Howdy

I tossed this guide together as part of writing an obscenely long review for this game elsewhere

Its a bit hard to sort something like this since much of it is a shotgun blast of information, though I've attempted to put it all into a lot of sections roughly organizing everything though naturally there's with some overlap regardless.

This information was accumulated for what is now listed as the HARD difficulty mode, though of course should still help for normal.

If you want the shorter version, at the end I've put together a list of the MOST ESSENTIAL TIPS that are copied from the contents elsewhere. So if you're in a hurry or just waning a more general look, please check out that last section first.


Thanks!

The game only auto-saves whenever you return to your hideout, but you can use this to your advantage during the daytime by heading to the town map and instead clicking on your base to create a new quick save. It’s useful for setting up a save after having accomplished whatever (dumped your supplies, prepped for a battle, etc) where you’re presumably going to need to load it again and don’t want to do the preparation again. Alternatively, you can use it to prepare your gear for a trader and reload if they don’t have the items you’re needing, or presumably cheat to see the random pill effects.

Searchable areas don’t show up when detected, so its difficult to just run through a building and scout all the good areas first. You can tend to lose track of good stuff if you do this and forgot you were observed at some spot too.

If a zombie notices you while searching (exclamation point, not question mark), it will end up interrupting your search and cancel it out until you get away or defeat it. Sometimes you can squeeze the timing right when they’re nearby so they don’t actually see you until after the search action
completes, letting you grab everything and get going.


The timing is different with area doors/exits/stairs, and zombies will only interrupt the action if they actually attack you in the middle of the timing animation, but it will similarly require you to start over (and there’s no way you’ll be able to finish before they get another attack off anyway)

You can use these exits/stairs/rooms to reset the zombies to their original starting positions. Even if its just going to the town map from the exit and returning.

You may want to progress the story some before venturing too far outward. You unlock the car at the end of the first chapter, which makes it much shorter to get to buildings further away anyway.


The radio is essentially a trap since it takes an hour (and time is a majorly valuable resource) to boost happiness its decreasing, so when you’re in the red and need it most you only get a marginal gain. Meanwhile the fire mostly just maintains happiness unless you actively stand there doing nothing for an hour (or while cooking). HOWEVER, if you light a fire before listening to the radio, you can usually keep your happiness stat level until you get a double boost at the end, one from the fire and the other from the radio.
[Note: Sometimes this doesn’t work and you’ll see minor declines still while the radio plays (can’t identify why or why not, maybe proximity or maybe vitality), but when it does, you’ll still get double up at the end of radio and fire. ]
If you ARE able to luck into the no-decline listening, then you can actually get red to white by setting the fire for 2 hours (taking 4 pieces of wood) and listen to the radio twice in a row.


The tech tree in the game is really extensive, but you can see the whole thing and plan accordingly. Between the stove, reading table, and manufacturing desk—once you have all three, you can see every combination of technology research it takes to unlock something (shown on reading table) and all the ingredients that would take to craft (listed on manufacturing desk for most, and stove for food/medicine).


Try to make like 4 trips worth of stuff those first days with that tiny backpack. Research will be important eventually, but it is always secondary to supplies. At the start, you can hurt yourself more by spending too much time on research now and expecting to make it up later sleeping in the day. Get off the ground running and collecting stuff fast. Still, that first night you might at least put some time in sewing so you can get started on the next backpack set---but then go to sleep.


You’ll eventually be able to put traps to capture fresh rabbits and rats in parks, but these need time to replenish so don’t over hunt.


The first tiers of traps are practically useless based on lack of notification meaning time to check them, so don’t waste your time on them. The second tier is when traps become useful.

When you’re at the home base, you can use the upper right trigger as a “quick leave” button, which is also very helpful for setting new auto-saves in place without the time wasted walking to the door.

The upper left trigger turns into a browser pointer to accommodate for the few areas controls can’d do well at, I didn’t end up using this ever until I realized that you can scroll over certain status effects on screen to get a better description of the properties.

One of the best secrets to success: learning to recognize, and manipulate, the variations in awareness on each variety of zombie. You see their yellow cone of awareness, but they don’t have an infinite line of sight so its worth approaching from directly in front from far away until they start getting an idea you’re there, then backing up.

You’ll go from sneaking past them to knowing when you can hide right behind their backs like Solid Snake, and juking around corners as they turn.


