Questions and answers
What the game is, what it costs, and how it behaves while you are away.
What is Bellows & Barley?
A city building game in your browser. You grow a medieval settlement from a hamlet into a free city: fell timber, saw planks, forge tools, bake bread. Every workshop needs workers and materials, and every good hangs on a chain of things made before it. Add trade, research, seasons and the need to keep raiders out.
There is no map to place buildings on and no real-time battles. What there is: 105 goods, 105 workshops, and the question of where your people are most useful today.
What does it cost?
Nothing. No ads, no in-game purchases, no subscriptions and no analytics. It is a game, not a business.
Do I need an account?
No. “Continue without an account” starts right away, and your game stays in this browser’s storage. An account does one thing: it makes your saved games follow you from one device to the next.
Does the settlement keep going when I close the game?
Yes. The game clock is tied to the real clock, not to your open window. What you order in the evening is finished by morning. When you come back, the game works through the time that passed. How much depends on the pace of the world – 36 real days for the calm one, four and a half for the swift; anything beyond that lapses with a note.
How long is a game year?
You decide that when you found the world: one game year a day, every six hours, or every three. A game year has 120 game minutes; at the calm pace a cottage is built in an hour and a half, at the swift one in twelve minutes.
It is the same world at every pace – it simply runs faster. You choose once, and then it belongs to that world: a slider you could nudge in the middle of a famine would no longer be a decision.
Does it work on a phone?
Yes, the game is built for small screens – assigning workers, following chains, trading, all within reach of a thumb. Add it to your home screen and it starts like an app, without an address bar.
Will I be told when something is finished?
If you want. Added to your home screen, the game can send a notification when a building, a research or a training finishes. You allow it once, and it needs an account – the server has to know where to send it.
Where are my saved games kept?
Without an account, only in your browser’s storage; they never leave your device. With an account they are also stored compressed on the server so they follow you. What is processed is spelled out in full in the privacy statement (German).
Can I play with others?
No, it is a game for one person. There are no other settlements, no leaderboard and nobody buying up your timber.
Which languages are there?
German and English. The game follows your browser and can be switched at any time – on the title screen at the top right, or later in the settings. The simulation runs the same in either language, and saved games stay valid.
Where should I start?
With timber. Almost everything hangs on it: planks come from logs, beams from planks, tools from beams and iron. Put your first people on the woodcutter and the sawmill, build a cottage for housing, and use the production screen to see which good is running short.
Tools pay off early: they raise the output of every workshop by up to a fifth, and they do it proportionally – half a store of tools gives half the bonus.
What happens in a raid?
Raiders take goods or coin. How likely that is depends on how rewarding your settlement looks: full stores, and above all coin lying beyond the capacity of your treasury, draw them in. A militia, professional soldiers, fortifications – and a bigger treasury – are what help.
Who makes this?
One person. Bellows & Barley is a private project, not a company; the legal details are in the Impressum (German, required by law).