Guide for Forager - General hints and tips (2024)

Game Mechanics

Health: How many hits you can take. This can be healed by most types of prepared food or potions.

Energy: This decreases as you mine, attack, etc. (but not if you are just walking around). If it gets too low, you will lose one heart, and it will reset your energy to about half full.

Islands/Biomes: The game world is made up of 49 different islands which are each 12x12 squares. They are divided across 5 different biomes (plains, desert, winter, graveyard, fire). The islands are the always the same, and the placement of the biomes are always the same, but the location of each island within the biome is random. You will need to pay gold coins to unlock each additional island after the starting one.

The Void: An endgame dungeon where you must clear all enemies from a floor within a time limit. Difficulty and rewards increase with each level.

Spirit Orbs: Spirit Orbs are quest and boss rewards. They allow you to increase your life, energy, attack damage, or level. I recommend using them for life and energy only, as there are other ways to increase your attack damage and level. It may be worth it to spend a couple on increasing damage as it will be a nice boost early on, but I would avoid spending more than a few in this way. Once you have maxed your life and energy, hold on to the rest until you find a dark shrine.

Feats: There are 103 of these in game accomplishments, all of the achievements are tied to feats, but not all of the feats give achievements. If you have completed a feat, but the relevant achievement did not pop, quit the game and reload your save, and the missing achievements should pop immediately. (This happened to me with "Tool Collector" and "Accessory Collector").

Artifacts: These are 15 quest/chest rewards that provide in-game benefits.

Buildings

Furnace: This will let you turn raw materials into finished goods.

Forge: Used to craft weapons, tools, and a few consumables.

Sewing Station: Used to craft clothing and fabric.

Mining Rod: This will automatically collect resources for you within a certain area. This is key to getting a good income without having to do a lot of work.

Offshore Drill: This will produce oil for you and also some sand as a byproduct.

Flower Press: This will you turn plants into a few types of mineral resources. It isn't very useful, except for the landfill block, which allows you to turn water spaces into land and is very important for one feat.

Factory: This allows you to create several late game crafting materials.

Power Plant: This will boost the speed of other buildings in its area and will stack up to 4x. (You can see their area of effect as a shaded area around them if you enable that option in the settings.) Once you have the means, I highly recommend placing 4 of them in a 2x2 square, and then clustering all your crafting buildings around them. Having 4 factories around 4 power plants will provide far greater production then 8 factories with no power plants, and it will still have room to place many other crafting structures within their AoE. They will affect any building with the circular progress timer. This includes all the crafting buildings, as well as banks, mining rods, and shrines.

Ballista: Automatically attacks enemies in a large area, useful for defending your base (or yourself if idle).

Bridge: Allows you to cross water.

Fish Trap: A great source of food, sand and a few rare items.

Carpentry Station: This is for crafting decorative items.

Masonry Table: Allows you to craft floors/walls/and gates.

Brazier: Provides Light.

Windmill: Allows you to create seeds as well as a few food items.

Sprinkler: Provides water to the space adjacent to it, causing crops to grow faster.

Cookpot: Craft food items. I rarely used this, apart from a collection quest requiring some of each food.

Quarry: (SEE WARNING in overview). This will periodically fill the entire island it is on with various minerals from all biomes.

Vault: These provide additional storage space. Collecting additional materials that are in a vault will automatically add them to the vault. Crafting supplies will be automatically drawn from vaults. There are a few quests where you need to have the items on your person and not in the vault. Eventually a skill will allow you to send items from your backpack to a free vault space to free up room automatically.

Market: These are a great help. I recommend making several to start, at least 2, but preferably 3 or 4. By the end of the game you may want 20 or more. They allow you to purchase items easily without having to farm or craft them yourself. For many hard or tedious to acquire items, this is great help. I will cover more in the resources section, but some things you may always want to buy at the market until you feel you have enough: pigments, scrolls (especially sage, star, wizard, and druid), hide/leather, herbs (that is lavender, nightshade, cinderbloom), bottled insects, droids, and sigils.

Bank: These will automatically generate money as time passes, holding it until you collect it.

Lighthouse: These are a tremendous source of money (and XP, with the right skills). When upgraded they have a range of 14 spaces (a bit more than one island) and will increase the amount of resources harvested by 50% for each light house, multiplicatively. This means that while one light-house will increase drops by 50%, if you build 4, they will increase by approximately 5x. If you have 8, that becomes 25x, etc. etc. This is likely how you will reach 1 trillion coins, by receiving billions of bones and coins for killing skeletons in your lighthouse arena.

Slot Machine: Allows you to spend coins to get a chance of a random item reward.

Inscription Table: Creates magic books, scrolls, and dyes.

Cauldron: Creates potions and can eventually turn steel into gems.

Shrine: (SEE WARNING in overview) Provides a choice between two random buffs, these include:

1. Hoarder: increases quantity of items collected - good when you will be collecting resources
2. Industrious: increases speed of structures and provides XP for crafting items - good when you have many buildings working on crafting items or materials
3. Dexterous: boosts attack and movement speed - good when going into a fight
4. Excavator: Fills every free space on the current island with dig spots - good when looking for archaeology items
5. Builder: Halves cost of building - good when building expensive structures
6. Merchant: Double sale price at the marketplace - good when selling large numbers of items
7. Colonist: Halves cost of buying land - good when you are going on a land buying spree
8. Scholar: Get random magic scrolls - temporary XP boost

Spirit Forge: Crafts high end materials and spirit orbs.

