Beginner's Survival Guide

The game doesn't do a lot of hand-holding and much of what you will learn is by trying... and dying... a lot. So to help you get the most out of each run, I've done all the dying for you so that I can pass along some helpful tips.

You have 3 stats:
Attack (red) influences your damage output.
Defense (purple) helps to mitigate damage.
Speed (cyan-light blue) affects the chances of successfully using the flee command to escape from battles. As far as I can tell it also affects how quickly you get tired from moving around on the map.

Since you always start in a village, and monsters close to your starting village aren't much of a threat (so you won't need to flee), you can actually ignore speed when choosing your starting stats because if you get tired you can sleep at the inn.

When I start the game, I put 5 points in Atk, 5 points in Def, and leave speed alone. Then on the first two level ups I spend those points in Spd. By level 3 this gives me 15 atk, 15 def, and 12 spd, which is pretty balanced.

Feel free to experiment though and see what works for you.

PLEASE DO NOT POST OR REPLY YET. THIS GUIDE IS NOT FINISHED.

The game technically doesn't end until you die. There is no final boss, no ending credits, and incidentally there appears to be no limit to the number if islands you can visit. None that have been reported anyhow.

The game falls neatly into the Rougelike genre. A subset of games where, if you die, you stay dead and must begin from the beginning. No stats, items, levels earned, or gold carry over.

This means a run has the possibility to last a long time... or last mere minutes.

And so careful planning is essential to a decent or great run in the beginning of the run and before deciding to explore a new island. And so in the next post I will detail some important things to focus on as you start a new run and then we'll get into the really fun stuff like crafting, island hopping, and advanced survival tactics.

Stay tuned for more!
PLEASE NO POSTING YET.

So you're in your starting village. Here are some fun facts about your starting village:
-It will always be located at coordinates 0,0.
-0,0 is the very center of your starting island and any island you visit.
-Every village on every island at the coordinates 0,0 will have every single amenity (More on that in a moment).
-The farther away you are from 0,0 the harder the monsters on that island become. So don't go too far right away!

Your starting village, and every village located at 0,0 on every island, has all the amenities.
Meaning you will get an inn for sleeping, a shop for... well... shopping, a bar for recovering hunger, a crafting shop which sells various crafting recipes (more on that MUCH later), a skill master who can teach you helpful skills such as cooking or invisibility, and a friendly NPC to chat with.

Literally EVERY village located at 0,0 will have ALL of those.
Why do I keep saying that? Because there are other villages scattered at random points on each island. Some of them WILL NOT have all of the amenities I listed. For example, some villages may not have inns to rest at. But at 0,0 it is guaranteed.
PLEASE NO POSTY POSTY

So if you ever feel kind

Things to consider when starting a new run:
1. Check the starting village's skill master right away. If you see Firecamp for sale, get it right away. Firecamp creates a fire on your current location that may be used to cook up to 5 pieces of raw butchered meat. This will be a life saver if you should stumble into villages that don't have bars, want to go longer before returning to a village, or migrate to a new island.

Personally, if I don't see Firecamp right away, I trash the run and reroll a new character.

2. BUTCHER EVERYTHING in the beginning. This gives you two options. You can either cook the meat using a firecamp or sell it to a shop for easy gold early on. Either way, for a good portion of your run you should butcher literally anything you kill.

3. DO NOT buy potions. They're expensive. They drop off of monsters and you may create your own later once you buy the blueprint from the Crafting Shop. Of course, you'll also need the Glass Bottle blueprint as well.

4. You can not get crafting sand for glass bottles from sand. I know that sounds weird. But sand is where you dig for chests. What you're actually looking for are sandbags. These can be found in good supply in desert areas.

5. Manage your inventory. The amount of items you may carry increases as you level up. But unfortunately none of the items in this game actually stack. Meaning if you have 2 healing potions that's 2 separate inventory slots taken up. If you like to craft things, inventory management becomes gimped because there never seems to be enough space for all the resources you may want to stockpile. Upgrading your stash space is expensive (seriously?! Three THOUSAND gold for the first upgrade of 5 slots? What the hell?).

6. Not every run will be good for crafting. Sometimes you get what you need from mobs. Other times it seems the only way to get what you need is to craft it. But if you're having good luck with drops of equipment, I can only suggest learning how to craft boats and healing/Stat potions.

Here's some stuff about various services provided in villages.

INN- Fills your health bar and refreshes your fatigue levels (the smaller bar beneath your health). The service has a flat rate of (your current level) x 15.

SHOP- Kind of self explanatory. Buys and sells items. Good source of gathering tools early-game. Try to avoid having to buy potions and opt to craft them instead. They're expensive and materials are plentiful. It's simple economics. Note that the shopkeeper has a limited amount of gold with which to buy your stuff. So he may actually run out of money. Over time he gets more money back though. Presumably from selling the stuff you sold him to other haphazard adventurers.

