The bow works

The bow works. The spear went in the same week, and it's the first thing in the game you throw.

Bow and spear

• You aim with both hands. Move the bow and the front of the arrow moves; move your drawing hand and the back moves.
• Pull harder and it flies harder. A lazy draw drops the arrow at your feet, and letting go with no tension leaves it waiting on the string.
• Arrows stick in what they hit, including the shot that kills.
• A thrown spear flies point-first. Ground, wood and flesh take the point; stone makes it ricochet. Hit a chicken and it runs off with your spear in it.

The backpack comes back

• Your bag stays on your body when you die, and a cross marks where your body came to rest so you can find it.
• Leave your bag behind and it returns to your back on its own, with a puff of smoke where it was. You can also reach behind your head and grip to call it from anywhere.
• An open bag is a menu. A line comes off your hand; point at a ring and pull the trigger and the item is in your hand. Point at a ring while holding something and it files itself there.
• Two quick slots, one per hand. Reach behind your back and each hand draws its own: arrows in one, a torch in the other. A quick slot remembers what it held, even while it's empty.

Fire and crafting

Now you crouch over the pile and strike your two rocks onto it. Sparks fall in, the grass catches, and it grows to a full fire over about twelve seconds. A fire with no fuel left fades down to a dark pile, and a stick brings it back.

• The craft table takes five blows of its mallet to finish a tool, and the book counts them for you.
• Hafted tools want proper rope, not loose grass.
• Hold B to pull your parts back out of a craft table, or to take down anything you built and get every piece back.
• Your builds are tied to your name, so logging off doesn't lose them. The craft table's padlock keeps others off your parts.

Smaller changes

• Animals show a danger rank from 1 to 10 instead of health numbers. A chicken is a 2, the cave spider a 5.
• Eating takes about a second. Hold food to your mouth and a ring fills.
• A new front menu: single player, co-op, public or join. Public says on the page that the world resets.
• Everyone else sees a new caveman: better face, proper hair, real clothes.
• You can pick up dead bodies, and a body only sinks after twenty seconds with nobody touching it.

Mind where you point it.