The first thing you see when you start Ascension will be the Main Menu. In order to play the game, you must first Create or Load a character, and then Run the character. Below is a brief summary of each available option on the Main Menu: 

Play Game  
After running the Character Manager (see below), the last character created/played will load automatically and all you have to do is press play game to load your character.
Note: For a Multiplayer Character, you will have to connect to a server before you can play the game (see also the Multiplayer section). 

Character Manager
This option allows you to select different characters, create new characters, delete characters, look at a list of your single player or multiplayer characters (multiplayer characters when connected to a multiplayer server).  The Hall of Records can also be found here.

Multiplayer 
This button opens the Multiplayer window, from which you can join a server to play Multiplayer games over the Internet (see also the Multiplayer section).

Game Options  
This will bring you to the Game Options menu which allows you to specify various game settings (see also the Game Options section). 

Help and Other 
This will start the Help Lesson, Tutorial, allow you to submit a Bug Report, access the Demise Message Boards via the Internet (as long as you are already online) and check the Credits for the game.

Quit  
Shuts down Ascension.