A year on the river, one season at a time
North to Nowhere is a cozy but hard-edged 2D homesteading game set on a remote Alaskan river. You start in spring with one dog, a small cabin and a little cash. Summer fish and fall food decide how your winter goes, and winter is when you run the trap line by foot, snow machine or dog sled.
Over the years you grow a full sled team, each dog with a name and a personality, fix up the cabin, plant a greenhouse, meet the people up and down the river, and dig into a few old stories the land is still keeping.
| Season | The work | What it sets up |
|---|---|---|
| Spring | Sell last winter's furs in town, buy staples and seeds, plant, buy puppies | Cash, crops and a bigger team |
| Summer | Run the fish wheel, dry and smoke salmon, fly fish, build and fix up | Dog food, your own food, a better place |
| Fall | Harvest the greenhouse, fill the root cellar, get traps ready | Enough to last the winter |
| Winter | Run the trap line, ride out storms, skin and stretch fur, ice fish | Pelts to sell next spring |
From the game
Straight from the game. These are the scenes behind the title screen.
The trap line
Every trap site has its own mix of animals. Each night a set trap rolls to catch something, then rolls which animal it was, then whether that animal pulled free. Pick a trap and bait below to see the odds at every site on a winter night.
Catches is the chance something steps in tonight. Still there is the chance it didn't pull free by the time you check.
How a night is rolled
Traps
Baits
Furbearers and what their pelts fetch
Fur buyer prices before the market moves. Each year the market swings up to 15% either way, and fur sells for 20% more in spring. Deliver a certain old letter and Agnes pays 10% more for good. Prime, good and poor are summer-to-winter prices.
Weather, by season
The forecast is right 70% of the time. A storm buries a set trap 60% of the time; plain snow, 15%.
Fishing
Four ways to fish: a fly rod at the river's good water, a handline or rod off the bank, the summer fish wheel, and holes through the winter ice.
Fly fishing: where you put the fly
Hold the fly rod at open water and choose a spot you can see. Each cast takes 20 minutes of game time. Mornings (5 to 9 am) and evenings (7 pm to midnight) fish 25% better, and bright midday (noon to 4 pm) 15% worse. Every fish a spot gives up halves its odds for the rest of the day.
A cast that doesn't catch can cost you the fly: snagged on the log, or broken off by something big.
Bank fishing
In open water from the bank. Grayling only, 20 minutes a try.
| Gear | Bite per try | Work |
|---|---|---|
| Handline | 4 s | |
| Fishing rod | 3 s |
The fish wheel
Built at the fish camp, it turns all summer and fills a box with salmon.
| When | Salmon a day |
|---|---|
| Peak of the run, summer day 14 | 16 |
| Tapering off over 12 days either side | down to 2.4 |
| Early kings, spring day 22 on | 4 |
| Silvers, first 10 days of fall | 5.6 |
A day's haul varies up to 30% either way. Each fishing skill level adds 10%.
Ice fishing: a set line overnight
Once the river freezes, chop a hole (40 minutes with an axe, 20 with an ice chisel), bait a line with fish scraps and leave it. By morning a red flag shows if something's on. You can keep up to 4 holes open.
| Night | Burbot | Northern pike | Nothing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Calm night | |||
| Stormy night |
Ice fishing: jigging
Jig through a hole for grayling while you wait, 30 minutes a try. In a storm you need a canvas ice shelter close by.
| Gear | Grayling per try |
|---|---|
| Handline | |
| Fishing rod |
What fish sell for
Guns, bows and big game
Every weapon shoots its own ammo. Rarer ones reach further, hit more often and jam less. The best are named, and found in the story rather than bought.
Hit is a multiplier on your chance to hit. Range is in game pixels (a tile is 16). Big game is how many hits bring down a moose, caribou or grizzly.
Will this shot land?
Your chance is 50%, plus up to 35% more the closer you are. That's multiplied by the animal and by the gun. A storm takes off 30 points and the dark takes off 20. It never drops below 5% or goes above 95%.
What you'll run into on the trail
Each time you arrive in a trail area there's a 35% chance a big animal is near. Grizzlies are mostly denned up in winter: a tenth as likely.
Gold, the old adit and the ridge cave
Panning
Each pan takes 30 minutes and ends with a swirl. A clumsy swirl keeps half the colour; a perfect one keeps 25% extra. Odds below are for a fair swirl, with a perfect swirl in brackets.
When you get flakes: 1 flake 60% of the time, 2 flakes 32%, 3 flakes 8%. A sluice box at the bank takes up to 8 shovel loads a day.
Quartz veins
Swing a pick at a vein for chunks of gold-bearing quartz, 45 minutes a swing. Each vein gives 3 swings a season.
| Each swing | Old adit | Ridge cave |
|---|---|---|
| 1 quartz | ||
| 2 quartz | ||
| A nugget as well | ||
| Worth on average, at the assay office | $13.60 | $15.60 |
In winter a grizzly dens in the back of the ridge cave. Swing a pick within 10 tiles of it and it wakes.
Caches (one time each)
| Where | Inside |
|---|---|
| Old adit, powder box | Miner's pick |
| Old adit, tin trunk | Ansel's claim map, 3 gold flakes |
| Old adit, crate | Miner's lantern |
| Old adit, rotted crate | 12 rifle cartridges, 8 shotgun shells, 4 snare wire |
| Old adit, sack | 2 gold nuggets |
| Old adit, crate of tins | 3 beans, 3 scrap metal |
| Old adit, coffee can | 6 gold flakes |
| Ridge cave, canvas pack | Ansel's journal page, 2 torches |
| Ridge cave, pile of stones | 1 large gold nugget, 2 gold nuggets |
| Ridge cave, tin box | 8 gold flakes, 12 rifle cartridges, 10 .44 cartridges |
| Ridge cave, sluice riffle | 5 gold flakes, 1 tin sheet |
Things people swear they've seen
The special days are fixed for each save, so everyone playing the same save sees them on the same days.
- Spring to fall. On his day, the first wild place you walk into has his huge tracks.
- About 4 days a year on average (84 days × 5%).
- Follow the tracks. He runs when he hears you, but stops to look back: that's your shot.
- Takes 2 hits. Hit chance ×0.8 while he stands, ×0.45 while he runs. A .22 won't do it.
- He bolts up to 6 times, then he's gone for the day.
- There's only one. His trophy is Legendary
- Winter nights while the river's frozen, from 7 pm.
- A lantern on the ice that goes out when you walk toward it.
- Tell Walt, find the old mail sack after break-up, and deliver the letter inside.
- Your reward: the Epic Beaded Mitts, and 10% more for fur from then on.
- After that, the lantern comes out just once more.
- Mid-winter only, days 8 to 21.
- At dusk, after dark, or in snow. Only 2% near home.
- A huge pale shape watching from the trees. Get close and he's gone, leaving only tracks.
- He can never be shot. He's a story to tell Walt.
What things cost in town
What each shop sells, and what it'll pay you. The fur buyer's pelt prices are in the trapping section.
Common to legendary
Gear with a rarity shows it as a coloured corner on its slot: blue for rare, purple for epic, orange for legendary. Rarest first is also the order the game picks your gun when you click big game without one in hand.