The world has a day and night cycle. A whole day and its night take about 6 minutes of real time with the default day length. Night is the dangerous part: night things come out of the dark to hunt you, until dawn sends them away.
CONTENTS
Day length
When you make a world you choose how long its days are. The choice is shown with the world as SHORT DAYS or LONG DAYS (the default shows nothing).
| Day length | Whole day and night | Daylight (with dawn and dusk) | Night |
|---|---|---|---|
| Short | about 3 minutes | about 1 minute 50 seconds | about 1 minute 10 seconds |
| Default | about 6 minutes | about 3 minutes 45 seconds | about 2 minutes 15 seconds |
| Long | about 12 minutes | about 7 minutes 30 seconds | about 4 minutes 30 seconds |
The daylight part of the clock runs 30% slower than the night, so days are longer than nights. A new world starts in the morning.
The parts of the day
| Part | Default length | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Dawn | about 23 seconds | The sky warms to pink and gold. Night things turn away and fade out. |
| Day | about 2 minutes 55 seconds | Full light. Nothing hunts you in the open (except in the Haunted Wood, see below). |
| Dusk | about 26 seconds | The light turns orange and dims. You can go to bed from now on. |
| Night | about 2 minutes 15 seconds | Dark, with a cool blue light. Night things come. |
A little before night proper, the light drops far enough that you count as out of the light unless something lights you, and that lasts until shortly after dawn begins (about 2 minutes 25 seconds at the default length). See The Dark. Heavy cloud, rain and storms make it a little darker at every hour.
What changes at night
Night things
- At night, creatures come out of the dark somewhere just off the edge of the screen, every 7 to 13 seconds, while fewer than 4 are about. They never appear inside a village or a Goddess's land (they walk in).
- Which creatures come depends on the land you are in. See each land's page: Woods, Rocky Highlands, Tundra, Desert, Haunted Wood.
- The longer you stay out of the light, the sooner they come, the more come at once and the closer they appear. See The Dark.
- They keep out of firelight: a Campfire keeps them back about 52 pixels (just over 3 tiles), a Torch about 24 pixels. A boss doesn't care.
- At dawn they turn away and fade out over 2.5 seconds.
- On 1 night in 4, if you are in Haunted Wood, The Hollow Stag itself comes, 40 to 90 seconds after night falls.
- In Peaceful worlds nothing comes at night.
Crops
- Most crops like the sun: they grow fastest by day and at about a quarter of their best speed at night.
- The Moon Squash grows best at night, and best of all on a clear one.
- Rootlings grow only in the dark.
- See Farming and Crop Grades.
Light and looks
- Lit windows, torches, campfires and village lanterns glow after dark.
- In Tundra, on a clear night, the aurora fills the sky.
- Your lantern burns oil only from dusk to dawn (and always in a dungeon), and never at home or in a village.
Spirits
The time of day favours some elements: around noon favours Fire, and the night favours Earth. A favoured element pays more on a Spirit Wager and costs 25% less as Spirit Soil.
The Haunted Wood by day
Deep in Haunted Wood the gloom is "night enough". Night things come there even by day: at most 2 at a time, and half as often as at night. Those that are there don't leave at dawn. You don't count as being in the dark there by day, though.
Sleeping through the night
- Use a Bed or Bedroll with E from dusk on. By day you can only sleep if you are properly sleepy.
- You can't sleep with a creature within about 8 tiles of the bed.
- The screen fades out and you wake at dawn with full health and poison cleared. Every night thing that was out is gone.
- A bedroll wears through after one night's sleep. A bed must stand in a whole house (walls and roof).
- See Sleep and Beds.
Inside dungeons
The clock keeps running while you are in a dungeon, but down there it is always dark and there is no weather.