BAR- Serves food that refreshes your hunger bar. Presumably serves the same thing over and over again because you get no choice of food. You'll eat what they tell you to and like it. Also, notably, serves no beer.
Charges a flat rate of (Your hunger percentage) + 50%. So at maximum hunger (100%) the bar charges 150 gold for a meal.

CRAFT SHOP- Sells the recipes required to make items with other materials. I highly recommend grabbing glass jar healing potion(requires glass jar), and boat. Boats are very costly and require so little to make! One could even make a small fortune simply crafting and selling boats!

SKILLMASTER- Teaches you various skills which may vary from village to village. Sadly, each skill master only knows one skill. So if you don't get the one you want in your starting village, you need to either find another village and hope they have it or wipe and start over again.

I haven't tried them all yet but I am definitely fond of Firecamp (creates a fire to cook monster flesh with) and invisibility (allowing for safe passage when I first arrive to a new island).

It just dawned on me that maybe trying to cram all this information into a single thread will make it difficult to search for specific information later down the road.

So, for all intents and purposes, this thread will concentrate on villages and a few random tips designed for very EARLY in your runs. Things I believe I've already covered.

I will now accept posts and questions on this thread.
In Survival Guide vol. 2 I will outline equipment and items as well as skills. In vol. 3 I will cover combat related topics. In vol. 4 we'll do crafting and the importance of it and, lastly, in Vol. 5 we'll tackle advanced mechanics, strategies, and island hopping.

Feel free to post in this topic now and please stay tuned for vol. 2!!!

I have found this to be very helpful can't wait for vol2

Thanks!

I just want to make a slight change to this one but there is no option for me to edit posts.

Let me make this clear: Prioritize getting the invisibility skill before you hop to a new island. Some of the isands have a range of 10+ spaces away fromm 0,0 in any direction. Invisibility won't last you 10 steps but since you arrive at a beach anytime you island hope and we've established that the further away from 0,0 you are the more powerful the mobs will be, invisibility might just allow you to get to an area with easier monsters as you embark on new islands.

More important is to look for an island with low danger level. I generally learn all the skills available to me on the starting island.

Or better: prioritize improving yourself as much as possible, before going to a new island for the first time.

When you start a game, Firecamp skill is really a must have. It allows you to explore the land so easily... Plus, if you have a heal ring, you're almost invincible. Unless you sail to a too dangerous island and get killed in one shot...

Not really that important. you go back and forth easily between all the villages. Eating at the bar is cheaper anyway and less micromanagement. Danger Sense is about as useful in getting around fast. As for new islands... Hunger should be the least of your problems. Take the boat back at 70 and you should be fine. Being able to run back to the beach freely with Invisibility or Danger Sense is much more valuable than a free meal.

Just my 2 cent.

I am just saying, when you say you never play without Firecamp, how do you know what it is like? I did have Firecamp on my first successful island hop, but I barely used it.

I agree on the heal ring though... ☺

Wait... What ? Firecamp only cost 250 gold, and you don't have to eat at the bar anymore.
Of course it's micromanagement, but when you have plenty of flesh, it becomes easy.

But firecamp + heal ring = gamebreaker.

I guess everyone has its own way to play this game.

Instead of eating them, you could sell the chunks, which nets you more money. I am not saying that Firecamp is useless, it is just not as supercool as you make it out to be. As I said, I rarely used it.

gold sword (138,71) = gamebreaker

Made it myself on the first island I went... Recently met a mob I had to hit twice.

Yeah, RNG is sometimes very... generous. Especially when you drop a Silver Spear (234,203) on the second hisland. \o/

One shot everything, feel mighty. \o/

My point was more like: duuuh, no RNG needed. This is a rather average weapon when crafting on an island. No looting hence no killing needed.

All fair points to make. But, if I may...
Firecamp is invaluable on your first couple island hops. You wind up far from 0,0 in any new island and you don't know what the danger level of a new island is until you reach it.

Of course one could always use the same boat to hop back to the starting island if the danger is too high but if your boat has 2 or fewer uses, it's not always viable.

That said, prioritizing getting stronger isn't always viable either. After a certain point on any given island the mobs grant less and less xp and the drops all have stats of 1,1 if your level comes close to or exceeds the danger rating of the island.

Again, this guide was never meant to be a universally applicable walk through for every run but more like a starting point until you learn what works best for you. The tips provided will ensure good survivability for the first island of each run.

Well, I just try to give another opinion, but there are a few other points to be made, like building more than one boat.

Getting stronger is a very strong strategy in this game, to the point of game-breaking, ignoring it seems weird to me. Ironically, I never noticed that you get worse loot when you have too high xp, because I usually go for a fast game. Good to know!

doh! silly me - just struck me that when you go to new island and land on beach, you are hitting the toughest baddies straight off then!

Dudes max level is 50. I got a diamond sword 458,436. R n blinkin G for the win! Then game crashed lol. Make sure to get at least to lvl 30 before next island. It's good to have all armor atleat least 10,5 Goodluck my friends haha