What is the Vale of Jack?
A small online world in pixels, made for a group of friends. You start out with almost nothing, choose a vocation (knight, mage or ranger) and find your own way from there: hunt and skin, gather and craft, build a house, trade on the Exchange. You can do all of it alone or with a party.
It runs on its own server around the clock, and it keeps growing. A new update comes out every Saturday evening.
Everything in the Vale - the world, its people, its art and its music - is made by Niklas Bergvall, father of Jack. The game carries his son's name, and its one rule is the one Jack taught him: keep going.
A gentle start
New players wake on Firstlight Isle, where Warden Tamsin teaches the basics: walking, fighting, gathering, fishing, cooking and crafting. Then his balloon carries you to the Vale.
A living world
Villagers with homes, families and daily routines. Critters, rain puddles, light and shadow that move with the day, and land, sand and water that blend into each other.
Build a home
Raise your own house wall by wall, pick its roof, add a floor or two, and fill it with furniture. Its chests feed your crafting stations.
Quests and dungeons
Party dungeons like the Little Red Devil's hideout - three floors, a choice at the end, and a weapon of your own to take home.
Your own build
Choose a vocation - knight, mage or ranger - and spend your points on a star chart of 75 skills, from combat to gathering and skinning.
Craft and trade
Smith, brew, cook, fuse runes and dye your gear. Post buy and sell offers on the Exchange, or set up a stall of your own.
Hunt together
In a party, every drop goes into one shared Hunt Pool. Press "Finish hunt & split" and it is shared out fairly by value, gold and gear alike.
Dungeons and the night
Light the dark dungeons with a Pit Torch. Up top, fifty creatures come out after dusk (wraiths, banshees, moon wolves), and on some nights a rare lord walks the hardest ground.
Roadmap
- Every Saturday evening, around 21:00 (Stockholm time) - the week's update goes live. The login screen offers Update client and your characters stay where they are.
- 1–10 January 2027: the official release - we're aiming to make the Vale of Jack officially released in the first ten days of the new year. Until then it's an early version that changes every week, so tell us what feels off.
- On the way there - many new quests, new mechanics, a new class, more progression, and redrawn monsters.
- Abilities you choose and shape - an ability tree window where you pick which abilities to learn and level them up, tuning how each one works.
Installing
- Put it somewhere it can stay.
Move The Vale of Jack.exe to your Desktop or a Games folder before you open it. It unpacks the game into a folder called "The Vale of Jack" right next to itself. That takes about five seconds and only happens once. After that, the same exe just starts the game.
- Windows may warn you.
The game is not code-signed, so SmartScreen may say "Windows protected your PC". Click More info, then Run anyway. Your browser may also call it an uncommon download. Choose Keep.
- It updates itself.
You only need to download it once. When the vale gets a new version, the login screen offers Update client. Press it, and a few seconds later you are on the new version. Your characters stay where they are.
- No Windows PC?
Play in your browser on any computer. Chrome, Edge and Firefox all work.
ValeOfJack-2026-10-12.2237.c49b2e4a.exe · 191,976,448 bytes · build 2026-10-12.2237.c49b2e4a
SHA-256 64dbc34168f56f6bca04e41f22d79096ee0d495b32b0b9b9f8c5df7d7041d08d · latest.json
What's new 17 Oct 2026
- A brand-new start on Firstlight Isle (new players learn the basics with Warden Tamsin, then fly to the Vale by balloon)
- A living world (villagers with homes, families and routines; critters, rain puddles, light, shadows and new sounds)
- Houses that look like houses (real walls, windows, roofs and doors; raise your own house a floor)
- Prettier land (ground, sand, mountains and water blend; new trees and berry bushes)
- The Little Red Devil (a three-floor party dungeon quest south of Old Aldenmoor Camp, level 25+)
- Skill tree twice as big (75 stars, new Wild and Hunt arms; every one-time quest gives a skill point)
- Combat (ability icons with cooldown seconds, abilities never miss, hold to parry up to 3 s, Greater Mend heals half every 2 minutes)
- Crafting (a new crafting window, rune bench and dye table; item tooltips with stat icons; new ores and tool tiers)
- Quality of life (fishing on the left mouse button, hold G to keep gathering, bedrolls set your spawn, prospecting finds start at 40)
Major update: The Vale Comes Alive
Ground, shores and water that blend - and a world that moves
Major update: Houses
Real walls, windows, roofs and chimneys
Major update: The Skill Tree
75 stars - scroll to zoom, drag to look around
Major update: The Little Red Devil
The Devil's chest - one weapon each
Major update: Crafting
Recipes on shelves, everything you need on the card
Major update: Firstlight Isle
Warden Tamsin's training yard