One thing Xseed's new survival horror game, Deadcraft, has taught us: life goes on after the apocalypse. We're not kidding. A zombie apocalypse is no excuse to stop taking care of yourself. Unlike survival horror protagonists we've met in the past, Reid can't blow zombie brains to bits without sleeping and eating his veggies.

Related: Animal Crossing: New Horizons - A Beginner's Guide To Turnips

Furthermore, if you thought real-life adulting was hard, apocalypse adulting is even more challenging. As a result, Deadcraft's gameplay can feel intimidating when starting your campaign. Luckily, with some practice and a little know-how, you'll discover that the undead day-by-day lifestyle is manageable, especially with these beginner tips!

Take Your Time To Learn The Game

In some regards, Deadcraft is similar to peers like Animal Crossing because you can play the campaign at your own pace. Various characters offer side quests, Zombie Gramps will offer quests that teach you about your half-zombie abilities, and Vernon's quests will progress the main storyline. However, Deadcraft is a satisfying experience even without its quests.

We would argue that experimenting with the game's mechanics is one of the best ways to play. If you're familiar with the farming and crafting mechanics of Animal Crossing, Deadcraft's base mechanics will come quickly to you. Furthermore, the skill tree will lock skills beyond Reid's grasp, so you won't risk getting ahead of yourself with unnecessary/unusable skills. Therefore, you could spend hours of gameplay crafting, farming, and building Reid's abilities before playing many campaign missions.

You can approach Vernon or Zombie Gramps to unlock new possibilities when you're ready to move on in the story or have exhausted your skill tree's growth. For example, the skill tree will tell you if a specific skill requires the completion of a mission or not. In this regard, crafting and farming are Deadcraft's version of grinding. However, they're also tons of fun!

Develop A Green Thumb

Deadcraft reimagines the survival horror genre by making survival an essential part of the game. In other words, long-term life skills, like crafting, scavenging, and farming, are equally as necessary as knowing how to bludgeon a zombie with a baseball bat. So in a way, you could argue that these founding principles make Deadcraft more realistic than its peers.

One skill, in particular, farming, will significantly improve Reid's quality of life. There are a few essential crops in Deadcraft: pumpkins, tomatoes, and zombies. Pumpkins and tomatoes can get eaten raw or cooked to create treats like roasted pumpkin and roasted tomato. Zombies (your first being the Average Frankie Sprout) are minions that fight alongside you in battle. So you'll get beneficial food and hydration between these three crops, plus undead protection!

Furthermore, experimenting with how you tend crops can create new food and yield new recipes. For example, watering your pumpkin and tomato crops with zivblood creates hybrid zombie vegetables. Combining these two crops with Z-meat over a fire pit will offer you some yummy ZombieBBQ with various benefits!

What's more, farming benefits go beyond feeding and protecting yourself. You can also sell your crops and cooked dishes for massive Zol payouts. While quests reward Zol as well, you'll often find that selling the yields of your farming pays much faster with less effort.

Related: Animal Crossing: Happy Home Paradise - Beginner Tips

Sometimes It's Best To Avoid Combat

With a diverse arsenal of post-apocalyptic weapons, bizarre zombie abilities, and undead minions at your disposal, you'll often feel inclined to kick ass and take names. Diving into combat is helpful, especially when you need to harvest more zivblood, corpses, and whatever goods a bawker has on them. Still, combat costs energy and health if you're not careful. Therefore, it's best to consider whether combat is the best option before following through with your destructive desires.

Luckily, most enemies are avoidable in Deadcraft. Zombies are especially slow. While an enemy may become alert upon sensing your presence, they will quickly move on after giving them some distance. Therefore, some evasive rolls are a good option when creating space with an enemy.

You'll likely avoid combat the most when returning to your home base after a long day. As you progress through the game, we recommend learning the Instant Camp and ZPS skills. Instant Camps can get set up in most places for a quick rest away from home. ZPSs will carry you underground for quick travel, almost like an undead Uber driver.

Keep A Close Eye On Your Gauges

Zombies and Mad Max attire aside, Deadcraft is primarily a resource and task management game. So, naturally, meeting basic needs, such as eating, drinking, and sleeping, are essential to your survival. Five meters dictate your quality of life in Deadcraft:

• Health: This is your HP gauge. It decreases when Reid takes damage and can get refilled with consumables like Heaven's Blessing and Zombie Energy Drinks.
• Energy: This gauge dictates how much energy Reid can use towards different tasks. Everything Reid does, from crafting to combat, costs energy. While certain foods and consumables can increase energy, your primary energy source is a good night's rest. If your energy level hits zero, your HP will gradually decrease.
• Hunger: Your food gauge impacts movement. It will become harder for Reid to move when it gets too low. Eating food like vegetables and roasted rats will replenish your food gauge.
• Thirst: Your water gauge impacts vision. It becomes harder for Reid to see when it gets too low. Drinking zivblood, sludge, and agua cola will replenish your water gauge.
• Zombie: Reid is half-zombie, a human with various zombie-like abilities. Maintaining a healthy balance of his human and zombie traits is essential. The face portrait is a gauge that depicts how much zombie energy Reid possesses.
  • If Reid's zombie energy is too low, his health gauge capacity gets reduced, and he cannot use his zombie powers. However, if Reid's zombie energy gets too high, his movement significantly decreases, and he cannot talk with humans. Furthermore, humans may mistake Reid for a zombie and try to hunt him.
  • High zombie energy increases Reid's strength and lowers his defense. Conversely, low zombie energy increases Reid's defense and lowers his strength.
  • To balance this undead scale, consume regular food and drinks to become more human and consume zombie food and drinks to become more zombified.
  • The zombie scale resets after a good night's sleep.

How well you practice self-care impacts the quality of rest you receive each night. The better your food and water gauges, the more HP and energy you'll recover upon waking.

As you can see, that's five meters to track. These various needs will feel overwhelming to meet at first. However, tracking these gauges will become second nature once you spend a few days in Reid's shoes. Furthermore, keeping these gauges in check will make your gameplay experience much more enjoyable. Otherwise, you'll notice an overworked, underfed, or under-rested Reid can get killed by enemies straight away.

An Evasive Roll Can Extinguish Fire

Our last bit of advice may seem trivial, but it's super handy! Have you ever fought a bawker wielding Molotov cocktails and got lit on fire? Isn't it frustrating to keep losing health rapidly after these attacks? Fortunately, you can quickly extinguish your clothes by performing a few evasive rolls. Yup, Deadcraft encourages you to stop, drop, and roll. Those fire safety seminars in primary school finally paid off!

Next: Animal Crossing: Beginner Mistakes You Don't Want To Make In New Horizons