Tavern & Tails presents

Fernwild

A seeded hall of arrows

She has a bow, a quiver that runs dry, and four stages between her and the Hollow One. Draft relics, learn five skills, and keep hunting after the story ends.

Play now How a run goes

A small free game, played in the browser.

The run

Clear the room. Choose what it leaves behind.

A stage is six seeded arenas and then something that fights back properly. Every cleared combat room offers one of three relics, or the coins instead, so the same layout becomes a different run each time you answer it.

  1. Take a seed

    Type a number or a shareable FW-XXXX-XXXX code. The seed is the whole layout, and the run book keeps it for next time.

  2. Clear and choose

    Doors stay shut until the room is empty. Then take one of three tiered relics, or take the coins and spend them at the pedlar.

  3. Shape the archer

    Kills and cleared rooms level the run. Spend those points on five cooldown skills, and open more relic slots as the level climbs.

  4. Beat the keeper

    Each stage ends on a boss and a shop. Four bosses finish the story; The Hollow One unlocks the run that keeps going.

What a run leaves behind is kept at the Hearth as embers — permanent head starts you buy once and keep.

A live Fernwild arena with the archer, enemies, relic HUD, skill chips, experience bar and the room counter.
A seeded arena with the run’s relics, skills and level on the HUD.

Builds

The room gives the run a shape

Relics change the bow, the quiver, the purse and what a kill leaves behind. Skills give the fight a button. Neither is bought before the run: one is earned room by room, the other levelled by playing well.

A relic draft offering Split Shaft, Quick Quiver and Second String, with the option to take coins instead.

After a cleared room

One of three

Choose a relic, deepen one you already own, or take coins for the pedlar. There are 31 relics, each with up to three tiers.

The relic loadout screen showing Fern’s worn relics, the relics on her bench and the next level that opens another hand.

What she carries

A build, not a pile

She starts with one relic slot, opens a second at level five and a third at level ten. Swap relics mid-room without stopping the fight.

Five actives. Three keys. Every one spends cooldown, not arrows.

  • Volley

    A fan of five to nine arrows on one draw.

  • Dash

    A burst of distance with a short breath of grace.

  • Snare

    Brambles that hold a pack where it stands.

  • Thorn Ring

    Eight to sixteen arrows out in every direction.

  • Hawkeye

    One heavier arrow that passes through everything.

Between runs

The Tavern remembers the run after it ends

The title screen’s old Hearth row is a room now. The fire buys permanent starts with the embers a run leaves behind; the plaque wall keeps what you have done; the open book keeps every finished run and the code that can bring your profile to another machine.

The Tavern: a moonlit forest room with a stone hearth, trophy plaques, a lectern with an open book, a woven basket and a heavy door.
The Hearth, the Trophy Wall, the Run Book and the door back to the title.
The Hearth upgrade shelf showing permanent improvements, ember prices and the Encyclopedia milestone track.

The fire

A head start every run

Spend embers on more arrows, movement, coin value, extra lives and the permanent unlock that waits until the story is beaten.

The Encyclopedia’s Monster tab with discovered creatures and a detailed Bog Goblin page.

The book

Forty-seven pages to open

Monsters, relics and skills are written down as you meet them. Pages you have not found stay silhouettes, and milestones pay embers.

The Trophy Wall showing earned and locked plaques for bosses, the Long Hunt, the Encyclopedia and the Hearth.

The wall

Fifteen plaques

Twelve goals can be earned now, from the first boss to a full Encyclopedia. Three Act II plaques already say what the road ahead will ask for.

The Run Book listing finished story and Long Hunt runs with seed codes, outcomes, scores and rooms.

The open book

Twenty runs, kept

Every finished run gets a seed code, its build and where it ended. Copy the code, play it again, or export the whole profile to carry it to another device.

The hollow

Four places, each one further in

The ground changes as she gets deeper, and the monsters change with it. Stage four has everything on the list, plus the ones that have been through it before.

The Fern Edge: a dark forest clearing ringed with ferns, lit mushrooms and torchlight.

Stage one

The Fern Edge

Grass, clover and leaves. Live oak and pine, bushes, boulders, mushrooms.

Overgrown Ruins: cracked columns and a broken arch lit by two torches.

Stage two

Overgrown Ruins

Mossy flagstone and grass, pine and bare oak, thorned bushes, rubble and a shrine stone.

The Misty Crypt: a flooded stone tomb with a crowned stone effigy and a lamp on the wall.

Stage three

The Misty Crypt

Cracked and damp mine stone. Dead pine, snags, pale mushrooms, blight and thorns.

The Deep Hollow: a tunnel of black roots spiralling inward, with two torches on the floor.

Stage four

The Deep Hollow

Churned dirt and pebbles, burned and snapped snags, a dead log, basalt, ash.

Bestiary

Six species, one red elite, four stage bosses

Each monster asks a different question. The goblin closes the distance, the imp swarms, the beetle makes you spend arrows, and the shaman will not stand still for you. The Deep Hollow adds the redcap and the widow’s wider fans.

  • A green bog goblin with a leather harness and a blade.

    Bog Goblin

    Runs straight in, and lunges over the last ninety pixels.

  • A small, spiky, yellow-green thorn imp.

    Thorn Imp

    Fast, fragile, and never alone.

  • A beetle with a green mottled shell and orange legs.

    Mossback Beetle

    Slow, three hits deep, and shuts its shell when the first one lands.

  • A violet-robed spore shaman under a wide mushroom hood.

    Spore Shaman

    Holds a ring at 210 paces, and walks it while the string is drawn.

  • A bristling brown briar boar.

    Briar Boar

    Winds up, then commits to a run along the line she was on.

  • A dark, many-legged briar widow.

    Briar Widow

    Holds a wider ring, and casts a fan of thorns.

  • A redcap goblin in red armour.

    Redcap Goblin

    The goblin in red: more health, more coins and a shorter temper.

And at the end of every stage

  • A hulking bark-skinned rootwarden with moss and antlers.

    Stage one

    The Rootwarden

    Charges along the line she was on, and fires a ring of eight. At half health the ring is twelve, and it comes round faster.

  • A cracked stone idol with weeping eyes and a lantern.

    Stage two

    The Weeping Idol

    A fan of stone shards, and it calls up three thorn imps. At half health, five in the fan and five imps.

  • A robed crypt thing carrying a small lantern.

    Stage three

    The Crypt Thing

    Blinks out of reach and walks a five-armed spiral round the room. At half health, a second spiral turning the other way.

  • A pale, antlered hollow one with a dark cloak.

    Stage four

    The Hollow One

    Three committed dashes, then a wall of nine shots with a gap in it. At half health, eighteen shots and a wider gap to find.

64px characters · eight directions · ten clips

The archer

Drawn once, then posed

She is one character seen again and again rather than a set of drawings that happen to look alike. Ten clips, eight directions, 536 frames. She faces the nearest of the eight, so a shot at the mouse is a shot she has art for.

Four bows, one for each tier the pedlar sells — an upgrade changes what she is holding, not just a number in the corner of the screen.

The archer: white-haired elf ranger in a green tunic, drawing a longbow.
The plate that greets you on the title screen.

Take a seed and go

Clear the four stages, then take a seed code back into The Long Hunt and see how deep the same rooms can go.

Play now