It was time to go on a bit of a trip in more than one way. I’d be exploring my local area more in search of critical supplies to grow my village. I’d also learn the hard way what not to eat.
My first order of business was getting more blood shards. I had a villager, but I was going to need a lot more of them. It would take 5 shards and some time just to summon one villager. The more villagers I have, the longer it takes to get my next. At least the first couple only took a couple of minutes to summon.
Usually, I like to not go back to camp unless I have a full inventory in survival games. The inventory system is a bit different in this game. You have three different types of inventories: small, medium, and large. This corresponds to how big an object is.
When it comes to something like rocks. They stack and are considered a small item. Despite rocks having a lot more weight than some items that would be medium-sized. It also seems that, for the most part, small-sized items also can’t be broken down anymore. This seems to be why they are considered small instead of going by weight.
Next up, you have things, bark, and thatch to name a few. They are medium items. These two types of items can be broken down into smaller items. You also have tools that take up the medium slots.
Finnlay, you have a single large inventory slot. Picking up one of these types of items, like a blog or a large rock, slows you down and drains your stamina when trying to run with them. I try not to pick these types of items up unless I'm closer to my village, unless I'm desperate.
Many mistakes were made during the early days. For one thing, I had limited means of cooking. This often meant I was eating things raw. I had the rather misfortune of eating a mushroom that required being cooked first to remove the effects it had on me. While there were mushrooms that I could eat raw, this was not one of them.
At least the effects did not last that long. I also had three villagers by this time. Along with a woodcutter's pit. Sadly, my wood cutters seem to always be very lazy, with me needing to do the bulk of the tree chopping. I often wonder if they sneak off into the woods and eat the wrong kinds of mushrooms like I did. I’ll never know.
Shortly later, I also had the stonecutters' pit and the gatherers’ pit up and running. These I felt were the most critical buildings to get up right away. I was mostly just waiting till I had enough villagers to assign one person per building.
It seems you can never have enough villagers. For quite some time, most of my buildings would only have one worker at them. On the rare occasion, it is getting a second or even third worker.
In the early days, it was quite a struggle just having enough food and shelter for the couple of villagers I had. If I did not build enough shelters, they would follow me around telling me they had nowhere to sleep and were cold. Since I really did not need a shelter myself. I'd often go without.
Some days, I welcomed the nights after the rest of the village had gone to sleep. No one was demanding anything. I could kind of just focus on whatever goal I had next. For quite some time, it really was just the basics like wood, stone, and food.
While I was slowly starting to clear the forest around me. We would be fine for at least a decent amount of time. It, however, did not pass my mind that one day we would be out of resources. I was not quite sure what we would be doing once that moment came.
My first big project was going to be crafting a cottage. It could hold quite a few villagers for sleeping. While they start at just two. You could build another four beds, making it six villagers per cottage.
I also needed to build a workshop. I then could task a villager and later two of them with building the needed tools. While all villagers showed up with a few basic tools. Over time, they would break. The last thing I needed was for my forest people to not have any axes, as a real excess why they did so little work.
While I had plans to go out on a couple of day adventures, I would better scout the area around me. It had gotten too dark in the day already to see decently. I decided to hold off till morning to do so.
This ended up being pure dumb luck on my part. During the night, there was a blood moon. The village got attacked, and I almost got killed. Thankfully, we managed to stun the attacker so we could finish it off. I was just down to a sliver of health after that engagement.
This also highlighted a massive issue I did not realize I had. Healing my health back. I did not have an answer for this. Normal food seemed to do nothing at all. Most of the time, I did not have my own shelter to rest in, either to regain a very small amount of health over time.
The answer ended up being foraging for things like onions. I know that sounds quite strange, but that seemed to heal me a bit over time. The local area also had a decent amount of them. At least at first.
So, while on low health, I went on the little adventure I was going to in the first place. I was mostly after more blood shads. I also discovered a few more camps I needed to avoid, and I ran for my life, hoping not to get hit. As just a single hit would be enough to take me out until I recover more health.
Over time, I was able to heal some health issues. This would end up being a struggle for quite some time. I’d get health and then must defend the village. I’d be near death again and needing to go back out on an adventure, looking for things like onions to eat to restore some of my health. I needed a better solution than this. It would be a while before that was resolved.
By the time I returned, most of the workers kept telling me they ran out of things to harvest in the local area. I had to go out and mark areas for them to do the basic things, like food foraging, wood harvesting, and stone gathering. I at least knew the area well enough by this point to know where not to allow them to go gathering. As the last thing I needed was any of them getting killed.
Final Thoughts
Progression in these kinds of games is always a bit slower than I'd like. Alone, it takes me a while to gather and build a single building. You would think that with six villagers, it would be a quicker process. However, it might only be about double the rate. A lot of the town's effort is going into just maintaining itself. Along with having to provide more resources like housing, tools, and food for every additional villager I add.
A lot of the time, I feel like I'm not getting what I want done. I’m getting what my village needs done to get another villager. Who then puts even further strain on our already limited resources. In the hopes that I'll be able to put that villager to work in whatever building I want next.
Information
Screenshots were taken, and content was written by @Enjar about ASKA.
Disclosure: A review copy of the game was received for free.
Disclosure: This content was written during early access.