Wickling Guide – Wax, Light, Flares, Every Creature and Boss, and How to Get 3 Stars

Wickling! is a free browser game where you play Wick, a tiny living candle in a haunted town. The one idea behind everything: your wax is your health and your light at the same time. This guide explains how light works, when to flare, how to deal with every creature and boss, and how to earn all three stars.

Controls

• Walk: WASD or the arrow keys, or hold the mouse button where you want to go. On phones and tablets, drag anywhere for a floating joystick (Settings can switch it to “walk toward your finger”).
• Flare: Space or right-click (the big FLARE button on touch screens; a second finger also flares). It burns every shadow around you and costs 8 wax.
• Tealight: E (the 🍵 button on touch screens). You get two per stage, more with upgrades.
• Light a lantern: just stand next to a dark one until the ring around it fills up.
• Pause: Esc or P. Restart: R.

How wax and light work

• Your wax melts slowly all the time, and every bite from a creature takes a chunk. At 0 wax you are snuffed out and the stage is lost.
• The less wax you have, the smaller your circle of light. Watch the meter at the top left: below a quarter it flashes red.
• Lit lanterns refill your wax. Stand close to one and you’ll see warm sparks rising: that is the refill. Every lantern you light is also a safe place to come back to.
• Wax stubs lying in the dark give a quick refill. Rescued wisplings orbit you and make your light a little bigger.
• Now and then your flame flickers. For a moment your light shrinks, and the shadows know it.

When to flare

• A flare burns everything around you, but it costs wax and needs a second to recharge. Don’t flare at every single gloomlet.
• The best moments: when two or more shadows are close, when a gloomlet’s eyes flash red (it is about to lunge), when moths are eating a lantern, or when a Boo Sheet is puffing up for a gust.
• Your light alone slowly burns gloomlets that come too close, so standing still in a bright spot is often safer than chasing them.

Lanterns, shadow pools and the gate

• Lighting a lantern seals the shadow pools near it (the swirling purple puddles). Open pools keep spawning creatures while you are nearby, so light the lanterns next to them first.
• Arrows on the screen edge point to the nearest dark lanterns, with their distance.
• When every lantern is lit, the gate opens. It stays open even if a lantern goes out later, so run for it.

Creatures

• Gloomlets are inky little shadows. They burn in light, so they circle at the edge of yours, then their eyes flash red and they lunge. Flare as they line up, or step into a lantern’s light.
• Wax Moths love light. They nibble your wax and eat lantern light. A lone moth singes itself before the lantern goes out, but a swarm will put it out: flare them off.
• The Hush only moves when no light is on it. Keep it in your light (or a lantern’s) and it is frozen. Its weak spot is your flame: when your wax runs low or your flame flickers, it creeps closer. Two flares, or a while in lantern light, get rid of it.
• Boo Sheets don’t mind light. They float around you and puff up before blowing a freezing gust in a blue cone: step out of the cone. Their gusts also blow out tealights. A flare scares them away, two flares make them vanish.
• Mimic pumpkins look like lanterns until you try to light them. CHOMP! Flare one until it is dizzy (stars spin over it), then light it quickly: it becomes your pet lantern and hops after you, lighting the way.

Bosses

Every boss follows one rule: a flare only hurts it while it stands in lantern light (a lantern you lit, a pet, or a tealight; the home lantern by the start doesn’t count). The ring under the boss turns gold when it is exposed. After each hit it is knocked back and shielded for a moment, so you have to lure it into the light again.

• The Scarecrow Shade walks after you, throws fans of shadow crows and stomps lanterns out. Wait beside a lit lantern so it walks into the light, then flare.
• The Moth Queen flies from lantern to lantern and eats them. While she feeds she is lit up: that is your moment. When no lantern is lit she dives at you.
• Lady Draught hovers near you and blows huge gusts that put lanterns out. Relight them, stand close to one and flare when she drifts into its light. She teleports now and then.
• The Gloom slowly crawls to the nearest lantern and swallows it. While it swallows it sits right in the light, so be ready to flare. At half health it also sends Hushes after you.

How to get 3 stars

1. Light every lantern and reach the gate (or defeat the boss).
2. Rescue all 3 wisplings. They hide in dark corners, far from the lanterns. Their soft blue glow is easier to spot than you think.
3. Beat the par time shown on the stage card and in the timer.

Going for all three at once is tough. A good plan is to clear a stage first, buy an upgrade, then come back for the missing stars.

Upgrades, candles and the Long Night

• Burned shadows drop embers. Spend them in the Candle Shop on 6 upgrades with 3 levels each: more wax, a bigger light, faster flares, more tealights, faster kindling and faster refills. Thicker Wax and Bright Wick help the most early on.
• Stars unlock new candles with their own flame colours and hats, from Pumpkin Spice to the Witchy candle with its green flame.
• After 4 stages the Long Night opens: an endless survival mode where the lanterns burn down and must be relit while the nights get longer and meaner. How long can you keep your flame alive?