Player guide
How Focusburg works
Everything in one place: what to press, how you earn, how to bring friends, and what to do when something seems off.
01
Getting started
Focusburg runs in your browser on a phone, tablet or laptop. Nothing to install; on a phone you can add it to your home screen like an app.
Works
- ✓An account keeps your house, bricks, level, streak and friends
- ✓As a guest you can walk, read chat, study and build straight away (sending chat needs an account)
- ✓Sign up later: a guest link's bonus still counts for 30 days
Doesn't
- ✕Guest progress isn't saved: it's gone when you close the browser
- ✕A guest house is pulled down when you leave town
- ✕Guests can't knock on other people's doors
02
Controls
Keyboard and mouse
- W / S
- Walk forward and back
- A / D
- Turn
- Shift
- Run
- Space
- Jump
- E
- Use what's in front of you: sit, enter, play
- T
- Chat
- G
- Emotes (wave, dance, bow, cheer)
- F
- Throw a snowball
- Q
- Quests
- 2× click
- 360° mouse look (Esc to stop)
Phones and tablets
- Stick
- Walk; push to the edge to run
- Drag
- Look around; pinch to zoom
- Use
- The big button: sit, enter, play
- 💬 😊 ❄️
- Chat, emotes, snowball
- ☰
- Menu: bricks, quests, pets, friends, invite
- 🤳
- Selfie view
Pick keyboard, joystick or both in ☰ → Settings → How you move.
03
Focus and earn
- 1Sit at any desk in the library, café or your own house (walk up and press Use or E).
- 2Pick a timer: 1, 5, 15, 25, 50 minutes, and press Start focusing.
- 3Stay seated until it ends. Standing up stops the session.
- 4You get XP (levels) and bricks the moment it ends, plus any challenge it completes.
Bricks also come from games, stories, lessons, fishing, the Mela and quests. XP raises your level; bricks are what you spend.
Works
- ✓Your phone screen stays awake during a session
- ✓Pause and resume
- ✓Every finished session counts towards your streak
Doesn't
- ✕Leaving the seat or the page stops the timer
- ✕Fishing and Mela games stop paying bricks after the day's first few (XP keeps coming)
04
Your house
Every account gets a plot in the neighbourhood. Build it part by part with bricks (10 parts, plus seasonal extras for players on a streak), choose one of 6 themes (Cottage, Modern, Little Castle, Japanese, Candy and Winter Cabin), and furnish the inside.
Some parts need a challenge first, for example the front door (eat 10 berries in garden snake), the chimney (sit in the library and finish a story) and the porch steps (clear lantern pairs in 20 flips or fewer). Unbuilt parts show in town as a faint golden plan.
Seasonal parts can only be built during their season, and each asks for a streak: 🪔 diwali diyas (festival of lights, a 3-day streak), ⛄ snowman (winter, a 5-day streak), 🌸 blossom tree (spring blossom, a 5-day streak) and 🌧️ monsoon swing (monsoon, a 3-day streak). Once built, it's yours to keep all year.
Works
- ✓Build from ☰ → Build, or the 🔨 button, without leaving town
- ✓Neighbours can knock and look round inside
- ✓A finished house gets a Show it off button
Doesn't
- ✕You can't go inside until the walls are up
- ✕Nobody else can build on or change your house
05
Arcade and leaderboards
Play at the arcade cabinets in town or from the Games page. While you're signed in, the game sends what you did (your moves and taps) to our server, which plays the round back by the same rules and works out your score itself. That's why scores and the leaderboards can be trusted.
Each game has a leaderboard for this week (it starts again every Monday) and one for all time, showing everyone's best score with their first name and last initial. You'll find them under every finished game, on the Games page, and over the cabinets in town.
Works
- ✓Your XP and bricks for a game are added by the server, so they're safe even if your connection drops right after
- ✓A new personal best is marked and can be shared
Doesn't
- ✕A round that doesn't add up (played faster than the game allows, or changed in the browser) isn't saved and earns nothing
- ✕Guests don't go on the leaderboards
- ✕Scores far beyond what people manage are kept off the board until we've checked them
06
Quests, challenges and streaks
Every day the townsfolk give you three quests and one bigger daily challenge (☰ → Daily quests, or Q). Finish them and press Claim for bricks. New ones arrive at midnight, your time.
Your streak grows by one each day you do any of these: a focus session, a language lesson, or claiming a quest. Miss a day and it starts again at 1.
Works
- ✓An account's streak is the same on every device and shows on your house page
- ✓You get a reminder when your streak is about to break
Doesn't
- ✕Just opening the game doesn't count: do one of the three things
- ✕A guest's streak only lives in that browser
07
Inviting friends
Your share link (focusburg.com/house/your-name-abc123) opens a page with your character and your house. It's also your invitation.
If you're inviting
- 1Get your link: Profile → Invite friends, ☰ → 📣 Invite friends in town, or Friends.
- 2Send it: WhatsApp, Instagram, your class group.
- 3Go into town and stay there. Your friend can only be put next to you while you're in the town.
- 4When they arrive you see “… is right beside you”, and when they've signed up your 50 bricks arrive.
If you got a link
- 1Open it and press Create account (for the bonus) or Just look around as a guest.
- 2The town opens with “Taking you to …” and puts you right in front of your friend.
