Hello there!

According to many messages which I received on discord (also saw many of them on Mr. Prepper official discord [discord.gg]), I decided to make short guide which I hope will help you with game basics.

So, you have been caught and now you are grounded in your little, cozy house.
Take a look, there is no need to be stressed, just relax.
Important: if you hoover your mouse over objects there will be displayed "safe" number of such objects. It indicates how much of these objects you can or must have to keep Agent calm.



Every few days (depends on your suspicion level) Agent will come to check if everything is in order. Remember he will check EVERYTHING so you have to be carefull in amount of stuff you are going to scrap.

Take a look at this picture.

It is most important place in our home at very beginning of the game.
Highlited in red are barrels which you will need to scrap or move to basement (when we dig one). Having more than one makes Agent more suspicious and we don't have anything to store in them (water cannot be stored in this barrel (version 1.04) so we don't need it that early).

Highlited in green is wooden box. It is nice storage until end of the game, good idea is to move it to the basement when we dig one. You can have from 0 to 2 wooden boxes to stay unsuspected.

Highlited in yellow is trash can. You can insert any items into that and they will be gone following day.

Last highlited object is most important thing in this game. WORKBENCH.
YouMUST hide it as fast as possible.

Let's start with digging first room.

Digging location is obligatory and will always be the same.
To get down to this room we will need ladder which we will create with metal.

There is only one obstacle - we need to upgrade workbench. Best way to upgrade workbench is going for a fast walk to forest to gather some logs.
After scrapping some wood at workbench let's do same thing with 2 barrels.

Our first room should be nice, small and cozy. It's small but perspectives are large.

From now on, we will expand. How you do it will depend only on your preferences. I prefer to do one big hall right under main room with smaller rooms which provide farming space, space for generators, warehouse space etc.

Best way to gain money is farming. Having stable source of food is crucial to our success.
Obviously, basic plots won't suffice and things we need are planter boxes.

Economically, best plant for planter boxes is guarana. When you plant it once it will bear fruits until you forget to water it or until you move planter box away.

One harvest of guarana yields 4 fruits. 1 fruit can be sold for 1$ to Jenny. Trading resets every day so you don't have to worry about reaching limit of sold goods. If I am correct, she buys guarana everyday. Secondly, guarana is good source of food and it can be dried to make energy drink out of it. It's top 3 food in my opinion.

Second option, which personally I didn't like is "way of cucumber". She buys cucumbers every few days but she pays much better for them.

After getting better workbench and access to better materials it's nice to build a lot of greenhouses (which use a lot of energy so you better "arm" yourself with little army of generators (steam generators are having low level of efficiency but it's only option in early game).

As you can see on my screenshot, I have few orange plants and tomato plants. Oranges are purerly for trade (surplus was dried and eaten as emergency ration). Oranges also can be sold to Jenny for 5$ per item. Tomatoes are amazing food for sale (4$ per item) and good source of cooked food. Tomato soup can also be canned which is another pro of this.


Sunflowers, corn and other plants are okay but they yield only once and you have only 20% for seed yield.

You need to buy seeds from Jenny or from supermarket. Jenny has bigger variety of seeds and they are cheaper.

So, it's time for trading explanation.

Each trader has level which will grant new resources (trust bar).

For example Siergiey sells basic goods which can be scrapped into metal, plastic and wood.
On level 1 Siergiey offers basic metal containers and pallets.
On level 2 he offers bigger containers which yield more metal, he also sells wooden crate
On level 3 he adds containers which grant 1 plastic and 1 metal.

With leveling him, he also offers other useful resources.

Same thing happens to Jetsons who offer more phones, computers, sofas and radios (mentioned in electrics section).

Trading with Jenny makes more seeds available.

I also noticed that, trading with Nancy causes her to buy more stuff from you.

Water can become "little" problem if we start to expand our farms too fast.
My solution? Build at least 11 buckets and place all of them right behind your house!
You can have 2 buckets free (Agent won't care about them). When inspection will be coming just take buckets to your inventory and voila!

If you level up trade with Siergiey, he will sell water tanks to you. You MUST BUY ONE as fast as possible. It's expensive because it's one payment of 44$ but trust me, it's worth it.

This handsome guy can store 125 units of water and it COLLECTS WATER AUTOMATICALLY FROM BUCKETS.
Having two tanks will split income of water between them so don't worry if one tank seems to be filling quite slowly.

With workbench level 4 you will be able to create Waterloo 1815 which is machine gathering water. It's more efficient than bucket because it works underground and you don't need rain for it to operate. Only one con is that it consumes a lot of power.

Very important thing.
How to get metal?
Go to mine! (this is where you meet Bob).
Every level of mine has different resource. It is displayed by sign next to drilling machine (on the right side of screen). If you power these machines with fuel it will give you very big amount of resources.

1st floor gives you access to stone mining (which can yield small amounts of iron, gold and jewels).

2th floor gives you access to iron mining.

3rd floor gives you access to salt mining.

4th floor gives you access to very important resource - crude oil.
If you build refinery at home you will be able to refine crude oil into gasoline. This mine yields a lot of stone, iron, gold and other stuff too.




Electronics are most important resource in many advanced recipes. To get them you need to trade with Jetsons which sell phones, radios and computers (when you level up them).
Sometimes, I saw Joe selling one or two electronics but it wasn't much. You can also try to scavenge through desert in search for many different resources.


* - price in my game is smaller because I bought books which decrease total price of resources.

This is additional section which was added after few requests. It will contain only information about levels and resources in mines.

Every level in mine contain crates with very useful resources, you should find and utilize them!
To get lower level you need access cards.
First one is visible on start so don't worry.

To get level -2 and -3 you need to find them in darkness.
I strongly recommend getting mining helmet before you go there. Mining helmet can be crafted in leveled up workbench.

This section will contain information which are spoilers!
You read it at your responsibility!

If you want to explorer at your own take my advice - access card to level -4 isn't in the mine. Take a look around, do quests.

To get level -4 card you need to do quests for Joe at junkyard.

Another important thing - power management.

To achieve success you need to distribute power and to manage it. Later Agent will check your power consumption so managing it is very important!

Basic power is supplied by city. It is enough for early game but since we are going to build machinery it won't be enough after few days.

This is our lovely electricity box. Red line indicates electricity usage which will be seen as suspicious.

To get more power we need generators.
Generators are available after upgrading workbench.
Basic power generator is steam generator which turn wood into electricity.


Highlited in yellow - total power output. It indicates total output of all generators.
Highlited in green - total fuel in generator.

Generators can relief main electrical box by providing more power. If blackout occures, we can disable more lights or other power vaccums. Biggest power vaccums are cookers, refineries and greenhouses. You can also install switches to disable whole room with 1 click.

After few comments (I also forgot to do so) I add this info to this section:

You can turn off all lights in your normal house (above ground level). Remember to always turn off dryer after you use it (same with cooker). After you build new fridge or freezer you can turn off above ground fridge.

I hope this short guide made some thing easier for you.

This game is amazing when we look closer at it. There are many tactics and approaches we can take to achieve final goal - be prepared.

If you have any suggestions about stuff I should add or update I am waiting for it!
Feel free to leave suggestions in comment section!

Good luck fellow preppers!





- Edit #1 - added Power section
- Edit #2 - added note about buying seeds to Farming section
- Edit #3 - added Mine section