Sigil Maker: Allows creation of boss-summoning sigils and void portals (but these are fairly expensive to craft, and usually better purchased at the markets).

Dark Shrine: There are two of these in the game, one in the fire biome, and one in the Skull Maze dungeon. When you select it, you much choose between one of two buffs, at the cost of 1 heart. (You can then use a spirit orb to regain that heart.) In terms of priority in choosing them they are:

1. Wrath: Increases your damage by 1 (for comparison, spirit orbs only increase it by 1/4)
2. Terminator: You gain a droid and some EMP bombs
3. Hermetics: gain some powerful potions
4. Madness: gain 3 levels (once you are maxed out in level, this has no value)
5. Doom: get some demon scrolls
6. Avarice: get gold and gems
7. Gluttony: get food
8. Challenge: spawns enemies for you to fight

Skills

There are 64 skills in the game in an 8x8 grid, and you will unlock one every time you level up. You can select any of the 4 skills in the middle (Industry/Economy/Foraging/Magic) or any skill adjacent to a previously selected skill.

Below is a short description of each skill I will cover a recommended order later in the walkthrough.

Alchemy: Unlocks Cauldrons
Architecture: Structures have double health, Structures cost 25% fewer materials to build, Vaults have more inventory slots
Artistry: Crafted items sell for 25% more coins
Astrology: Unlocks Cosmic Cosmic Steel, Starfalls happen more frequently
Automation: Unlocks Mining Rods, Crafted items collect themselves
Autorepair: Structures automatically repair themselves
Ballistics: Unlocks Ballistas, Bows shoot triple arrows
Banking: Unlocks Banks
Bargain: Reduces Market prices by 15%
Calciverous: Allows you to eat Minerals and Gems
Capitalism: Gain XP when selling items, Items discarded from your inventory are instantly sold instead
Carpentry: Unlocks Carpentry Stations, Structures cost 25% less Wood
Colonization: Lands are 30% cheaper to purchase
Combat: Unlocks Swords, Increase base damage by 1
Conjuration: Magic Structures work 25% faster
Cooking: Unlocks Cookpots, Unlocks Sugar, Mayonnaise and Cheese
Craftsmanship: Unlocks Hammer, Unlocks Royal Steel, Unlocks Royal Clothing
Deposit: Unlocks Quarries
Destruction: Deal 25% increased damage to Bosses
Drilling: Unlocks Offshore Drills, Offshore Drills may gather Sand for free, 25% chance to find Coal when digging
Economy: Instantly gain 40 coins, Forges create 4 extra coins every time
Engineering: Unlocks EMP Grenade, Unlocks Droids, Industrial Structures work 25% faster
Evasion: Increases dodge chance by 15%
Faith: Unlocks Shrine
Farming: Unlocks Windmills, Unlocks Sprinklers
Fishing: Unlocks Fishing Rods, Fish Traps catch things 50% faster
Foraging: Allows Beet and Wheat to spawn, Cotton spawns more often
Gambling: Unlocks Slot Machines
Gathering: Gain 4 inventory slots, Gain 25% more exp from plants and crops
Geology: All rocks drop Coal
Gluttony: Gain XP when eating, Gain 20% more energy when eating
Hunting: Unlocks Bows, Unlocks Arrows, Enemies drop coins when killed
Industry: Unlocks Steel, Unlocks Glass, Gain XP when building Structures
Inscription: Unlocks Inscription Tables
Jewelry: Unlocks Amulets, Gems sell for 20% more coins
Lasers: Mining Rods and Droids deal double damage!
Logistics: Doubles the area of effect for Lighthouses, Mining Rods, Power Plants and Ballistas
Looting: Gain 50% more loot from Enemies and Bosses
Machinery: Unlocks Flower Press, Structures have 10% chance to craft double items
Magic: Gain 25% more XP
Management: Items may be sent to Vaults from the inventory, Vaults may have locked item slots
Manufacturing: Unlocks Factories
Masonry: Unlocks Masonry Tables, Unlocks Braziers, Structures cost 25% less Stone and Bricks
Mining: Rocks drop 40% more minerals
Optics: Unlocks Lighthouses, Doubles light radius
Pet: Spawns a friendly companion
Physics: Unlocks Power Plants, Unlocks Nuclear Tier items
Prospecting: Rocks drop Gems 10% more often, Increases the chance to find rare items when digging by 30%
Prowess: Farming Structures work 25% faster
Railroads: Unlocks Locomotive, Unlocks Railroad
Reagency: Potions and scrolls cost fewer resources to craft
Renewal: Recover energy when killing enemies
Sewing: Unlocks Leather, Sewing Stations work 25% faster
Smelting: Furnaces and Forges operate 25% faster
Spellbind: Buffs last 50% longer, Gain XP when using Potions and Scrolls
Spirituality: Gain 2 Spirit Orbs, Unlocks Spirit Forges
Storage: Unlocks Vaults
Summoning: Unlocks Sigil Maker, Shrines recharges twice as fast
Supply: Markets sell more items, Market restock time is reduced by 50%
Textiles: Unlocks Boots, Unlocks Gloves
Thaumaturgy: Unlocks expert level Scrolls and Potions
Trade: Unlocks Market
Transmutation: Unlocks Void Steel, Allows Cauldrons to transmute Steel into Gems
Treasury: Banks generate coins 50% faster when near other Banks

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