word of advice or lore. They move on each hour. They are NPCs and say so; nothing in Mapsworn will ever pretend to be a player.

🌍 Distant works & world news

Cities, kingdom castles and notable flags from across the whole realm appear as light markers, so panning the map shows you a populated world rather than an empty one. Meanwhile the strip under your HUD carries the newest thing anyone said or did — a settlement founded, a war declared, a legendary slain. Tap it to open chat.

25. Crafting & Resources

26. World Events

Global, scheduled, same for everyone. The buff strip (bottom-left) shows active events and a countdown to the next. Tap a chip for details.

27. Manor

Build a personal manor (200g + 50 wood + 30 stone) at your location. Tap it on the map to teleport home + full heal, free, anytime. It also has a storage chest to stash items separately from your main inventory. One manor per player — raze it to move it.

28. Trade Post & Economy

Every city has a Trade Post — the player-driven economy. Travel to a well-stocked one via a city bookmark (§16).

🌍 The World Market

Open any trade post and tap WORLD MARKET to see every listing in the realm at once, each labelled with the city it sits in. You can buy from anywhere on Earth — the goods arrive with you and the gold goes to the seller's escrow, wherever they are. Selling and bidding stay local: you must stand at the trade post to list an item or place a bid.

• List any item for sale at a gold (and/or food) price. Buyers pay a 10% tax on top.
• Buy now instantly, or place a bid on a 24-hour auction listing.
• Receipt / cancel: retrieve one of your own unsold listings to get the items back — unless an auction bid has already landed on it.
• Escrow: your sale proceeds are held safely — collect them from any city menu (Collect Sale Proceeds).
• NPC "Quartermaster" listings seed every city with starter gear so there's always something to buy.

29. Notifications & Settings

The corner pop-ups (loot, combat, tips, etc.) can be tuned to taste in Settings → Pop-Up Notifications. Toggle each category on or off:

• 💰 Loot & pickups · ⚔ Combat hits · ℹ️ System & tips · ✨ Achievements & buffs · ⚠ Warnings

On mobile, Loot and Combat start off to keep the screen calm during grinding; on PC everything starts on. Level-ups and invites always show, no matter your settings. Other Settings options: rename your hero (once), mute audio, replay the tutorial, show a login link for another device, upload a screenshot to the dev, log out, or delete your account.

30. Anti-Cheat Rules

• GPS spoofing (fake-location apps) is detected by impossible movement speed. Repeat offenses → strikes → ban.
• PC Settler players are exempt from the speed check (they use click-to-move by design).
• You get a friendly warning before any enforcement. Legitimate GPS jitter won't ban you.
• Founding cities/kingdoms requires a stable position (anti-teleport) — PC Settlers are exempt.
• Caught spoofing in-game → in-game ban → Discord ban. Don't risk it.

31. FAQ

Is it free?

Yes, completely. No pay-to-win, no loot boxes. Optional Patreon supports the solo dev + servers (cosmetic perks only).

Do I need to download anything?

No — it runs in your browser. Add it to your home screen for an app-like experience.

Will there be a wipe?

No. Never. Bug-lost progress is restored manually.

Does it sell my location?

No. Location is used only to render the game world. Never sold, shared, or logged beyond gameplay state. Privacy policy.

Can I play with a friend?

Yes — add them as a friend, then summon them to you, form a hunting party (+15% Pages together), or invite them into your kingdom. You'll see each other walk around in real time with your real gear.

My PC and phone show different progress.

Hard-refresh both. The sync is server-authoritative; the device with the most progress wins and the other pulls it.

Where do I get help?

The Discord — #bug-reports and #suggestions. The dev ships fixes within hours.