The automatic mode is great for keeping you stealth since it’ll know where zombies are before you see them and switch you to sneaking instead of running, however when caught (or wanting to set a trap) it’s very incredibly helpful switching over to the manual mode after getting out of eyesight (with directional options) since the zombies will lose track of your noise shortly after the point where you switched from running to sneaking.


The game is as much about knowing what to kill as it is about what not to kill. It saves a lot of resources depreciation for everything you don't have to kill.

If cornered, just ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ run. Most zombies are actually slow enough you can get by when you’re just in stealth still. The fastest zombies are always slower than you, but that might not be enough if you don’t have room to out run them or spread out and lose them.


Aside from helping you lose zombies; the safety of a good hiding spot can also really boost your default vitality regeneration rate too.

MAKE SURE YOURE SELECTING ENEMIES IN TARGETING MODE FOR STEALTH ATTACKS. It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize that most of the stealth attacks were failing (and doing damage of normal attacks) because I was accidentally targeting something else on the screen when approaching for the stealth attacks. You’ll see them highlighted red. Also, depending on holding the attack button, it seems the outline will turn red just as you let it go too if its going to connect. (Not as sure here)

Aside from taking down the zombies more quickly, you’ll be more thankful that your blades aren’t wearing down so much either. Remember combat is both a risk of life as much as it is a depletion of gear.


Use targeting for more than targeting! You can take advantage of the way it highlights threats in certain colors to see zombies in the dark and when lurking behind walls or other obscured areas.


The backstab system seems to be independent of the critical hits. While you need stealth for certain criticals, the backstabs damage is calculated independent of that where it still does extra damage attacking from behind. You can get get great bonus damage if you're able to ever spin around on them in the middle of a struggle to attack.

****This holds true especially for MOLOTOVS, which do an insane amount of damage when connecting and flaming them from their backs***

You’re a horrible, horrible cook, so even those initial roasted foods and breads risk illness from under-cooking if consumed too frequently (but with smaller chances).

You can decrease the odds of getting sick from those semi-cooked foods by at least switching up between varieties of food (potatoes, breads, rats, rabbits, soups) for a well-balanced diet…. Yeah…. Easier said than done.


Once you start making around 3rd tier food, like hotdogs and meaty stew, the food will actually work to refill your happiness meter a decent amount along with your hunger.


Rotten food can save your life at times so when real foods start running low it can be worth keeping around instead of trading away, or even adding like moldy bread to a trade coming your way as a cheaper resource.


Rotten potatoes are particularly useful -- as it takes 2 rotten potatoes to grow others when you have a greenhouse.


If you want to give priority to specific items when cooking (like, if you’re trying to rot, or save the freshest potato), you can put the items you DON’T want to be used in your active inventory, and the game will prioritize whichever ones are in your stash of items to cook first.


Try to keep around 3 barley saved when you get to growing things, since that’s what it takes to grow more and it may be hard to find when you need it.


The farming percentages aren’t the chance of succeeding or not, they're how many plots survive. You always get some yield. When you plant something it gets put in the 9 lots you have (and can only plant one thing at a time still) and your percentage for how many of those lots will yield depend on the greenhouse level.

Trading is a ♥♥♥♥♥ and everyone is a super ♥♥♥♥, but if you use certain items (perfume, Vaseline O_O or a random pill effect) you can get a trading bonus that changes the rates of exchange in your favor.

You can also find certain items that seem useless like bra or earrings, that can be reduced to materials, but are even more valuable in their current form for trading.

Empty books and magazines still have some trade value. Same with rotten food.

The propose trade button will turn from grey to yellow if it’s a trade that would be accepted. This will save you an assload of time trying to figure out how much they value any given object of yours is worth without having to trade it yet.

It helps having a broken-down material like wood or fabric that you can add to trades to max out the exchange value. They’ll similarly have small units of things too to add until the trade button changes color the other way again.

Since trading is basically the biggest safety net to get ♥♥♥♥♥♥ over by the RNG, the traders tend to stock what they have based on what you bring to trade (ie the opposites) and their specialty items.



WARNING: The LATE chapters CAN get super rough though since those safety nets effectively DISENTIGRATE based on those traders dying according to your story or not. The game can end with all of them alive---or none of them, and this is a major difficulty modifier too.

