How to Play Mountain

Overview

Your guide to watching mountain simulations.

“Controls”

There are no controls for this game. However, holding down the left mouse button allows you to pan and pick up debris, the mouse wheel allows you to zoom. The keys a through k and z through , can be used in a musical fashion, with z comprising the lowest tone and k the highest.

The mountain symbol in the top right corner brings up the pause menu:

SAVE – Saves the game, although the game will auto-save on its own.
AUDIO – Turns off all sound.
AMBIENT -Turns off ambient noise such as wind, rain, thunder, and crickets.
DAWN – Turns off the heavenly voices that occur each dawn.
THOUGHTS – Turns off the sound that alerts you to the mountain’s musings.
QUALITY – Adjusts the visual quality of the game.
SIZE – adjusts the window size and game resolution, with the last, wider box being fullscreen.

Should you encounter an instance where you cannot reach the pause menu to change these options, the 1, 2, 3, and 4 keys will also change the resolution.

How to Play

Open the game. Draw some pictures as instructed — they don’t have to be good or precise, and they can be as abstract as you find suitable. Allow yourself to become a mountain. Then, set the game to a comfortable size and leave it somewhere.

As it can be hours before anything of interest happens, you may become bored with being a mountain. This is okay. You do not always have to be a mountain. You can do something else and come back to being a mountain later, or maybe just be a mountain in the background. You are no less of a mountain.

Debris

Sometimes there is debris. This is also okay; do not be alarmed. All mountains will encounter strange and bizarre objects at one point or another. You may keep these objects, move them, or release them to continue their journey in the cosmos.

Click and hold to pick up objects, and release to throw them. Depending on where you throw them, they may land in a new spot or continue on their way through the cosmos.

Time, Weather, and Seasons

The mountain is alive and changes constantly. Days occur in cycles of approximately 13 minutes and years in cycles of 22 minutes.

In spring, the snow melts away and the trees regrow their green leaves.
Summer is nearly indistinguishable.

In autumn, the oaks’ leaves turn red and yellow, and often there’s rain.

In winter, oaks lose their leaves. Everything, even debris, is smothered in snow.

SURVIVING ANNIHILATION

Play a nice song.