Gaming Reaper
Grounded brings the fun and thrilling pursuit of survival in many games a vast majority of players are already familiar with, together with the setting of the infamous classic ‘Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. Obsidian Entertainment’s development venture of at least 3 years brings with it, its unique challenges and experiences.
A group of teenagers has shrunk down to the size of an ant in a backyard, and the game’s main story revolves around finding how and why such an incident took place.
Table of Contents
- Key Tips to Remember when Playing Grounded
- When to start practicing?
- Practice Good Navigation Skills
- Conclusion
The game can be played in both first-person and third-person, also allowing both single-player and multiplayer experiences. The player(s) must survive in the backyard conditions, from factors like predators, hunger, thirst, and many more of the like. They can also collect resources that they can use to craft items, weapons, and much more, making themselves a base and progressing forward in the game.
Given the game is being updated quite regularly over time, it is best for those who are starting to get a good idea of how, to begin with, the game. This is what this article focuses on; a complete beginner’s guide to Grounded.
Key Tips to Remember when Playing Grounded
The following part of the article will be mentioning tips and even specific advice to help you get started on Grounded the best way possible.
Pick, Scavenge, and Analyse
In the very beginning of when the protagonist has shrunken down and gained mobility, there is an assumption that it may all just be a dream. The doubts that all of this may just be a bad dream change immediately when the player first encounters a Field Station. A Field Station is a small camp-like structure filled with scientific apparatuses, the most useful of which is The Analyzer.
As mentioned earlier, the game allows the player to scavenge the yard environment for materials. This may be, for example, grass, from which one can get dewdrops. Now as the player goes about collecting materials, it is important to know how materials collected can help the player progress in the game. That is exactly where The Analyzer comes in handy.
Using The Analyzer allows one to scan materials the player encounters in the backyard, letting the player know more about the material being scanned and about the crafting recipes in which they can be used. This is the first tip for any beginner player, which is to pick and scan as many items as possible as that will allow the player to unlock blueprints in which those items can be used.
Do note, however, that The Analyzer can only scan a limited number of items before needing to be recharged. However, the good news is that one can expect to find more Field Stations as they explore the backyard environment, where there will be more Analyzers to come by.
Manage your Hunger and Thirst
Grounded features an aspect key to survival in the form of bars; hunger and thirst. How does one ensure to manage them is what is discussed further on.
Hunger
As you will soon realize, there exist two bars, of thirst and hunger which you need to keep a check on. Starting, you would not be having an entire cooking spit to yourself or any other way through which one may be able to prepare cooked food, so you’re going to have to rely on what many call life’s best and worst friend; nature.
As you explore the backyard environment which is recommended on its own, you will find mushrooms scattered across the place which are going to be your primary food source. Collect as many as you can not expect to upgrade to any other form of food at least for the first few in-game days.
Thirst
On to the second bar in focus, thirst. Remember when we mentioned dewdrops earlier in this article? Let’s get back to them now. Water can also be found scattered across the environment, on both grounds, and grass.
Now, one needs to make sure they only consume water that does not damage their HP, and is hence, safe. The water droplets found on the ground are what the game calls “Nasty Water”. Drinking these will cause you to lose your HP, which cannot be restored easily in the early in-game days of your journey.
Only drink safe water from grass stems, and drink lots of it. You will not be having any way to store water for later early on in the game so drinking whenever you find it is the way to go, while also keeping a note of where you find it in the first place.
Build a Good Base
As with most popular survival games in the market right now, all of them involve the player contributing their resources to create a place they call home. In Grounded, the need to call a place your home base is increased even further as you’re surrounded by predators of all sorts. Let’s look at how you can build a good base.
Why is a base needed and how to make one?
Given how rough and tough the backyard environment can be during the day, it gets even tougher during the night. More predators come out in their aggressive forms, damaging you more and decreasing your chances of survival. Keeping the fact that it may as well be the first few nights you need to make sure you are spending safely, even the bare minimum would do. So the third tip is about building yourself a place (or places as you will read further) where you can sleep safely in the night and respawn.
To ensure you can craft a good base in a short period, go for places that have a good landmark. Soda Cans and Juice Boxes are your best bet as not only are they best at protecting from predators by having structures of their own, but they also drip juice droplets which one can drink to restore their thirst and hunger meters.
There also exist Bad Landmarks which a player needs to avoid making their base in, for example, Spider Dens. In such places, there are high chances the player will be killed by predators or at the very least, get trapped.
You will also most likely be needing to construct walls, and it is recommended you do so as well to get familiarised with forming structures in-game. To construct walls, you will be needing an ax. Do keep this requirement in mind as you require an ax to be able to cut grass and make walls out of them.
