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Your Chronicle Beginner's Guide: New Player Essentials

New to Your Chronicle? This beginner's guide covers first steps, essential mechanics, common mistakes, and everything for a strong start.

Researched and editorially reviewed. Updated .
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Your Chronicle is a free text based idle RPG by Samurai Games, released on Steam on 4 April 2021 and also playable in a browser. You start in a village with a father telling you to be strong and save your mother, and you progress by spending Action points on button driven tasks like picking weeds and chopping wood. More than 3,000 story actions sit behind it, across 19 documented areas that run from the starting Village to the Akashic Record.

Starting Your Chronicle can feel overwhelming. This guide tells you exactly what to focus on during your first hours so you don't waste time on things that don't matter yet. For the full progression path, see our walkthrough.

What Kind of Game Is This?

Your Chronicle is a rpg game built around Action and Stamina costs and Habit points and Routines. The core loop involves mastering these systems to progress through increasingly challenging content.

What to expect: Time investment in learning mechanics, experimentation, and gradual mastery. The game rewards patience and knowledge.

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Choosing Your First Build

BuildBeginner RatingWhy
Energy RoutineExcellent for beginnersBalanced approach
Familiar RoutineExcellent for beginnersBalanced approach
Will RoutineExcellent for beginnersBalanced approach
Warrior RoutineExcellent for beginnersBalanced approach
Gluttony RoutineExcellent for beginnersBalanced approach

Our recommendation: Start with Familiar Routine. It offers the most forgiving experience while teaching core mechanics.

Avoid Gluttony Routine as your first pick. It requires deep knowledge of game systems to use effectively. Once you're ready, check our classes guide for all options.

First Session Step-by-Step

Step 1: Learn Action and Stamina costs

Almost every task spends Action, and looped tasks spend Stamina on top. Picking Weeds in the Village costs 0.40 Action for 0.505 Gold and one Weed, while Chopping Wood in the Forest costs 0.8 Action and 0.5 Stamina per log, so regeneration rate is the real bottleneck.

This is the foundation. Spend your first 15-30 minutes getting comfortable with how Action and Stamina costs works before worrying about anything else. Our combat guide breaks this down further.

Step 2: Head to Village

The starting area and the one you return to most. It holds Pick Weeds, cooking recipes from Bread through to Cream Stew, donation actions that pay Destiny, and the loop actions Rest, Recover Stamina, Concentrate and Pray at two seconds each.

Clear the main content here before moving on. Everything teaches fundamentals you'll need later. See our maps guide for all locations.

Step 3: Get Your First Upgrade

Look for Steel Sword: it's the most accessible early upgrade. A physical attack percent weapon that gains magic attack percent and Destiny regeneration as you feed it mana crystals, and picks up guard break at higher levels.

Step 4: Understand Habit points and Routines

Routines are passive actions funded by Habit points, and Habit can be refunded and reallocated at any time for free. The Routine menu splits into Sacred Ritual, Energy, Familiar, Will, Warrior and Gluttony tabs, with Worship acting as a morning routine that improves Sacred Ritual effects.

This is the system most new players overlook. Invest time here early. It pays off throughout the entire game.

Step 5: Push to Forest

The second area, built around Chop Wood at 0.8 Action and 0.5 Stamina per log, alongside Harvest Wheat, Carve Wooden Statues, Milk Cow and Churn Butter. The Lumberjack Workshop here raises storage across four conversations.

Essential Mechanics Explained

Action and Stamina costs

Almost every task spends Action, and looped tasks spend Stamina on top. Picking Weeds in the Village costs 0.40 Action for 0.505 Gold and one Weed, while Chopping Wood in the Forest costs 0.8 Action and 0.5 Stamina per log, so regeneration rate is the real bottleneck.

Habit points and Routines

Routines are passive actions funded by Habit points, and Habit can be refunded and reallocated at any time for free. The Routine menu splits into Sacred Ritual, Energy, Familiar, Will, Warrior and Gluttony tabs, with Worship acting as a morning routine that improves Sacred Ritual effects.

Sacred Ritual ranking

Sacred Ritual converts accumulated Exp into Rank. Each Rank adds one to your Habit cap and grants Inspiration, with higher Ranks granting more, and the scaling is logarithmic against an adjustable base.

