This article is for the new player in the game of SURVIVALCRAFT. It will help you start your first game, in HARMLESS mode and learn how to use the controls. You can explore more information by clicking on the links.
First Game
When the game first starts up you will be in the Main Screen. Here you can browse through the Help Topics when you click the HELP button or start a new game with the SINGLE PLAYER button. You should be ok with the settings that it starts with.
Starting Your First Game
If you haven't played SurvivalCraft before, you will have to start a new world. Your first one should be in Harmless Mode so you can learn the controls.
From the Main screen, tap the SINGLE PLAYER button to get to the Existing Worlds screen. This lists the worlds you already have. For your first time, it will be empty.
Tap the NEW WORLD button to get to the Start A New World screen. This gives you a random world.
Look over this screen and find the GAME MODE button. It will say CHALLENGING. Tap it until it says HARMLESS. This game mode lets you play without getting hunted by the animals so you can learn how to play easier.
Leave the rest alone and tap PLAY!
Start Playing the Game
The game will create a new world and it might take a minute to start it up. Then the opening video will play and you will be left standing there, watching the ship sail away from you over the Great Eastern Ocean. The sun is rising in front of you so you are facing the east. Look over your screen and you will see the Onscreen Buttons. You can learn more about them HERE.
Tap the < button to pause the game. You will see the Game Paused screen. There are five buttons. The HELP button takes you to the Help Topics screen, again. QUIT will save and leave the world you're in and take you back to the Main Screen. You don't have to worry about saving the game. It saves automatically.
Now, tap the < button to return to the game. Only the < button will pause the game. When you press any other button, the game will NOT be paused.
There are three sets of buttons/pads on the Play screen. They are covered in detail HERE. Tap the (...) button in the corner, to close the button bar across the top. You can open or close this anytime. The motion controls are at the bottom. You should have a MOVE touchpad and a LOOK touchpad.
Place your right thumb in the LOOK pad and move it around to see how it works.
Make sure you are not facing straight out to sea and use your left thumb to move the character. Do it the same way by placing it in the MOVE pad and slide it one way or another. The farther you slide your thumb, the faster the character will move.
When you are comfortable moving and looking around, you can start exploring the world. You should also learn all about the Onscreen Controls before trying to do more.
Getting Around at First
Check out the lay of the land. Note the various animals and plants that surround you. It will be different for every new game. Do not hit the animals or they might bite you back. See if you have mountains, hills or flatland around you. Deserts, forests, grasslands or tundra are some of the Biomes you will find. Each biome usually isn't very big in SurvivalCraft worlds so you can pick the ones you like pretty easily.
You usually start on a beach and there's some grass close by. You can walk around, and even climb some hills or whatever is around you. It's best to stay out of the water but if you're in Harmless mode, it won't hurt the character.
The game should be on auto-jump so you won't have to tap to jump at every little block. By tapping in the LOOK pad, you can make the character jump when you want.
Breaking Blocks
You can poke your screen with your finger tip and your character will hit some things with whatever tool is in your hand. If you move close to an animal and tap at it, you character will punch the animal. Be careful, the animal might try to bite you back. If you are in Harmless mode, they may attack you but it won't actually hurt you very much. They will give up after a while.
Move yourself so you are close to some sand or grass and look at it. Now touch and hold your finger on the sand or grass. You will see it outline and some cracks will show. When the cracks are extended to all the block, the block that you were touching will be 'broken' and a small 'dropped item' will appear. If you are close enough, this item will get sucked up into your inventory slots. You can keep holding your finger down and the character will keep trying to break blocks wherever you are touching. This is how you gather ingredients for crafting.
Lift your finger up to stop breaking blocks. You will probably now be holding the block you just broke. Now turn and look at an open space. Tap that space and the block you were holding should be placed where you tapped. It has to have enough room to go there so, if it didn't work the first time try to tap on another space a little farther away. This is how you build things. (This is NOT crafting.)
Collecting and Crafting
The first thing you usually want to start collecting is some wood. To make any tools or weapons, you have to use a crafting table. To make a crafting table, you need some wood. Go up to a tree and start 'punching' it. It will take a lot longer to break the tree than it did the sand. This is because things that are harder need harder tools to break them easier. An axe is best for wood but you can use your hand to collect enough wood to make a crafting table and a wooden axe. While you collect the wood, break and gather a lot of leaf blocks, too.
Once you have collected 3 wood blocks, you can make a crafting table and your first tools.
Open the personal crafting space and find the wood in your inventory. Touch and drag it to any crafting slot. See the crafting page to learn more about crafting. Planks will show up in the output box. Drag them into your inventory.