Travelling and Sleeping
Also worth mentioning is how when the player sleeps at a particular location in-game, that becomes their new respawn point. This means that this is where they will be respawned if they were to be killed in the game moving forward. So it is recommended that as you progress in-game, build further bases around the game and set your respawn points according to what you are pursuing.
If traveling, for example, it would be best to sleep in a place closest to where you have already traveled up to, so in case of a death you respawn there saving yourself the agony of respawning back at your home base.
Craft Armour and Inspect Perks
Coming to terms with living in the backyard environment will involve facing those pesky bugs for not just food but also other resources. You would also need to do this very urgently as there aren’t a lot of reliable ways to gain HP early on in the game, so crafting an Armour as soon as possible is essential to your survival because damage purely taken without Armour can kill you easily.
We suggest building a workbench nearby your home base as early as possible to construct even the bare minimum of Armour available. Exploring the workbench will show you what you can afford to craft currently. It will also show how much defense a particular piece of Armour provides. A good point to note here is how as you follow the story quests embedded in the game storyline, you will at some point, get to the Oak Tree. You will start encountering some acorns on your way and smashing them with a hammer will award you their shells which create one of the strongest armors you can find.
Moreover, another key tip for beginners is to “Inspect” the Armour in the options available. This will allow you to see the perks a particular piece of Armour gives you, according to what materials it is made out of. A good example of this could be a particular piece allowing you to run faster or the other filling your hunger bar more quickly when you consume food, etc. Pay attention to the Perks.
Avoid Predators and Enhance Combat
Spiders, ladybugs, and even beetles. Those small pesky insects are not so small and can do a lot more damage when you have shrunk down the size of an ant. This is why avoiding them in the beginning, and learning your ropes with how to combat these bugs is essential to the best Grounded experience. Here, we look at how you can do so.
Predators
When starting, a lot of the predators will ignore you as the game gives you a certain amount of time to catch up to speed and get used to its workings first. However, there still may exist some predators who will attack you even at the beginning of the game. Lawn Mites seem quite eager to attack but given their small size, they are easy to deal with. Beetles are also a good example of Bugs that are hostile to you in the beginning.
Spiders, however, are one of the deadly predators the game has to offer. Spiders display signs when they recognize you as prey, like stopping and putting your legs up. Their eyes glow red when they get after you. The fact that there are these predators that exist throughout the landscape means that you need to be skilled in combat. Before that, however, you need to understand that without proper Armour and Weapons, you do not want to fight with any of these bad guys.
(Oh, bonus tip: If you are a person suffering from arachnophobia, you can go to settings and adjust how scary spiders look in the game. You’re welcome.)
Weapons
Repeating how essential it is to not get into fights unnecessarily, crafting a weapon to solidify your early game experience is a good idea. An approachable weapon early on is a Peblet Spear. It requires two sprigs, three plant fibers, and one Pebblet.
Even though the Peblet Spear may be one of the first weapons, it is not the weapon you get into a fight against a spider with. No way at all, which is why if you ever see one, run.
When to start practicing?
Grounded currently has a combat system that allows for movement, parrying, and dodging attacks. This has been subject to updates from Obsidian Entertainment however, currently looks solid. For the player to get familiarised, these must be practiced.
Now you do not want to pick up fights which can result in your death early on in the game, but as you progress, keep an eye out for acquiring acorn shell armor and a spear. After equipping these, you safely start attacking some of the bigger bugs in the game.
Also do note that predators are escapable if you just run away from them, so try to ensure that you are always prepared when getting into a fight or otherwise, there may be an ‘oops’ coming out of your mouth soon.
Practice Good Navigation Skills
There is indeed a map option available in-game that allows you to have a good look at the backyard environment you’re playing in. However, keeping the map on for extended periods leaves you open to being attacked by deadly predators who are not looking at a map like you are.
The game hence allows the player to use Trail Markers, which allow the player to mark locations explored with flags that are visible on screen as the player explores other regions of the backyard. It doesn’t require the player to open a separate map and hence allows the user to be in focus on the destination and the current surroundings.
You will be needing Clover Leaves to construct these and should develop a habit of using Trail Markers upon finding new Field Stations, Landmarks like Juice Boxes, etc. This allows for a good mapping to be done on-ground which will be useful to the player after returning to base camp.
Conclusion
All in all, the aforementioned techniques were some of the basics every beginner needs to go through at least once to ensure a smooth playing experience, when the size of an ant, in a backyard full of surprises. It is only after you explore and gather materials, you will be able to build. From there, you can craft weapons, armor, and more importantly a home base, along with much much more as you progress more into the game. Good Luck!
Thanks for sharing.