- 3Not in town yet? You wait at the fountain with “Waiting for …”. When they arrive, press Go to them (we keep looking for 15 minutes).
- 4Say hi: 💬 or T to chat, 😊 or G to wave, and sit at the same table to study together.
Works
- ✓Signing up from a link: friends straight away and 50 bricks each
- ✓Already have an account? Join from the link and you become friends (no bonus)
- ✓Your friend is in the library, café or Learn Hall: you're taken inside to them
- ✓Signing up up to 30 days after opening the link (same browser)
Doesn't
- ✕Meeting someone who isn't in town (you get the Go to them button when they come)
- ✕Going inside someone's house: you wait till they come out
- ✕Skipping the Mela's pass: at the Mela you start at its gate
- ✕Bonus bricks for more than 10 new friends a day, or for your own link
- ✕Opening the link in one browser and signing up in another: the bonus is lost
10
Chat and safety
Each part of town has its own chat (Town, Mela, Library, Tech Fest); switch with the tabs. Anyone can read it; sending a message needs an account. One message a second, up to 140 characters.
See something that's not OK? Tap ⚑ next to the message and pick why. It disappears for you straight away, and the person never learns who reported them. When three different people report the same message it's hidden for everyone while a moderator looks at it.
Moderators can hide messages, block someone from chat for a while, or block an account. A blocked account can't sign in, and its email can't be used to make a new one. The owner gets an email saying why, with an Appeal button: write what happened, a moderator replies by email, and if the block is lifted you get an email saying you're back.
Works
- ✓Be friendly, help people, ask who wants to study
- ✓Spam is caught automatically, so the chat stays readable
- ✓Reporting is anonymous and takes one tap
Doesn't
- ✕Flooding, repeating yourself or posting mostly links: the first time is a warning, the next blocks chat for a day
- ✕Sharing your phone number, address or passwords, or asking others for theirs
- ✕Bullying, or asking anyone to meet up outside Focusburg
- ✕Making a new account to get round a block
11
Who sees what
Works
- ✓Everyone online sees your name, your character and where you stand
- ✓Your house page shows your name, character, house, level and streak, never your email
- ✓Private chats are end-to-end encrypted: only you and your friend can read them
Doesn't
- ✕Anyone with your link can find where you stand while you're in town (never inside your house): share it with people you'd like to meet
- ✕Nobody but you can enter your house uninvited or change it
12
Your account
Everything below is on your Profile. The big changes each need your password and then a 6-digit code we email you, so nobody can make them with just your phone or your password. A code works once, for 15 minutes; we'll never ask you for it by phone or in chat.
Changing your email
- 1Press Request an email change, and enter the new address, why you're changing it, and your password.
- 2Enter the code we send to your current email (it's really you).
- 3Enter the code we send to the new address (it's really yours).
- 4Our team makes the change and emails both addresses. Until then you can cancel the request.
Deactivating
Signs you out everywhere and hides you from the town, the leaderboards and your friends; Pro won't renew. Nothing is deleted. Enter your password, then the code, and it's done. To come back, just sign in: your house, bricks and progress are exactly as you left them.
Deleting for good
Press Request account deletion, pick a reason (and tell us more if you like), confirm with your password and then the code. Our team erases your account, progress, house, scores, friends and private messages, and emails you when it's done. You can cancel until then. Payment records we must keep by law stay.
Works
- ✓Google accounts confirm by typing their email instead of a password
- ✓Signing up again after deleting starts you afresh
- ✓Your invoices are on your Profile to print or save as a PDF
Doesn't
- ✕Google accounts can't change their email here: it comes from Google
- ✕Deleting can't be undone, and the invite bonus isn't paid again for the same email
- ✕Deleting doesn't lift a block on your email
13
Something's not working
- My friend opened my link but started at the fountain
- You weren't in the town at that moment. Go into town: they'll get a Go to them button (for 15 minutes), or they can open your link again.
- It says “Couldn't reach the town's server”
- The town's server may be waking up. Wait a minute and open the link again.
- I didn't get the invite bonus
- It's paid when someone makes a new account from your link in the same browser they opened it in, up to 10 friends a day. Existing accounts become friends without a bonus.
- The Share button shows a copy box instead of WhatsApp
- That's a computer without a share sheet: copy the link or press WhatsApp there.
- My progress disappeared
- Were you playing as a guest? Guest progress isn't saved. Make an account to keep it.
- My score wasn't saved
- It says why under the score. “Couldn't reach the server”: check your connection and play again. “Didn't add up”: the round looked changed or impossibly fast, so it wasn't counted.
- My bricks went down after I refreshed
- Your account's bricks are kept on our server. If the page showed more than your account really has (for example from another tab), it's set back to the real amount. There's also a daily limit on bricks earned outside the arcade.
- The 6-digit code didn't arrive
- Check spam and promotions, and that you're looking at the right inbox. Codes last 15 minutes; ask for a new one from your Profile.
- I can't sign in: it says my account is blocked
- Open the email we sent when it was blocked and press Appeal. A moderator will reply.
- My streak went back to 1
- A day was missed (no focus session, lesson or claimed quest). Days follow your own time zone.
- The town is slow on my phone
- Close other tabs. Focusburg turns heavy effects off on slower devices by itself.