Walkthrough

Welcome to Egypt... or at least, Welcoming Island.

Here, you will learn the basics. Your eventual goal on Welcoming Island is to make a boat and sail to the mainland - to achieve this, you will learn how to move your avatar, collect key ingredients such as grass, slate and wood; convert those ingredients into needed resources such as Straw and Boards, and to eventually make your Ferry Boat and sail from Welcoming Island.

Moving is a little hard to start with, because of the starting location is not the best - this is why you get a "Newbie Cam", but once you're off the hill and next to the water, movement is much easier when you change the Cam modes. Use the map to help you get your bearings. The blue dots represent a pole of information, the yellow being the main route to the Schools of Art and Arch and into the Central Area. The black line represents the route to the tar-pit which you will need later.

While walking down the hill, clicking on the poles will teach you all you need to know to get started - including being taught about Grass - when left to dry, this becomes Straw, a key ingredient of Bricks. Bricks are needed in a Ferry Boat as well as to construct a Small Distaff and a Flax Comb so pick some up to get the hang of it - click on the icon depicting a hand holding grass at the top of the screen to collect some.

Your goal on Welcoming Island is to build a Ferry Boat. For this, you will need 20 boards, 20 wood, 4 tar, 4 rope and 1 sail. However, getting all these resources is not like collecting grass - you have to make it. A lot of ATITD is making things out of raw ingredients. So, to help you on your way to this goal, collect 39 grass. There'll be lots of chances to collect grass, so you can collect this as time goes on - don't think you need to collect all the grass before continuing!

As you head down the hill, you'll be introduced to Mud and Sand, again you'll need these for bricks - in the ratio of 1 sand, 2 straw, and 3 mud to make 6 bricks. We're going to need 136 bricks on Welcoming Island, which will need 69 mud and 23 sand, so pick these up.

Once you reach the shoreline, you'll find out about slate. This is a random find along shorelines. Once you are in close proximity to some slate on the ground, an icon resembling a slate will appear. Click this to collect the slate.

You will need slate to make stone blades, a wood plane and to gain your Stone Blade Fabrication skill. Since there is a lot of luck and chance in making Stone Blades, an exact number cannot be given, but expect to run through about 30 slate to get your first six Stone Blades, then another 4 to build a wood plane.

Next are the trees. As nice as they are to look at, they are also a key part of the game - they give you wood. Wood can be converted into boards, so collect lots of wood - at least 80 wood. Once you collect from a tree, there'll be a short time delay before it will give more, so move off to the next tree, or come back later.

Keep on heading towards the stone building you see, and you'll be surrounded by lots of prickly looking plants. Many will give us thorns, so start collecting from them until you have at least 60 of them.

Click on the stone building you see before you - this is The People's School of Architecture. Here, they will teach you - for a modest price - some key skills. You'll need them all - Brick Rack Construction, Carpentry and Stone Blade Fabrication - but you can't learn all of them yet, as you can't "afford" the price. You should be able to learn Stone Blade Fabrication if you collected the slate above, so click Learn and pay the tuition cost.

You will now have the "Forge a Stone Blade" skill. Click yourself, then Skills, and the newly acquired skill will show. Try it now - each attempt will cost you two slate, and may or may not result in a stone blade. Keep practising until you acquire about a dozen stone blades, or you run out of slate.

The next thing to learn is Carpentry - for this, the tuition cost is 3 stone blades, so pay the school, and acquire the ability to build a Wood Plane. To build a wood plane, you'll need 4 slate and a stone blade to construct. You'll need to move away from the school to build it - at least 300 yards (it'll tell you if you're too close), so head away from the school, build your Wood Plane, and plane the wood away. You'll need at least 50 boards, but the Wood Plane is not that good. It'll keep breaking. No worries, one stone blade is all is required to fix it, so keep fixing and planing until you have the required number.

Once you've got all your boards, tear down your Wood Plane. It's often a good idea to tidy up after yourself, but at this stage of the game, you won't get any returned resources, so only pull down when you're good and ready. You won't be able to leave Egypt until you have torn it down, so don't think about being a messy pup and leaving your stuff behind, will you!

Now head back to the School of Arch - the third skill being offered, Brick Rack Construction, is now available. This will set you back 4 boards, so again pay the tuition.

Head off to The School of Art and Music - here, they will offer you for free three Flax Seeds. Take them, we'll need to make some flax. Head off to a grassy part away from the road, and find the Plant menu. Here, plant the seeds into the ground. There are two types of "Harvesting" - one is to harvest Flax, which will involve two weeding and a harvest; the other is to harvest seeds. For this to happen, just ignore the plants when they say "Weed". After a short time the menu choice will change to "Harvest Seeds" - take this option.

Keep harvesting the seeds until the plant disappears and becomes a seed on the floor. You should also plant the newly obtained seeds and use those to get seeds - you'll need at least 47 in total. Once you have your seeds, plant again, but this time weed them when the weeds appear. You'll need to weed them twice before they become harvest-able. Once you have your 47 flax, head back to the School of Art.

You can now learn Flax Processing, which will cost you 20 Flax. Pay the tuition cost. A new skill will then become available when you're near water - Rot Flax. Head to the water, and use the option, putting in your remaining flax. It'll take 3 minutes for it to rot, so in the meantime, let's find a nice place to build some racks.

You're going to need to make 136 bricks, and each brick rack will make 6 bricks at a time. Each costs 4 boards to build, and these also decay with use, so go for 4 racks, you should be able to get the 136 bricks with one or two still standing. You'll also need straw, so drop your grass onto the floor in small numbers, say 9 at a time, and pick them up when they turn yellow. Now you're ready to make those bricks. Load up the racks, wait a short while until they dry, then take them.

Once your first 36 bricks are made, build a Flax Comb. You'll need 18 boards, 36 bricks and 60 thorns to build one. Once you've built it, click on it. There'll be three actions, all shown one at a time. Click on the Seperate Rotton Flax for each of the three stages. At this time, you'll have 7 tow and straw. Collect the tow and straw (if you pick the lint, then destroy it, it's useless on Welcoming Island, and can't be taken to the mainland. The same goes for tow above the 7 needed)

Once all the bricks are made, you can now build the Small Distaff. This requires 12 boards, 100 bricks and 10 wood. Once built, load it with the tow, and start spinning it into Twine. Once it has finished spinning, the distaff should have 21 twine. Select spin into Rope, and leave it make the rope.

Whilst it's making the Twine and Rope, let's get the final piece of the jigsaw - the tar. Head off to the tar area on the map, select the tar, then pick it up. You'll need 8 tar. Once you have the tar, go to the School of Art and learn Ferry Construction. This will cost you 4 tar. They will also give you the sail needed.

Pick the four rope, and then head to the waters edge. You should now have everything to build your Ferry Boat, so build it, and head to the mainland.