Now touch and hold the planks until the box gets hilighted. Now release your finger and tap on each of the crafting slots to put one plank in each. This will make your first crafting table. That's how you split stacks.
Make sure that the table is in your hotbar. Close the crafting space and select the table in the hotbar. Now place it on the ground like placing any other block.
Now tap on the table to get the full crafting area. You are ready to use the recipaedia to learn the recipes to make things. See the page on CRAFTING to learn more.
Once you can craft things, you should make a wooden pickaxe and collect some cobblestone. Use this to make stronger tools. Stone is much better than wood for tools and weapons.
Once you are gathering cobble, get some more so you can make a furnace. A furnace will let you smelt ores into ingredients to use in crafting better things.
Getting Hungry and Tired
In Harmless mode, you get hungry but it takes awhile, then it only hurts you a little bit and you regenerate pretty fast. You can go a long time before eating but you do need to eat regularly in the harder modes. Open the Body/Food screen and see your character. When you have food, you can drag it from your inventory, onto the body picture to eat it.
You will eventually need to eat but you can survive quite a long time before having to eat. One easy way to get food is simply to stand around and watch for birds to drop eggs. You can pick them up and eat them raw. This won't be enough food to survive in the harder modes but will be good enough for now.
If you wander around you might find pumpkins. You can break them and eat them too. Some other animals may come after the pumpkins if you don't pick them up right away.
While you are wandering, you might hear animals fighting. Their attacks sound like slapping noises and you might hear them complain, as well. Look around and try to find the fight. If it isn't too far away, you should go and watch them. One animal will probably be a meat animal and the other a carnivore. If the meat animal is killed, you can run over and pick up the meat that it drops. The carnivore will not attack you in Harmless mode and you get some easy, free meat to eat.
Once you can make weapons, you can use a machete to kill some animals for food. A stone machete is much better than a wood one. Not all animals will drop food, however. Some will drop other useful items. Wild boar will come after pumpkins if you drop them and the boar are good food. Use your machete to kill the boar when they come to get the pumpkins.
You should remember that sometimes even the mildest animal will turn and attack you back. Learn how to defend yourself and still get the food you need to survive.
You will also get tired and may even pass out, but the beasts won't hurt you while you sleep. You can get cold and freeze to death if you're in a cold biome, especially if you're wet. So stay where you won't get cold, for now. You can just wait and let the character pass out from sleep, as long as you're not in the middle of a fight or in water, etc. You really don't need to build a temporary shelter in Harmless mode. You can wait until you are ready to build a better one.
Sleeping Better
Once you can gather and mine for resources then smelt and craft them into tools, weapons, and other items you can make a shelter better than a hole in the ground.
There are many ways to make shelters but if you want to sleep in them, they need a soft enough spot to sleep on. Any leaf block or wood or even sand or grass will be soft enough to sleep on and you just need one.
The shelter has to be secure as well. It needs to be sealed up from invading animals, even in Harmless mode. But it's easy to make walls from leaves or planks if you're near a forest. Or you can make them from sand if you're near a desert. A temporary roof can be made from leaves. You can seal a doorway up with sand or leaves, and simply break it open once you have slept.
To go to sleep, stand on the soft block and open the Body/Food screen. Tap the Zzz button to sleep. If something is wrong, you will be told.
You can build a more permanent shelter or improve your first one, with some more time and effort. You'll probably want a door and maybe some windows. Use the recipaedia in the help screen to see how to craft a door. Use the furnace to smelt some sand into glass. There are several pages on this wiki about building good houses.
Getting Dressed
You have to learn to stay warm in colder biomes, now. If you get cold, you can freeze to death in the harder modes. In Harmless mode, your vision will still freeze over and you won't be able to see and your movement will become very slow but you will not take any damage. Stay in a warmer biome to avoid getting cold. To survive in the cold, you will need to make CLOTHING.
To make clothes, you need to grow cotton or get leather and fur from the animals that drop them. You can even change the color of your clothes with dyes/paints.
You can protect yourself from the beasts that attack by making some armor. It uses a lot of resources but can keep you alive longer.
Ready To Go!
Once you know how to do all these things, you are ready to try Challenging mode! You have to be able to get ahead quickly and try not to die. But the whole world is out to get you. That's why it's such a CHALLENGE!
Before you move on, you should know:
All about using the buttons and working the game.
How to craft anything and how to find recipes.
Smelting to get your resources.
How to hunt, so you won't starve.
How to make Clothes and Armor, and when to wear warm clothes.
How to build shelters until you can build a house.
See Survival Guide for beginning a game in Challenging / Cruel gamemode.