Getting Started with Wickshore - Your First Night

Your first night has one lesson: the zap is the economy. The official loop is explicit — zap enemies to collect mana, then invest it back into the town to upgrade structures, build offences, and fortify shields. Damage is not defense; damage is income. (Source: Steam store page)

Night One, Step by Step (community estimates on top of official mechanics)

1. Zap everything in wave one. With “a few hundred toothy horrors” officially between you and each night’s champion, early waves are your income phase — every horror killed is mana banked. (mechanics official; pacing advice community)
2. First investment: income or walls. 17 upgradeable buildings officially split across economy, automated offence, and defense. First-run instinct below — see our town builds guide for the full thinking.
3. Save mana before the wave-five champion. Every night ends with a devastating champion (official) — arriving at the finale with zero banked mana and zero shield is the classic first-run death. (community estimate)

The Run Structure, Officially

• 10 nights per run. (official)
• 5 waves each night. (official)
• Each night ends with a champion — and champions pay Salt when they fall. (official)
• Night one of run one is, officially, the gentlest the game ever gets; night ten is the coast’s final exam. (community framing of official structure)

What Happens When the Dome Falls

Officially: you lose the town — the buildings, the mana, the entire coast — but you retain permanent upgrades to come back stronger. This is the roguelite contract: runs are disposable, the Astral Chart is forever. First deaths hurt least if you bank Salt before them. See our Astral Chart guide.

Controller and Comfort

Full controller support and Steam Deck optimization are confirmed (official), alongside Camera Comfort, Custom Volume Controls, Mouse Only and Playable without Timed Input feature tags. Comfort options will not carry the dome — but they make the long nights easier. See our accessibility guide.

Your First Three Nights, Planned (community plan on official structure)

Night 1 — learn the zap rhythm. Five waves (official), each softer than anything that follows. Your job is muscle memory: zap, collect, spend, repeat. End the night having bought at least two building upgrades — income compounds from the first purchase. (community estimate)

Night 2 — pick your pillar. With night-one mana banked, choose your leaning among the official three (economy / offence / defense) and commit two consecutive upgrades to it. A town that is slightly good at one thing survives longer than one that is vaguely good at three. (community estimate on official pillars)

Night 3 — meet a champion properly. Champions officially end every night and officially pay Salt. From night 3 onward, treat the finale as a budgeting question: arrive with full shields, banked mana for repairs, and a plan. Your first champion kill funds your first real Astral Chart purchase. (structure: official; budgeting advice: community)

The Wizard’s Three Tools, Officially

You are never just a spectator of your own defense. Confirmed tools: zap (your income and damage baseline), summon storms (area damage for the dense moments of a wave), and repair the dome directly (the emergency button when shields fail mid-champion). The official note that upgraded personal lightning “remains lethal even when the town is doing the heavy lifting” tells you the design intends your hands to matter at every stage of the run. (all: official page; usage timing: community estimates)

• Zap belongs in every wave — it is the economy. (mechanic: official)
• Storms belong at wave peaks and horror clumps. (community estimate)
• Direct repairs belong to champion fights — spending mana to keep the dome alive is spending mana correctly. (community estimate)

Why Your First Death Is Progress

The prestige system is not consolation; it is the game. Officially you keep permanent upgrades through failure, and champions keep paying Salt while you learn. A first-run wipe that banked Salt and revealed night-six’s demands is a better run than a timid night-three crawl that banked nothing. Die at your frontier, not behind it. (system: official; attitude: community)

Your First Astral Chart Purchases (community estimates)

Salt from your first champion kills (champions pay Salt: official) meets a Chart officially stocked with “a vast selection of permanent meta-progression traits.” Early purchases set your relationship with the whole game — three heuristics for the first few:

1. Buy flat income first. Traits that raise baseline mana or zap income make every later purchase cheaper — the compounding start of a long campaign. (community estimate)
2. Never buy narrow before wide. Situational traits (a specific map, a specific building) pay off later; always-on traits pay off every run. (community estimate)
3. One personal-power spike is allowed. The official design keeps your lightning relevant — a single early personal-damage trait makes the champion fights learnable while your economy matures. (design intent: official; purchase advice: community)

A Note on the 10-Night Clock

Ten nights is the run (official) — which means the game is paced like a ladder, not a sandbox. Somewhere around nights 5-7, most runs in this genre hit their designed wall; the prestige system exists for exactly that moment. If night six feels impossible with your current Chart, the answer is the system working: die, bank Salt, return. (run structure: official; pacing expectation: community estimate)

Reading the Battlefield Between Waves (community estimates)

The gap between waves is a resource. Five official waves per night means four breathers, and each one is a decision point: patch the shield line, place the next building, or bank mana for the champion. A habit worth forming on night one — scan the town’s wounded side every breather. The dome fails where the shield was already thin; the horror horde officially arrives everywhere at once, and your repairs go furthest where the next wave will land hardest. Pair the scan with a standing rule: never end a breather with unspent mana and an unbought upgrade in mind. Mana sitting still is mana the champion will collect from your rubble. (wave count: official; breather discipline: community)

Comfort Settings Are Strategy Too

The officially confirmed comfort set — Camera Comfort, Custom Volume, Playable without Timed Input — reads as accessibility, and is; but in a game of hundred-horror waves, comfort is throughput. A camera angle that lets you see two fronts at once is worth a building upgrade; the untimed mode is where you rehearse a stubborn night without score pressure. Configure comfort before night one, not after a loss. (features: official; framing: community)

Sources

• Official Steam store page — Wickshore, retrieved 2026-10-30

Related Guides

• The Mana Economy
• Town Builds
• Nights and Waves

FAQ

Is it hard? Champions are officially “devastating” and failure is designed-in; the prestige system exists because runs are meant to be lost sometimes. (official design + community note)

How long is a run? 10 nights of 5 waves (official); wall-clock time will emerge from play. (community estimate)