Darkwood Starter's Guide to dyin- I mean surviving.
Posted: Sun Jul 27, 2014 2:01 am
So I've streamed Darkwood the past few streams and I'm having an absolute blast! Now I'm 8 hours in with still plenty of gameplay to go through. Alongside learning by myself, my viewers have helped me with tips here and there so thought I'd give people just starting the nightmare some tips I've learned along the way. I'll leave out anything that might spoil the story as I find it interesting! (Although I still haven't gotten too far through it). Wouldn't want to spoil it for others). I'm no pro at this game and haven't discovered everything there is to know but I hope some people get some use out of this!
The Essentials/Starting Out
Talk to the NPC beside you. He's your main merchant for now and will give you some hints to go forward through the game/story. He will also tell you where you can find his campsite and where another important NPC is. The game randomly generates the locations of things in the game so it's best to talk to him. You can always refer back to your Journal (J) if you forget where his (and other NPCs) locations are. Not to mention he gives you a key object in surviving! The bucket he gives you should be attached to the well on the left side of your house. You'll need to drink at the start of every night or you'll start decaying. If you find the watch through your journey, the need to drink will occur around 21:10 (having the watch in your inventory will show the clock in the top right corner). You can only drink at the start of night since the well will be dry during the day.
Search around the house and you'll find some mushroom nodes, a generator shed, a searchable corpse, and wardrobes/dressers to store stuff in (and push in front of doors). You'll also wake up beside an oven but we'll get to that later.
The generator will provide light through your house for the night but will require gasoline (It starts with some already though). Gasoline can be found or traded for and to fill the generator you'll need to equip the gas can and hold right click then left click to pour it in.
Regarding furniture, you can drag them by holding left mouse button. They can be used as barricades or to block FOV from enemies. NOTE: Pushing them in front of doors doesn't mean they are blocked fully. Most enemies can still push them open but it does provide some cover and is better than just leaving it wide open.
Open up your map with "M" to get your bearings. You don't see your current location on the map so get used to judging direction and distance! Exploring will add small areas of interest to your map and mark them so the more you explore, the easier it is to figure out where you are and where to go. The lines that appear on the map as you explore are roads/paths.
Tab will open your inventory where you can craft a variety of tools and weaponry or to equip things onto your hotbar. Resources can be quite scarce so be sure to craft only what you need for the short term. I recommend finding wood and nails to make a weapon ASAP! There is no punching in this game so unless you have a weapon you are defenseless. There are recipes you can find through out the area by exploring, unlocking chests, etc. I've yet to complete quests but I'm sure they will provide additional rewards. To learn a recipe hold left mouse on it. The recipe will be added to your crafting window. Regarding inventory management, you can split piles and move things one by one by holding CTRL while left clicking the pile. To move a pile of an item to your inventory or to a wardrobe, hold SHIFT while clicking. To drop an item all you need to do is drag it out of your inventory.
Regarding your HUD, status effects will appear above your HP bar (The red one). Things such as poisoned, bleeding, crippled, etc. can be viewed by hovering over the status effect image if there is one. The grey bar is your stamina. Sprinting (SHIFT) and attacking will reduce it. It regens over time and you can eat food or pills to allow you to do more stamina based actions for a longer period of time. The blue bar is your essence. You can essentially view it as experience in the game.
To get essence you need to harvest mushrooms. They are found in small clumps alongside walls and randomly in the middle of the forest. Don't run over the nodes before harvesting them! You will get poisoned and without antidotes, gas mask, or health items, you WILL die. Remember the Oven in your hideout? That is used to harvest essence from mushrooms and odd meat. as of now, it seems the Oven is only used to level up. Food is not required to be eaten in order to survive. In the "cooking" menu, click on the mushrooms/meat to harvest them. Once you hit the required mL of essence the skill window will pop up where you can choose a skill to attain.
Assuming you're not on permadeath, Dying will put you back at your hideout at the start of your day, remove all your skills, and put you back at level one. Additionally all items you have that have durability will go down slightly.
