Family care
Beginner route: care for your family and finish a building job
Check food and water first, prepare a plank, mark a Blueprint plan and finish it with the Mallet or a pup carrying planks. Then check the family again before starting another job.
In this page
Start with the family you already have
This route begins with pups already present. Its goal is one completed construction job while keeping their care in view. Choose a small job you can finish, rather than placing a large set of plans before learning how materials and orders connect.
Open the pause book with Esc when you need its Tutorials or Controls/Commands pages. The useful distinction throughout this route is between a need, a carried object and a work target: feeding a pup, giving it a plank and pointing it at a building plan are separate actions.
1. Care check
Read the hungry and thirsty counts. Let pups eat nearby food with orders stopped; place thirsty pups in water.
2. Supply one job
Prepare a plank and a marked plan. A log still needs to be split; a plan still needs construction.
3. Finish and regroup
Complete the plan, release workers for care and check sleeping provision before the next job.
Deal with food and water before assigning helpers
- Read the care counters. The hungry-pup count tells you how many still need food. Use your current numbers; the three shown in the book illustration is an example.
- Let hungry pups eat nearby food. Stop active commands first. If you need food, use the chicken-hunting route before committing helpers to construction.
- Place thirsty pups in water. The well itself is not a place to put them. Follow the drinking instructions if water is the immediate problem.
If a particular pup is locked and will not move or sleep, right-click that pup to unlock it before trying its next activity. That addresses a specific locked state; it does not replace food, water or sleeping places.
Prepare a material and a plan
The wood chain is trees → logs → planks. Select the Axe to cut a log into planks. For this construction exercise, use a loose plank: an unsplit log is not the plank named by the building tutorial. The materials and hauling guide shows the forms and how to bring them to the job.
- Scroll to the Blueprint tool and hold right mouse to open its build menu.
- Choose the part, use R to rotate it if needed, then left-click to mark a plan.
- If you marked the wrong plan, use the Blueprint tool’s right-click delete-plan action before supplying it.
A blue preview is a work target. Seeing the preview alone does not mean the structure has been built.
Finish it yourself or give a helper the job
| Route | Material step | Finishing step |
|---|---|---|
| Build yourself | Grab a plank with left mouse. | While carrying it, scroll to the Mallet and left-click the plan. |
| Let a pup build | Press E on a plank to command pickup. | With planks being carried, press E on the blue preview to command construction. |
Choose one route for your first job so the material and target are easy to track. If you only issued pickup, the construction target still needs its own order. The building guide explains the two tools and their inputs in detail.
End the job with another care check
Once the plan is complete, stop and check the family before marking another batch. Let helpers stop commands so they can eat food nearby. Use F to toggle a follow order; use the pause book’s Commands page for the active work context.
Pups need cots for sleep, and the guidebook warns that their mother will be angry without them. Include sleeping places in your next construction decisions instead of treating walls and floors as the whole shelter task.
You have finished this route when the plan is constructed and you have checked the family’s food, water and sleeping provision again. For another work session, choose either material delivery or food supply as the next job.