I don’t think there’s a demo available for PC at the moment, but the android version has the prologue available for free if you want a quick gist to make sure this is your type of game.


Just like in real life, if you see a pill and you don’t know what it is, try it out, it might be awesome. But not too much, ‘cause you can still get addicted.


Happiness goes faster when you’re stressed and dying in combat, so stop getting eaten. It adds up, yo.

Sex dolls are fun, but what’s better than a sex doll? Trading your used ones before they’re totally depleted.

There are technically no zombies in this game, you’re murdering cancer patients…. you sick bastard.


If you get lost about your goal, you can check your diary (not the notes) to see a list of important dates with events that happened, and a fun description of what the vibe was suppose to be.

This initial section is basically just a "best of" with tips copied from the many sections of sorted categories into this grouping for quick reference and ease. These are most helpful for the greatest number of people so here they are again for emphasis and for those that only wanting the gist first.


READ THIS IF NOTHING ELSE
Literally the MOST important tip to the game IMO, look for synergy wherever possible, and the greatest example of that: The radio is essentially a trap since it takes an hour (and time is a majorly valuable resource) to boost happiness its decreasing, so when you’re in the red and need it most you only get a marginal gain. Meanwhile the fire mostly just maintains happiness unless you actively stand there doing nothing for an hour (or while cooking). HOWEVER, if you light a fire before listening to the radio, you can usually keep your happiness stat level until you get a double boost at the end, one from the fire and the other from the radio.

[Note: Sometimes this doesn’t work and you’ll see minor declines still while the radio plays (can’t identify why or why not, maybe proximity or maybe vitality), but when it does, you’ll still get double up at the end of radio and fire. ]

If you ARE able to luck into the no-decline listening, then you can actually get red to white by setting the fire for 2 hours (taking 4 pieces of wood) and listen to the radio twice in a row.


FIRST DAY / STARTING OUT TIPS
You may want to progress the story some before venturing too far outward. You unlock the car at the end of the first chapter, which makes it much shorter to get to buildings further away anyway.

Try to make like 4 trips worth of stuff those first days with that tiny backpack. Research will be important eventually, but it is always secondary to supplies. At the start, you can hurt yourself more by spending too much time on research now and expecting to make it up later sleeping in the day. Get off the ground running and collecting stuff fast. Still, that first night you might at least put some time in sewing so you can get started on the next backpack set---but then go to sleep.


The first tier of traps are practically useless based on lack of notification meaning time to check them, so don’t waste your time on them. Only craft 2nd tier and up.


TRADING WILL SAVE YOUR LIFE
The propose trade button will turn from grey to yellow if it’s a trade that would be accepted. This will save you an assload of time trying to figure out how much they value any given object of yours is worth without having to trade it yet.

Since trading is basically the biggest safety net to get ♥♥♥♥♥♥ over by the RNG, the traders tend to stock what they have based on what you bring to trade (ie the opposites) and their specialty items.



WWSSD: WHAT WOULD SOLID SNAKE DO
One of the best secrets to success: learning to recognize, and manipulate, the variations in awareness on each variety of zombie. You see their yellow cone of awareness, but they don’t have an infinite line of sight so its worth approaching from directly in front from far away until they start getting an idea you’re there, then backing up.

You’ll go from sneaking past them to knowing when you can hide right behind their backs like Solid Snake, and juking around corners as they turn.



MANIPULATING THE SAVE SYSTEM
The game only auto-saves whenever you return to your hideout, but you can use this to your advantage during the daytime by heading to the town map and instead clicking on your base to create a new quick save. It’s useful for setting up a save after having accomplished whatever (dumped your supplies, prepped for a battle, etc) where you’re presumably going to need to load it again and don’t want to do the preparation again. Alternatively, you can use it to prepare your gear for a trader and reload if they don’t have the items you’re needing, or presumably cheat to see the random pill effects.

I ended up writing this guide out as a byproduct of the ULTIMATE REVIEW I made for this game which you can find here

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/groups/WeirdWonderfulGameWatch/discussions/5/1648792158828149452/

If you're a fan of it, this guide, or my charming attitute, then please check out the curator group I run
WeirdWonderfulGameWatch for recomedndations of other titles I like as much as Delivery From The Pain.



https://store.steampowered.com/curator/32660416/



And here's my video from early on when I still really sucked at the game if you wanna check out our youtube channel too