Grounded opens up an interesting environment where our characters have been shrunk down and let loose in a garden. While surviving amongst insects both friendly and aggressive, players can venture forth to find out what happened and why they are now so tiny. Like most survival games, Grounded also features base building, and food and water needs alongside the overall health bar. It may be tempting to jump straight into the action, but a little bit of preparation can go a long way, especially if you’re playing solo. This Grounded beginner’s guide will help you avoid the pitfalls and get you started on your brand new adventure.
Crafting
As with any survival game, crafting plays a big part. A lot of these tips will tell you the ingredients you need to craft a particular item. The crafting menu is found by pressing the tab button and clicking on the craft option at the top of the screen. The crafting items are divided into different sections. Select the item you want to craft to see the resources you need to make it. If you have everything you need, you can click on the craft button or press the space bar to construct it. Tools will automatically be made once you click on the button to craft them, but objects like base building elements and utilities have to be placed before they can be crafted. After placing these items with the LMB, press the ‘E’ key to build it. Items can be recycled and some resources regained by pressing ‘X’ when close to them.
Trail Markers
The map used in Grounded shows many places around the garden. Map markers can be unlocked when players explore a certain area, but there are some places that don’t show up. Trail Markers are a great way to pinpoint important places on the map. These can be used for a variety of things, like marking water resources, where your base is, or even placing down a warning of death. Text can’t be added to the markers, but they can be customised. Players can choose from a variety of symbols and colours to identify each of their markers.
Using Trail Markers can help you locate useful resources and even avoid some nasty critters.
Trail Markers are incredibly easy to make, and only require 2 sprigs, 2 plant fibres, and a clover leaf. Carry a few of each of these with you so that you can construct your markers wherever you are. The Trail Markers are found under the utilities category in the craft menu. Once you’ve placed your marker, a distance metre will show you how far away you are from it.
Moving Grass
There are many scary creatures out there in the garden, but there is a telltale way to spot when something alarming lies ahead. If the grass begins to move, there is something big close by. It may be a ladybird or something relatively harmless, but a lot of the time it will be a spider just waiting to strike. When starting out, it is best to avoid the moving grass as your tools and weapons will only provide limited damage. As the game progresses, you can unlock new and stronger weapons, but at the start, charging a spider or trying to fight off a swarm of ants alone isn’t going to end well.
Food and Water
Sustenance plays a big role in Grounded, so it is important to keep an eye on your food and water levels on your HUD.
As mentioned before, place Trail Markers on drinkable spots. There are juice drink droplets that can be found around fallen cartons, and water high up on grass stalks. When you wake, your water and food levels drop, so it’s important to know where you can get something to eat and drink. Later on in the game you can unlock a dew collector, a canteen and water container where you can store drinkable liquids, but it’s still good to know where you can fill them up.
Little insects like Aphids, Weevils, and Gnats can be killed, cooked, and consumed.
Little passive insects like Aphids, Gnats and Weevils are a great source of food. These critters won’t fight back, and most only take one hit to kill. You can cook them on a spitting roast (made in the craft menu using 3 dry grass chunks, 4 pebblets, and 4 sprigs). The meat will spoil after a while so it’s best to cook and consume it shortly after cooking.
Scattered around the map are mushrooms. These are found around the larger mushrooms, so collect as many of these as you can. Mushrooms don’t spoil like meat does. While they provide little in the way of sustenance, they can keep you going until you find something bigger to eat. They are also stackable in your inventory and can be stored away to save on space.
Lastly, don’t drink the puddle water, no matter how tempting it might be.
Field Stations
Field Stations are located all around the map and look like little domed, geometric buildings. You should find the first one along the path when you leave the starting cave. These mini-labs have analysers that you can use to scan the resources you’ve picked up and unlock new blueprints. I’d advise taking unanalysed resources to a Field Station as soon as you can. Who knows what useful tools you might unlock?
Unlock new weapons and tools using the Field Station analysers.
Each field station only allows you to scan 3 objects at a time. After that you will have to wait until the analyser is charged up again, or find another Field Station to analyse your resources.
Tools
This may seem like an obvious tip, but it will save you a lot of time later on: craft your tools as soon as you unlock them, even if you don’t need them yet. The last thing you want is to find a resource and not have the right supplies to make the tool to collect it. Some tools you can unlock by finding certain resources. Others are unlocked when you scan your resources at the Field Stations.
Over time weapons and tools will become damaged, so keep an eye on the metres and craft a new one before your old one is destroyed. The starting weapons and tools can be crafted using basic resources found all over the garden.
Storage
Over time your inventory will begin to grow and space will quickly grow scarce. There are some storage solutions to store your resources. Storage baskets (4 clover leaves and 3 woven fibres) and storage chests (2 clover leaves, 4 acorn shells, and 4 sap) can be crafted and placed to hold any additional items. This includes food, but be careful: many creatures will try to break into your storage if they detect something yummy inside. If your storage baskets and chests are under attack, an indicator will flash up on your screen.
Crafting weapons and tools as soon as you unlock them will ensure you will always be properly equipped.
Lean-To
One feature I love about Grounded are the Lean-Tos. A Lean-To is mostly used for sleeping and can be used from 20:00/8 p.m. onwards. As well as providing a safe space to sleep, a Lean-To can also be used as a respawn point. It may be worth having multiple around the map so that you can activate them when you pass. This saves you constantly being respawned in the starting cave and having to trek all the way across the garden to retrieve your backpack again. To do this, press ‘E’ when close to your Lean-To, and click the option to set it as your respawn point.
These handy structures are made using 3 clover leaves and 2 sprigs.
Arachnophobia Safe Mode
I don’t think I realised just how bad my Arachnophobia was until I played this game. Luckily, there is a feature that limits the amount of detail on the spiders. To access this feature, players need to enter the menu and press options. Click on the Accessibility tab and the Arachnophobia Safe Mode is the first option available. Use the slider (ranked 0-5) to decide how much detail you want on the spiders. 0 gives full detail while 5 leaves these crawling critters as nothing more than a couple of floating orbs and red eyes. The image on the right-hand side of the menu will show the levels of detail.
It’s a good idea to keep doing some of these things throughout the game, like leaving Trail Markers at important locations and using Lean-Tos as respawn points. Once you’re prepared, you’ll be ready to take on anything.
Grounded is available in early access on PC (Steam and Microsoft Store), and Xbox One.
