ASKA: Aska Starter Guide Walkthrough

As a hybrid survival game and colony sim, Aska can be especially challenging for veterans of either genre. Poor choices in the beginning can make long-term survival extremely difficult when invasions[techraptor.net] start coming. Read on for an explanation of the HUD — after that, we’ll get to our Starter Guide walkthrough!

1. Settlement Issues: Pressing Tab will bring up the “Settlement Issues” interface that will detail any major problems with your villagers or buildings.
2. Compass: The compass shows you the direction you’re facing along with any buildings or map markers in that direction.
3. Event Warning: Any major events (such as invasions) will pop up on the center of the screen.
4. Calendar and Counters: This section of the UI has the following information:
   • Season: The season of the year is listed at the top.
   • Time of Day: The time of the day is the second item on the list.
   • Temperature: The current Temperature is shown here. Negative temperatures will cause your Warmth stat to deplete.
   • Villagers Count: The current number of living villagers is listed here.
5. Minimap: The minimap is shown at the top right of the UI. It also lists the number of days you’ve survived at the bottom of it.
6. Current Event/Weather: Any current event will be indicated by an icon here. Otherwise, the current weather is shown here. Importantly, an ongoing invasion will be represented by a creature’s claw.
7. Countdowns: Countdowns to any upcoming events such as an arriving villager or the next Winter Invasion will be shown here.
8. Announcements: Announcements of weather changes or events are detailed with a text message here.
9. Controls: Controls are shown on the bottom-left and bottom-right of the screen. These UI elements can be disabled via the menu.
10. Food: Your current level of hunger is represented here. If Food drops to 0, you will start losing health and your stamina will be restore slower.
11. Water: Your current level of hydration is shown here. If Water drops to 0, you will start losing health and your stamina will restore slower.
12. Warmth: Your current Warmth is shown here. Warmth is reduced slowly over time by negative temperatures or by being submerged in the ocean. If Warmth drops too low, you can get a cold as a debuff. Furthermore, your Warmth dropping to 0 will result in you losing health over time and your stamina will restore slower.
13. Hotbar: The Hotbar shows the ten items you can actively use at any one time. These do not count as separate inventory slots.
14. Health and Stamina: Your Health (represented by the red bar) and your Stamina (represented by the light yellow bar) are shown here. If your Health drops to 0, you die. If your Stamina is low, you won’t be able to attack, use tools, or run. Certain negative debuffs (or being at 0 for core survival stats such as Food or Water) can reduce or altogether halt Stamina regeneration.
15. Buffs/Debuffs: Buffs and Debuffs are shown above the Health and Stamina bars. You can get more details on active Status Effects in your inventory.
16. Equipped Tool/Weapon: Whichever weapon or tool you’re currently holding will be shown here.

    Now that we’ve explained the HUD, let’s get going with our Aska Starter Guide! We’ll walk you through your first few days in the game and advise you on how to maximize your chances of long-term survival.

Before you generate a world, you’ll want to create your character. You can choose between the male Ragnar or the female Aska. You can also change your cosmetic appearance via the menu screen.

There does not yet appear to be a way to change your character’s sex or appearance for a particular world after you’ve created it, so make sure you’re happy with how your character looks before moving forward!

You’ll begin the game on a beach near a wrecked boat. A massive stone Jotun roars from the ocean and, thankfully, returns to the depths. You’re free to roam the world, but you have literally nothing other than the clothes on your back and a Water Pouch.

The shipwreck serves as your respawn point until you build[techraptor.net] The Eye of Odin; you will also teleport here if you hit the “Unstuck” command. Should The Eye of Odin be destroyed, your respawn point will revert to this shipwreck.

There are five glowing blue crystals in boxes near your wrecked ship. This resource is Jotun Blood, an item that is used to summon villagers[techraptor.net] to your Settlement. Pick up all 5 pieces and carry them with you until later.

It’s time to gather some supplies! You’re going to want to get some food, some water, and some resources[techraptor.net] for crafting your first few tools.

Choose a direction and run along the coast. Press Z to use your “Search Area” ability. You will find three distinct types of resources:
Mussels are a type of food[techraptor.net] that can be found clustered on large stones. I have never seen them respawn in one game that has gone on for 90 days, so treat these as a finite resource. Fortunately, they can be found on the entire beach surrounding the island.

Most food — Mussels included — will spoil over time unless stored properly. I recommend taking no more than 30 or so Mussels to sustain you for the first few days so as not to waste them.

You’ll also want to get some Small Stones. I recommend collecting a minimum of 30 Small Stones and no more than 40 Small Stones to start.

Avoid taking any Thatch for the moment. You won’t need it until you reach the second tier of buildings, so there’s no reason to harvest any now.

You may also encounter floating enemies called “Wisps.” They’re fairly weak, but you can’t effectively kill them without a melee weapon. Do your best to avoid them while you collect your 30–40 Small Stones and 30 Mussels.

Once you have these items, turn inland and look for Dwarf Spruce and Flax; these will give you Sticks and Fiber, respectively. Collect at least 2 Fiber and 2 Sticks; you can then use these to craft your first Stone Axe.

Press B to bring up the Build Menu; from here, you can craft[techraptor.net] tools and your first buildings[techraptor.net]. We’re going to start by making 1 piece of Rope from the Fiber we’ve collected. Then, craft 1 Stone Blade from the Small Stone you’ve got. After that, you’ll have everything you need to make a Stone Axe.

Find the nearest Young Fir and chop it down. (You won’t be able to chop down any other trees until you get a better Axe.) Then, chop the fallen tree down and you’ll get an assortment of Long Sticks, Sticks, Bark, and Resin.

