Salt is a very relaxing game of exploration, crafting and discovery with mild survival and combat aspects. The only survival issues are food (fairly easy to get) and running into pirates (mid-game) or angry ancient guardians (late game). While still in Alpha, I'm sure this will change as more work is completed. This guide is presented as a basic starting guide to get you off the first island and some info on next steps and some of the things you'll find.

As mentioned in other guides the starter island has everything you will need to get into your adventure. The island is uninhabited, except by you and maybe some deer. Don't worry yet about food, as you can go for a good day and a half or more before you start to starve. The game will prompt you to hit 'H' and read the help guide, it tells you all about the interface, movement, and hotkeys. There are also two books on your person, read these and they'll help with crafting and some back story on you (and the chest on the island).

After becoming familar with movement, the menus, and screens (inventory, crafting, etc.) it's time to explore. Take advantage of the light of day and look the island over very closely. The things to look for on this island are the chest (mentioned in the book), and pick (somewhere on the island), food (fruit in the trees, deer will come later), logs (laying on the ground), plants & flowers (used in crafting), and weak boulders (for crafting material). The chest and pick are located in random places on the island, just keep looking. The fruit comes in three colors, green, red, and purple. The green is common, while the other two colors are more rare with special properties. To get them out of the trees, simply tap the tree with whatever's in your hand (club, pick, etc.). You'll hear a knock, then the fruit will fall (highlighted with a trail of white dots for spotting).

Once you've cleaned the island of all harvestable things and found the chest, time to craft. The 'C' key brings up the crafting interface. Crafting is simple as right clicking items in the craft menu panel (right side of interface). The items will move to the left side and something will appear in the craft window to be made, if you have enough or the right combo (refer to book for basic recipes). Some times more than one item can be made with the ingredients you've placed in the crafting panel. Just click the arrows to browse what can be made. at this time you should have enough to make a raft (important to get off island) with some logs (raft) and cloth sheets (sails). Once made, it will tell you about the ship interface ('S' key) and how to use it. The other things to make are potions (if you've found flowers), weapons - club or stone sword (you'll see pirates within a couple of islands after leaving your starter island), tools - pick, torch, fishing pole (if you didn't find the pick, you can make one), potions - health, poison, antidote, and many others (based on flowers found) & bandages - (crafted from cloth), and fish bait (grubs, worms, and deer guts). If night falls on you, make a torch (log + coal) or a campfire (logs + flint). The campfire allows you to save the game or rest (12 hours of rest will move you to daylight).

If you were lucky and found enough white flowers and cloth, use them to make health potions and bandages. Assign these to a hotkey (while hovering over an object in your inventory, hit the hotkey to assign). You can assign multiple items to the same hot key and they'll cycle as you hit the key. In your inventory the hot key number is in the upper left side of the icon for an item and the count number is in the lower right side. Don't make bandages from the cloth until after you've made your raft. Plant fibers can be made into cloth, but keep the tough plant fibers for later crafting. Your island will have patchs of bamboo all over, simply walking through them will get you some 'exceptional' pieces. These can be turned into fiber (crafting alone) or be use to make a fishing pole. The pole requires one piece of good bamboo, and tough plant fiber (or web) and a ripe fruit (the red one). Once crafted, you'll need bait (worms, grubs or deer guts). Just cast into water and wait for the hit (it's obvious when they hit) and left click to get your reward. Web is found on spiders, they'll come later, at night...

You can't run down a deer with a melee weapon at current, but using a bow and arrow seems to work best. You can make a bow with logs and plant fiber, arrows from logs and flint stones. It takes some practice and patience to hunt deer, sneeking up from behind for the initial shot, then following them for the kill. You get a few items from them: pelts, meat, guts, antlers, and your arrows back (all usable in one form or another). There are also white and black dear as well as 'pristine' deer hides (all make better stuff). Clothing/armor can be made from the deer skins, useful until something better can be found. Keep the antlers and sell them to the merchant when you find one.

Ore nodes are found almost anywhere on the islands. There are many kinds and offer different crafting material. First there are Weak Stones, they look like a smooth rocks with dark lines running through it, containing stone, gems(3 kinds), and flint. They are mineable using a club or pick. Second there are Rare Stones, they look like smooth rocks with light green lines running through it, containing stone, gems, flint, hardstone, and magnetic stones. They are mineable using a club or pick. Third there are Moon Stones, they look like smooth rocks with bright blue lines running through it and are only seen during the night with the moonlight, containing only moonstone. They are mineable using a pick. Lastly there is the Ancient Statues, they look like large stone statues, containing ancient metal. They are mineable using an ancient pick or bombs (spoiler - both described later).

