Commanding Pups

Commanding pups is the skill that turns Family Time from a frantic chore list into a working household. Call children to follow you, point them at a job, and they carry, build, hunt and fight while you plan the next step, which is the only way to keep up once the family numbers in the hundreds.

The game openly expects this. Its own description tells you to build houses or command the children to build them for you, and to farm or go hunting together. For the basics of shelter and food first, see the beginner guide.

The Basic Orders

Two keys cover most early commands. Press F to call children to follow you, and press E to order them to carry logs and planks to a location or into a blueprint. With a group following, a single trip moves far more material than the father could carry alone.

From there, the pups can work on construction, carry animals, help with hunting and fishing, and go to sleep in their cots. A sound cue plays whenever you send the Wolf Mama or the pups somewhere, which makes it easy to tell that an order went through.

The full key list is on the controls page.

What the Children Can Do

The pups are the workforce. Official screenshots show groups of children hauling timber to build sites, and the store text lists building, farming and hunting as jobs they share with you.

• Carrying: logs, planks, animals and even piglets.
• Building: working on blueprints once materials arrive.
• Hunting: catching chickens and dealing with knocked-out pigs.
• Fishing: operating rods and buckets you set up.
• Fighting: attacking animals when ordered.

Heavy objects need several pups. A pig is too heavy for the father, and a group of three children carrying a beam together is a common sight. If you pick up one of the carriers, the rest of the group can end up dragged along, so let them finish the delivery first.

Scaling From Dozens to Hundreds

The command system was rebuilt more than once so it could handle thousands of agents, and the game uses custom GPU technology to keep a huge crowd moving. That technical effort exists for one reason: the family keeps growing every night.

At a dozen children, you can manage jobs one group at a time. At a hundred, you think in teams: one group on timber, one on building, one on food. Players have recorded runs reaching a hundred children and others pushing into the high hundreds, and at that scale the father barely touches an axe.

Planning becomes your main job. Put the blueprint down first, then send the pack; place the pen before the chickens arrive; keep a stock of planks near the next house site. Good placement saves more time than any amount of manual work, and short distances between the forest, the plank pile and the build site matter more with every extra child.

When Orders Go Wrong

The game is in development, and pup behaviour still has rough edges. Players report children occasionally failing to recognise a target for a command, such as a cot, a construction site or a pen.

The usual fix is to repeat the order closer to the target or clear obstacles in the way. Pups also get stuck when terrain is uneven or when a fence closes them in, so flat ground and open gates prevent most problems. In rare cases a pup or the father spawns underground in a pre-release build, and loading a recent save is the quickest way out.

Save often with F5 before big projects. If a group gets tangled, loading with F6 is faster than untangling dozens of children by hand.

Commands and the Wolf Mama

The Wolf Mama can receive commands too, and her behaviour was expanded with new animations, awareness, anger, protection and cheering in the Episode 2 build. She still does not take over the family's chores, though.

Her role is judging the results. Every child that ends the night without a bed or a meal counts against you, and good command habits are what keep her calm as the family grows. The Wolf Mama page covers her rules in detail.

Learn more about the children themselves on the wolf pups page, including naming, headpats and carrying them around.