Pick up the Bark and open your inventory, then hold shift and left-click on it; this will break down the Bark into Fiber which can then be crafted[techraptor.net] into more Rope. Next, pick up the Resin and Sticks; leave the Long Sticks on the ground where they are.

You’re going to want to make the following tools and weapons:

• Wooden Hoe
• Stone Axe (which you should already have)
• Stone Pickaxe
• Wooden Hammer
• Stone Knife
• Simple Torch
• Flimsy Club
• Flimsy Shortbow

sAll of these items can be made from some combination of Sticks, Stone Blades, Resin, and Rope, all of which you now know how to get. All tools and weapons have durability and will break eventually. Make a full set of tools.

You’ll need Arrows for your bow; you can get Feathers by finding Fallen Bird Nests in the wooden areas further inland. For now, though, a melee weapon will suffice. You can also use your Stone Axe, Stone Pickaxe, and Stone Knife as weapons in a pinch, but you’ll want to save their durability for harvesting resources.

Your next step is to find a place to build[techraptor.net] a Settlement. This will start as a simple base camp, but it can eventually evolve into a bustling village.

You may be tempted to simply walk a little further ashore and start building[techraptor.net], but choosing a poor location at the start of the game can make it very difficult to defend your village or collect resources[techraptor.net] at a later time. I advise that you consider several factors before moving forward.

1. Cave Stone Location: First and foremost, I think it’s a good idea to track down the island’s Cave Stone[techraptor.net]. Based on my experience, I have only ever seen one Cave Stone on an island. This is the only place where you can reliably get Iron Ore, so building your Settlement near it is a smart move in the early game.
2. Avoid Enemy Spawners: If you see a monument or a weird-looking tree with monsters around it, that’s an enemy spawner. Enemies will continue spawning there for many weeks (if not forever), and they can and will attack your villagers[techraptor.net] and your buildings[techraptor.net] if they get too close. As a rule of thumb, you don’t want to be able to see any enemy spawners from the location where you’re building your village.
3. Build Near the Beach: The Beach gives you access to easy-to-find Small Stones, Mussels for emergency food, and Reeds for Thatch (which is needed for mid-game and late-game buildings. This also allows you to set up places for villagers to fish[techraptor.net].
4. Avoid Birch Trees and Oak Trees: You cannot cut down Birch Trees and Oak Trees until you get Iron Axes, and it will take several hours to get all of the necessary buildings for making them. That means that you won’t be able to expand in those areas. Try to avoid building too near these trees so your Settlement has room to grow.
5. Find Mostly Flat Land: You can use the Wooden Hoe to flatten the land to some degree, but steep cliffs or tall hills can be difficult to adequately flatten. Try to find relatively flat land with little variation in terrain height for your Settlement location.
6. Find Natural Water Collectors: Natural Water Collectors are special stones that can collect water when it rains. More importantly, these can be turned into Wells which are the best source of regenerating water. You’ll want to have at least two or three Natural Water Collectors near where you’re building your Settlement; the Wells can get quite crowded once your Settlement population numbers in the dozens of villagers[techraptor.net]!

You can safely spend several days exploring the island with few ill consequences, so take your time and find a good place to build. Keep in mind that you can build anywhere on the island, so you can always dismantle old buildings and retrieve some (but not all) of the resources[techraptor.net] used to make them.

Ultimately, though, finding a good location for your Settlement is critical to your success. A poor defensive position or a lack of access to useful resources can make long-term survival very difficult!

Once you’ve found a good location, it’s time to actually build[techraptor.net] your Settlement. You’ll want to construct the following buildings in this order:

1. Simple Fire
2. Upgrade Simple Fire to Campfire
3. Rain Collector
4. At least 1 Well
5. Shelter
6. Eye of Odin

The Shelter allows you to sleep and restore your health. It’s also where your villagers[techraptor.net] will live, so you’ll need to build another Shelter for yourself later.

Now it’s finally time to summon your first villager. Interact with the Eye of Odin and transfer all 5 pieces of Jotun Blood inside. Then, hit the “Activate” button and you’ll be given a choice between two illagers.

Each villager[techraptor.net] has a total of 5 perks, but you’re only able to see two of them for each villager. Some perks are positive, some are negative, and some are both positive and negative. Carefully consider which of the two villagers you would like to join your Settlement.

Unfortunately, there does not appear to be a way to reroll this choice; you must choose one of these two villagers. If they’re both pretty bad, then you should try to pick the least bad villager.

It takes 10 real-world minutes for a villager to arrive, and you can only summon one villager at a time. Keep this in mind if you find yourself in a situation where you need more villagers.

When your villager[techraptor.net] arrives, you’ll need to assign them a home and a job. Interact with a Shelter and you can assign a villager to it; alternatively, you can add a villager to a Shelter by pressing Tab, clicking on the Settlement tab, and selecting a specific Shelter on the right-hand side under “Housing.”

As for a job, villagers must be assigned to work at a particular structure by interacting with that structure or by using the Settlement menu. Villagers may need tools to perform their jobs (such as cutting down trees at a Woodcutter’s Pit), and their tools will lose durability over time. That means you’ll need to ensure a constant supply of replacement tools for your villagers.

If you don’t select a job for them, a villager will be a “Builder” by default; they will help with constructing buildings[techraptor.net] in your Settlement. Leave your first villager as a builder for now.

Villagers[techraptor.net] have all of the same needs you do: Health, Food, Water, and Warmth. They also have a “Rest” requirement (which you do not) and a “Morale” meter. If any of these stats are poor, your villagers could die or not work as efficiently as you’d like.

Your villagers will get water on their own (as long as a source of water is available, such as a Well), but you’ll need to provide food. You can either collect it yourself or have someone else get it through farming or a Gatherer’s Hut. For now, you can gather a few small pieces of food and trade with your one villager so they have it in their inventory.

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