Dark Ritual prestige

Dark Ritual is the prestige reset. It wipes Rank and basic Routine levels except Energy, and converts banked Next Talent into Current Talent, which permanently multiplies Sacred Ritual Exp gains.

A party of ten allies

You field up to ten allies. The first five fight using their stats, skills and passives while the last five contribute passives only. Allies come from research dropped by defeated enemies, and once an ally maxes out, spare research raises their Luck stat, which lifts research drops for the whole party.

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Common Beginner Mistakes

1. Performing a Dark Ritual early because it sounds like progress

It zeroes Rank and basic Routines and returns only the Talent you had already banked.

2. Leaving Habit points unspent

They do nothing in reserve and can be reallocated at any moment, so idle points are pure lost output.

3. Ignoring storage capacity

Resources stop accumulating at the cap, so a full bin can waste an entire offline session.

4. Building a party from a single element because those allies happen to have the best raw stats

5. Buying all three Forest cafeteria meals expecting them to stack

They are mutually exclusive and cost 200 Gold each.

First 5 Hours Checklist

  • Understand Action and Stamina costs and Habit points and Routines
  • Choose Familiar Routine as starting build
  • Clear Village main content
  • Acquire Steel Sword or equivalent upgrade
  • Reach Forest
  • Habit points can be refunded and reallocated at no cost, so treat every Routine allocation as an experiment rather than a permanent commitment.
  • Energy is the one basic Routine category that a Dark Ritual does not reset. Habit spent there survives prestige, which makes it the safest early investment in the game.

Tips for New Players

  1. Habit points can be refunded and reallocated at no cost, so treat every Routine allocation as an experiment rather than a permanent commitment.
  2. Energy is the one basic Routine category that a Dark Ritual does not reset. Habit spent there survives prestige, which makes it the safest early investment in the game.
  3. Sacred Ritual converts Exp into Rank and each Rank adds one to your Habit cap. If your Habit cap feels tight, the answer is more Sacred Rituals rather than a cleverer allocation.
  4. The Exp counter in the Sacred Ritual menu can go negative for a while. The wiki confirms this is expected behaviour and not a broken save.
  5. Do not rush your first Dark Ritual. It zeroes Rank and basic Routine levels, and it only pays for itself once your banked Next Talent multiplier outweighs what you are giving up.
  6. Loop actions run on real timers: Rest, Recover Stamina, Concentrate and Pray take two seconds, Make Medicine four, Craft Potions ten and Craft Elixir forty. Queue the long ones before you close the client.
  7. Your party holds ten allies but only the first five fight. Put your five strongest stat and skill allies at the front and treat the back five purely as passive ability slots.
  8. Eight elements exist: Fire, Water, Wind, Earth, Thunder, Ice, Light and Dark, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. A party stacked into one element hits a wall the moment it meets its counter.
  9. When an ally reaches maximum level, further research raises their Luck stat, which lifts research drop rates for the entire party. Overlevelling a favourite ally is therefore not wasted.
  10. The Forest cafeteria sells three stat boosting meals at 200 Gold each and they are mutually exclusive. Pick the one matching your current Routine build rather than buying by price.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Your Chronicle free?

Yes. It is free to play on Steam, released 4 April 2021, with optional in app purchases and a Ruby premium currency used for shop upgrades such as Habit Efficiency plus, Seeds plus and Exp plus.

Does progress continue offline?

Yes. The game applies an offline bonus when you return and Routines are passive by design, so closing the client is part of the intended loop rather than a penalty.

What are the reset layers?

Three. Sacred Ritual converts Exp into Rank, Dark Ritual resets Rank and basic Routines in exchange for Talent, and Reincarnation sits above both, retaining nonhuman allies and their levels, Astral World and Akashic Record progress, and paying out Sin.

How many areas are there?

Nineteen are documented: Village, Forest, Academic City, Coastal City, Spirit Spring, Ancient Ruins, Desert Lodging, Smith's Village, Valley Village, Frozen Lake, Holy City, Evil City, Dragon Village, Magic City, Gourmet Town, Mountain Town, Demon Kingdom, Astral World and Akashic Record.

Is equipment worth the cost?

The cheap pieces are. The Wooden Sword, Leather Shield and Item Pouch pay for themselves quickly, while players generally advise holding off on the Steel Sword until mana crystals are plentiful. The Spirit Orb is valued mainly for freeing Habit points out of elemental MP routines.

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