Use the on-screen buttons — the joystick (bottom-left) to move, ATK (bottom-right) to attack, and the utility buttons alongside it.
Ink & potions. Spelling words pays off by part of speech:
Flasks (the Apothecary — P / ⚗️). Each potion has a flask whose size = how many uses it holds. Collect more synonyms of a pole to grow its flask; spell the attribute noun (speed/size/light) for a bonus. A full flask can’t brew more until you drink one.
Drink a self-buff potion with 1/2/3 or by tapping its HUD button — each lasts 25 seconds:
Rewards repeat: re-spelling a word spends its letters again and pays again.
Word of the Day. Each day the Wordsmithy shows a bonus word — always built from letters you've unlocked, so you can always collect what you need. Spell it once for a big ink bonus.
Mad Libris. The lectern right of the Wordsmithy. You start with one fable; recover the rest one at a time — beasts rarely drop a page, or bind the next one at the Stall with materials beasts drop. Restore a story by filling each blank with a collected word that matches the needed part of speech (noun/verb/adjective/adverb). Matching the original word earns bonus ink. A word can be used in a chapter only once, ever — so keep learning new ones. Finish every recovered chapter to add the book to your Wordhoard.
The Atlas. The globe in the Wordhoard, right of the lectern. It opens a world board of countries, seas, lakes and mountain peaks — every one of them a proper noun, and every proper noun starts with a capital letter. That's why a capital is abroad in the world every day: hunt it like any other letter-creature and it banks (capitals are kept overnight and never fill your satchel). Places on the board stay redacted — you get its kind, its continent and how many letters it has, but the name is yours to remember. Spell a place at the Wordsmithy and it inks itself onto the board: start with a capital letter (⇧ on the tray) and finish from your satchel. Case is the whole trick — turkey is a bird, Turkey is a country. Spell a country and its capital city and the region lights up and you earn that country's flag. Place names live in the Atlas, not your word collection. You can travel the board without the mouse: the arrow keys step to the neighbouring place the way a map reads, [ and ] (or the ◀ ▶ buttons) sweep one layer west to east, and 1–7 frame the World and each continent.
Creatures & the bestiary (B). Out in the field you'll meet more than inklings — pests, cubes, and hazards that drop book-binding materials (paper, glue, thread, wax, leather…). Beat one and its loot drops on the ground — walk over it to collect (the Magnet feat later makes drops drift to you) — but grab it before The Kindle scorches it. Cheese heals a heart. The bestiary logs every creature you've beaten and reveals more (stats, drops, lore) the more of that creature you defeat.
Feats (C). Collecting verbs levels you up along word-count milestones per category (1, then every few — bigger categories space rewards out further). Rewards interleave passive boosts and abilities: Motion → move speed + Slide; Competition → attack + Finisher/Combo; Perception → Divine (a daily letter peek in the library) + Treasure Sense (drops glint); Possession → satchel space + Magnet; Body → max hearts + Second Wind (recover a heart when you stay out of combat). More verb categories arrive later.