Starsand: Beginner’s Guide, Tips And Tricks To Get Started

by Falagar / Game Guides, General Guides / 08 Nov 2021

The beautifully immersive dune-themed game that debuted during the Summer of Gaming 2021 has finally entered early access. Starsand not only ranked as a brutal survival game but also for its visual aesthetics that pique the curiosity with Dune vibes. We bring you the Starsand beginner guide to help you better survive in the unforgiving and harsh desert climate.

Since the game is in early access, the story mode is not fully unveiled and is texted over a black screen. According to the lore, the player is stranded on an arcane desert that stretches across the map offering nothingness and death.

The blazing hot dunes spread across the horizon, making the game even more challenging for starters. You begin with a limited inventory and an introduction to help you craft the necessary items for survival. You can also hunt, tame, build, and craft using resources offered in-game.

Here are a few tips to help you improve your survival skills. They’ll come in handy during your journey through the barren landscape.

Starsand Beginner’s Guide: Tips And Tricks To Get Started

Pay Attention to the Introduction

The only thing that separates Starsand from other games is the introduction. Pay attention to the beginning of the game as it teaches you the controls and how to craft items. It is the first step towards settling into the unknown and desolate hellscape.

You might feel that the tutorial of the game lacks details. But in reality, the game is teaching you to be aware of your situation and fight for survival. In the beginning, the game appears empty because of the vastness of the desert. The huge static map will make you realize the dangers lurking in your surroundings. As you explore the tutorial, you’ll discover tons of stuff to craft and build.

Tame a Camel

Whether you are a starter or a veteran, utilizing the camels in the game is one of the top Starsand survival tips. Since the game offers a map, it may come as a surprise that there is no compass. What’s worse is that the map is completely blank. The game wants you to fill it by exploring the oasis and crafting new items.

Now traversing such inhospitable temperatures on foot is never a good idea. Exploration on foot is also quite risky. You’ll be encountering several hazards during your travels, such as blazing heat, alien invasions, and animal attacks. So getting a camel is highly recommended to help you keep a safe distance from potential threats.

There are numerous camels which is a huge tipping point for the players. You can tame and ride those bad boys and even travel across the map. Camels travel five times faster and save you ten times the stamina. Moreover, the camels can be equipped with saddlebags to store collectibles during your journey through the void of dunes.

Utilize the Map

As you step into the game, you will realize that the map is pretty much a blank sheet that you have to fill yourself using craftable waypoints. Most players would explore the game for 5 to 15 minutes and see nothing but sand, leaving them anxious. You must keep traveling and filling the map with landmarks so that you can effortlessly travel across the dunes.

As if this wasn’t hard enough, unlike most games, the map of Starsand does not have a north. This makes your journey even more challenging as you can easily lose your way while traveling between landmarks. It is important to note that you can only save your game in craftable beds or tents that you can build on the oasis.

If you die while you’re lost in the dunes, you’ll respawn at the last saved bed or tent. The overall gameplay will indeed seem unrelenting at the start. But with time and consistency, you’ll grow and handle the situation more effectively.

Use Oasis to Advantage for Hunting

The minute details of Starsand separate it from other survival games. The prominent ones include the truce among the carnivores and herbivores to drink water from the oasis. You can leverage this opportunity to hunt these animals for both food and crafting items like leather. This saves you a lot of travel time as you do not have to travel around the dune looking for animals to hunt.

Misc. Tips & Tricks

You can shoot flaming arrows; they provide light to areas also. All you have to do is equip a bow, with an arrow in it, without aiming, put the arrow on a torch that’s placed on a wall or a fireplace, and congrats! You are firing away.

To Build walls, ladders, traps, placable torches, etc. Craft a hammer in the tool tab of the crating menus, with it equipped right-click to bring up the building dial, from there left click on the desired item.

Remember, fruit grows faster than the whole tree; if you cut one down, you have to wait longer for it to grow back and bear fruit. Stay kind to the plants, and they will reward you with a snack!

Camels must be fed twice before being your friend, feed the curvy horse once, and after a while, you can feed once again, and they will be your new companion! Don’t forget to keep them fed or they will leave you!

To feed a camel, you must have a bit of fruit in your inventory, go to their mouth and click R, no need to hold the fruit in your hands! Food includes any fruit but remember coconuts must be cut to feed them.

You can stack 5 spears which are perfect for throwing! Hold right-click to aim and left click to throw; they do more damage compared to arrows, a perfect alternative to dealing with unwanted pests.

To unlock new items to craft, there are scrolls hidden around the desert in mostly ruins. You can also inspect a few items to learn how to craft, for example, a furnace.

Coconuts are a sandrunners best friend! You can stack 20 at a time. To drink this green bowling ball, you must first remove the husk by hitting with your ax, sword, knife, and you will have coconut water to drink; once drunk, you can drop it on the ground and hit it again to eat the remains. Also, they can be used to craft a few helpful items! Great source of food and water (also camel friendly)

All placeable items and some building pieces like the foundation can be rotated with the arrow keys! Pair this with your character movement. You can perfect those fine placements!

All resource nodes and plant life grow back, so don’t worry if you cut down your favorite plant it will be back in a few in-game days! Look out for clay, stone, metal, and sulfur nodes!

Final Words

Following these tips will help you become a better player—someone who is both aware of the gameplay and can make the right survival decisions.

Starsand may still be in early access with no core storyline, but it’s still a fun and engaging game. Although the connection between the craftable items and the gameplay is a bit blurry, there is room for improvement. There are lots of challenging opportunities to help you test your survival skills. Moreover, the huge deserted landscape is a blank canvas of possibilities. Hopefully, the developers have something great in-store because Starsands is potentially a great game in the making.

Falagar

He is the founder and editor of Magic Game World. He loved gaming from the moment he got a PlayStation 1 with Gran Turismo on his 7th birthday.
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