So far it seems there are only three skills. Ability to see underneath objects, animals are less aggressive towards you, and more spots on hotbar. I recommend to always get the animal one first. There are wild dogs that run around and with the skill you're able to walk past them without aggravating them. I've yet to figure out what the first ability (See underneath objects) does and the third ability will be needed later on but you can find a recipe to make an item that increases your hotbar so it's not needed.
Combat is tough and requires a good sense of timing. Learn your enemies attack patterns and prep your swing by holding RMB. Once the circle hits your cursor left click. The longer you hold RMB the harder you will hit. Sometimes smaller attacks are better but larger attacks will interrupt enemy actions (like them being in mid-swing). You can hold your attack for a bit but not forever so keep that in mind.
Night (Welcome to Hell)
This is probably the hardest part of the game. Make sure to get back to your hideout in time to drink from the well. Preparing before the night comes is important and hopefully you've picked a room to board yourself up in. The hole in the right side of your house can be blocked by the wardrobe but it doesn't really stop much as enemies can push it open. It's better than nothing though! Make sure you have plenty of wood and nails. Boarding up the windows is VITAL to surviving. As long as you survive until the next day, enemies will disappear even if they're right beside you. Boarding up the windows reduces the enemies vision of you and buys you time. I would board up every window ASAP and just leaving the hole in the right side of the house to get in and out.
If you filled up the generator make sure to turn it on before boarding up. It'll allow you to see in your house since night is extremely dark. There will be times where you'll be fighting inside your house and being able to see the enemy is sort of important. If worse comes to worse you can hide behind the wardrobes to break vision and some enemies can be hid from if they haven't caught site of you yet.
NOTE: If you decide to board up yourself fully in a room (Even boarding up the door), you won't be able to un-barricade things. You'll have to use a lot of weapon durability breaking your own barricade.
If have Glass bottles you can craft Broken Glass traps and you can also find Bear traps to use for your own defenses. Once you get more resources build more than one Plank with Nails. Their durability sucks and until you find an Axe or better weapon you'll go through those things fairly quickly.
Once you're all nice and cozy try not to move or make noise. Enemies can and will locate you by hearing and if you make less noise they sometimes move on, thinking it's an empty house (The boarding up of windows helps with this). Don't be afraid to just run around your house and dodge if you have to! As long as you survive till morning you'll be good. Enemies disappear after it shifts to morning (Screen whites out).
There are tougher enemies during the night and they come to you during the night. There will be the odd time nothing happens but you can usually hear multiple enemies walking around outside or trying to get in. I won't spoil the enemies though :p
The Essentials/Starting Out
Talk to the NPC beside you. He's your main merchant for now and will give you some hints to go forward through the game/story. He will also tell you where you can find his campsite and where another important NPC is. The game randomly generates the locations of things in the game so it's best to talk to him. You can always refer back to your Journal (J) if you forget where his (and other NPCs) locations are. Not to mention he gives you a key object in surviving! The bucket he gives you should be attached to the well on the left side of your house. You'll need to drink at the start of every night or you'll start decaying. If you find the watch through your journey, the need to drink will occur around 21:10 (having the watch in your inventory will show the clock in the top right corner). You can only drink at the start of night since the well will be dry during the day.
Search around the house and you'll find some mushroom nodes, a generator shed, a searchable corpse, and wardrobes/dressers to store stuff in (and push in front of doors). You'll also wake up beside an oven but we'll get to that later.
The generator will provide light through your house for the night but will require gasoline (It starts with some already though). Gasoline can be found or traded for and to fill the generator you'll need to equip the gas can and hold right click then left click to pour it in.
Regarding furniture, you can drag them by holding left mouse button. They can be used as barricades or to block FOV from enemies. NOTE: Pushing them in front of doors doesn't mean they are blocked fully. Most enemies can still push them open but it does provide some cover and is better than just leaving it wide open.
Open up your map with "M" to get your bearings. You don't see your current location on the map so get used to judging direction and distance! Exploring will add small areas of interest to your map and mark them so the more you explore, the easier it is to figure out where you are and where to go. The lines that appear on the map as you explore are roads/paths.