Navigating the raft is a little tricky at first. Walk to the edge of the beach, facing the water in the direction you want to go, and open your boat interface. Double click the raft and it be placed on the water in front of you, sometimes a ways from shore. If the boat spawned partly on the sand, walk up to it and a hand will appear, click to push it into the water. Once it's floating freely from the island, swim out to it and click when the hand appear to get in. Click the sail to unfurl it and start moving, turn around for the rudder to steer. It's a little odd turning back and forth to get your raft pointed in the right direction, but you'll get the hang of it in no time. If you're ready for a pirate fight (have weapons, clothing, and potions) then look for an island with campfires and smoke rising on the island. If you still need more crafting material and time, look for a desserted island. Once you have enough hardwood (7) you can make a regular ship (skiff) witch allows you to steer (wheel) while looking in the direction you're moving in.

Later you'll find or make a compass and/or sextant. These are used for direction (compass) or your location (sextant). These can be used to figure out where you are and where to go. There are no maps currently in the game, but these tools will allow you to create your own using coordinates (the sextant will give you two coordinates, for example 10 west, 12 north.) Your starting island is considered 0,0 or center of the universe... Most of the advanced pirates and other late games things will be near the 40+ line (any direction 40 marks from the starter island). Be sure to keep the location coordinates for any merchant you find in case you need to buy or sell things. Your inventory can hold a lot, so it will be a while until you'll need to sell things.

There are a number of different types of islands you'll find in your journey through the land. The starter area, coordinates covering about 20 X 20 with 0,0 in the center, will contain low level islands, inhabited or not. The inhabited islands currently have only one type of inhabitant, pirates. Rarely, there may be a marchant on these islands, but I haven't seen one yet. If you see campfires, there are pirates there. They can be small or very large (all depending on the seed you started the game with). Over time you'll start to see a pattern in the shape an island takes as you appoach it that will indicate what might be there. The large island seem to be taller in general and have a lot more terrian to explore, but not a lot more resources, yet. Early on I looked for smaller, shorter islands, the resource seemed to be closer together. Also the deer were easier to hunt as they had less land to run away on.

If you see islands with tree stumps and warning signs (advanced pirates) or large stone columns or statues (ancient ruins) you have found the avanced islands. I've only seen one island that mixed pirates and ancients, they're usually separate, but not always. Avoid the advanced pirate islands until you have weapons and armor of an advanced level (most weapons and armor can be grouped into 3 levels). The color of the name indicates the tech level of items (white, green, and blue). White is the lowest level and blue the highest. If you have all green armor and weapons with potions and bandages, advanced pirates will be a challenge. All blue items and they're not that hard. We'll discuss ancients a little later.

Good time to discuss pirates in detail, as you'll be running into them quite often... The low level pirates are not hard to fight one on one, but in groups can be a problem, be carefull on pulling more than one until you have the gear to. They carry lots of different items (weapons, gear, compass, sextants, food, and crafting material). They also carry copper keys (you'll need them to open the random chest located on their island. The advanced pirates carry green and blue items and more advanced food and material (and silver keys for the better chests). Both groups of pirates have different types, some harder than others. The advanced pirates have stronger versions and named captains, these are much harder to kill. There are unique and set armor/clothing pieces to collect that give bonuses for a complete set. These can be very usefull in late game combat, some are just for better exploring. Pirates of all types like to collect in camps on their island, these can provide more opportunities for plundering good things. Don't miss the storage boxes and chest they may have around their camp.

Islands that have ancient ruins are usually very large islands with lots of deer, resources, and usually a merchant. You'll see large columns and statues dotting the island and two unique structures (an alter and a stone box). The box will contain a random ancient item (armor, pick, etc.) and the alter has a special use. The columns can't be interacted with, but the statues can be mined. If you're lucky enough to find an anient pick in the box, you can use it to mine the statues, otherwise you'll need about 3-4 bombs per. Bombs are sold, randomly, by merchants. Not all merchants carry them, so stock up when you find them. Be careful though, bombs will hurt if you stand too close. Each statue will drop a single piece of ancient metal. This crafting material can be used to make an ancient bow or various pieces of armor. Only advanced (blue) items from named pirate captians are better. Beware on mining the ancient statues, you may trigger the ancient guardians to spawn on the Island. They are fairly tough, fast moving, and the only range/melee fighters in the game (so far). They throw rocks and hit fairly hard, if you don't have good armor on. The guardians drop a variety of things that I haven't found a use for (ancient stone, stone moss, etc.) Rare drops from them have some special use, I'll let you discover that.

As more content and things are dicovered, I'll add them to this guide. It's not a walkthrough of every thing the game has to offer, but it will get you started for now. There are many recipes I haven't discovered yet and plenty of mystery left to find. There are many things I didn't mention and are waiting for you to experience (beware the dark uninhabitied forest at night...)

If I've missed anything important or just stated it wrong, please let me know. I'll correct it as soon as I can.

Enjoy!