Tab will open your inventory where you can craft a variety of tools and weaponry or to equip things onto your hotbar. Resources can be quite scarce so be sure to craft only what you need for the short term. I recommend finding wood and nails to make a weapon ASAP! There is no punching in this game so unless you have a weapon you are defenseless. There are recipes you can find through out the area by exploring, unlocking chests, etc. I've yet to complete quests but I'm sure they will provide additional rewards. To learn a recipe hold left mouse on it. The recipe will be added to your crafting window. Regarding inventory management, you can split piles and move things one by one by holding CTRL while left clicking the pile. To move a pile of an item to your inventory or to a wardrobe, hold SHIFT while clicking. To drop an item all you need to do is drag it out of your inventory.
Regarding your HUD, status effects will appear above your HP bar (The red one). Things such as poisoned, bleeding, crippled, etc. can be viewed by hovering over the status effect image if there is one. The grey bar is your stamina. Sprinting (SHIFT) and attacking will reduce it. It regens over time and you can eat food or pills to allow you to do more stamina based actions for a longer period of time. The blue bar is your essence. You can essentially view it as experience in the game.
To get essence you need to harvest mushrooms. They are found in small clumps alongside walls and randomly in the middle of the forest. Don't run over the nodes before harvesting them! You will get poisoned and without antidotes, gas mask, or health items, you WILL die. Remember the Oven in your hideout? That is used to harvest essence from mushrooms and odd meat. as of now, it seems the Oven is only used to level up. Food is not required to be eaten in order to survive. In the "cooking" menu, click on the mushrooms/meat to harvest them. Once you hit the required mL of essence the skill window will pop up where you can choose a skill to attain.
Assuming you're not on permadeath, Dying will put you back at your hideout at the start of your day, remove all your skills, and put you back at level one. Additionally all items you have that have durability will go down slightly.
So far it seems there are only three skills. Ability to see underneath objects, animals are less aggressive towards you, and more spots on hotbar. I recommend to always get the animal one first. There are wild dogs that run around and with the skill you're able to walk past them without aggravating them. I've yet to figure out what the first ability (See underneath objects) does and the third ability will be needed later on but you can find a recipe to make an item that increases your hotbar so it's not needed.
Combat is tough and requires a good sense of timing. Learn your enemies attack patterns and prep your swing by holding RMB. Once the circle hits your cursor left click. The longer you hold RMB the harder you will hit. Sometimes smaller attacks are better but larger attacks will interrupt enemy actions (like them being in mid-swing). You can hold your attack for a bit but not forever so keep that in mind.
Night (Welcome to Hell)
This is probably the hardest part of the game. Make sure to get back to your hideout in time to drink from the well. Preparing before the night comes is important and hopefully you've picked a room to board yourself up in. The hole in the right side of your house can be blocked by the wardrobe but it doesn't really stop much as enemies can push it open. It's better than nothing though! Make sure you have plenty of wood and nails. Boarding up the windows is VITAL to surviving. As long as you survive until the next day, enemies will disappear even if they're right beside you. Boarding up the windows reduces the enemies vision of you and buys you time. I would board up every window ASAP and just leaving the hole in the right side of the house to get in and out.
If you filled up the generator make sure to turn it on before boarding up. It'll allow you to see in your house since night is extremely dark. There will be times where you'll be fighting inside your house and being able to see the enemy is sort of important. If worse comes to worse you can hide behind the wardrobes to break vision and some enemies can be hid from if they haven't caught site of you yet.
NOTE: If you decide to board up yourself fully in a room (Even boarding up the door), you won't be able to un-barricade things. You'll have to use a lot of weapon durability breaking your own barricade.
If have Glass bottles you can craft Broken Glass traps and you can also find Bear traps to use for your own defenses. Once you get more resources build more than one Plank with Nails. Their durability sucks and until you find an Axe or better weapon you'll go through those things fairly quickly.
Once you're all nice and cozy try not to move or make noise. Enemies can and will locate you by hearing and if you make less noise they sometimes move on, thinking it's an empty house (The boarding up of windows helps with this). Don't be afraid to just run around your house and dodge if you have to! As long as you survive till morning you'll be good. Enemies disappear after it shifts to morning (Screen whites out).
There are tougher enemies during the night and they come to you during the night. There will be the odd time nothing happens but you can usually hear multiple enemies walking around outside or trying to get in. I won't spoil the enemies though :p
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