Among Trees: Beginner's Guide & Best Tips

First, Let Me Be Honest With You

I’ve got 140 hours in Among Trees. That’s not a brag — that’s a warning. This game sunk its hooks into me on a rainy weekend, and I still haven’t fully recovered. I came for the cozy vibes, stayed for the survival loop, and nearly lost my mind over a fishing minigame that, I swear, is rigged some days.

Here’s the deal: Among Trees looks like a chill forest simulator. And it is, right up until it isn’t. You’re chopping pines, roasting berries, and then suddenly you’re three in-game days away from your cabin, the temperature is dropping, a bear spots you, and you left your axe at home. That’s the moment the game stops being cute and starts being stressful as hell.

I wrote this because I remember scrolling for guides when I first started, and everything was either a trailer re-cap or a vague "explore and have fun!" nonsense. That doesn’t help. This guide is the one I wish I’d had on my first day — before I died a stupid death to poison because I didn’t know what yellow mushrooms actually do.

Why This Game Makes You Want to Uninstall (And Why You Shouldn't)

I see the reviews. "Too grindy." "The combat is janky." "I built a fence and the wolf walked right through it, what the hell?" I’ve been there. I punched my desk when I found out about resource durability the hard way — I crafted a pickaxe, mined three rocks, and it broke. THREE. ROCKS. I thought my save file was cursed.

Look, the game has quirks. The inventory system is a pain. There’s no way to pause during a bear chase. The map is deceptively large and the markers are useless. If you’re coming from a game that holds your hand, you’re going to feel neglected here. I’m not going to sugarcoat it — some mechanics are absolute BS at first.

But here’s the thing: the "tough" parts are almost always because the game does a terrible job teaching you. It’s not that it’s unfair — it’s that it’s dumb. The difference matters. Once you learn the game’s weird internal logic, the difficulty curve flattens, and it turns into the most relaxing loop I’ve ever played. The grinding becomes a meditation, not a chore. Don’t uninstall yet. Give me 20 minutes of your time.

Your First Trips Into the Woods: What Nobody Tells You

You wake up in the cabin. There’s a note, an axe, and a backpack. That’s it. The forest is beautiful, but it’s also pure chaos. Forget what I said about meditation — your first two hours are about not dying of starvation while you figure out what’s what.

Here’s your actual day-one checklist, the stuff the game doesn’t put in the tutorial:

• Stay within sight of the cabin for the first night. Seriously. Don’t wander. The night cycle drops the temperature fast, and if you don’t have a campfire or a torch, your health bar starts draining. I lost my first run walking to the lake at dusk because I wanted to see some deer. Dumbest death ever. The deer didn’t care.
• Forage berries, but only eat the blue ones. I’m not joking. The red ones are fine. The yellow-orange ones are bait. They look like energy fruits, but they give you 25 seconds of poison that eats away your health. I spent my first three runs trying to stack poison resistance with them and nearly quit because I kept dying to my own snacks.
• Your axe is your lifeline, but it’s fragile. At the start, your Flint Axe has a durability of about 12 swings. It lasts longer if you hit the glowing spots on trees. Wait for the sparkly white glow on the trunk — aim for that. You get double the wood and double the axe lifespan. It’s a night-and-day difference.
• Pick up pinecones. I ignored them because they seemed useless compared to planks. They’re not. You need 10 of them to build the Carpenter’s Bench, which is the first upgrade you buy. Stop walking past them. They respawn every couple days, so hoard them in your storage chest.
• Don’t build the fence first. The game nudges you to build the small wooden fence around your cabin for "safety." It does nothing. The wolf walks through it. The bear walks through it. I’m pretty sure it’s purely decorative. Spend that wood on a stone axe and a fishing rod instead. You’re welcome.

Your first goal should be to unlock the Static Campfire and the Iron Pot crafting recipes. You get those from the workbench. With those two, you can stop starving and start cooking — which is a huge part of the food loop. Cooking meat gives you three times the health of raw meat, and you can cook fish and small game over the fire. Until you have a pot, you’re just surviving off berries, and that’s a death sentence by day 3.

The Stuff I Wish I Knew 20 Hours Ago

Alright, this is where I earn your trust. I’m going to give you the real tips I had to find out through trial, error, and rage-quitting for a week.

1. The "Save Game" exploit is real. This might be fixed by now, but the game saves when you enter the cabin and look at the bed, not when you sleep. Sometimes it’s buggy. My advice: always exit to the main menu manually before you quit. I lost three hours of progress once because I closed the app from the pause menu. That was the most disappointed I’ve ever been in my own gaming habits. Don’t be dumb like me.

2. Upgrade your axe before you upgrade your backpack. The backpack upgrade gives you +4 slots, which sounds great, but you can’t carry enough to make those slots useful without the Copper Axe. The Copper Axe doubles your wood yield and lasts 40 swings. I saved up for the Large Backpack first and immediately regretted it because I was still running back to the cabin every two minutes. Spend your resources on the Copper Axe and the Stone Pickaxe first.

3. The fishing minigame is a rhythm game. Everyone says it’s random. It’s not. When a fish bites, the line will go tight, then slack, then tight AGAIN. The third "tight" is when you pull. The key is to wait for the visual "bob" — the water ripples around your lure. If you just click when it vibrates, you miss half of them. Give it the extra half-second. I went from catching 1 out of 6 fish to 5 out of 6. Huge game-changer.

4. Craft Trail Markers. I know they seem dumb. They’re just little flags. But the forest has these huge rocks and the same-looking tree clusters everywhere. I got lost for 40 minutes trying to find my way back to my cabin. I ended up walking in circles. Build 5 trail markers from sticks, and drop them at key forks and intersections. Relying on your map alone is a trap; the map doesn’t show topographical features, so it’s hard to triangulate.

5. Never sleep on the salmon. The big fish — the ones that look like they’re too big for your inventory — are worth 15 meat chunks each. There’s a pond just north of the cabin. I ignored it for days because the water level was low, and the fish didn’t seem to bite. I was using the basic rod. The Copper Rod has a much better hook rate for the big pools and deep water. That’s the reason you couldn’t catch anything. Spend the resources.

6. Gardening is a late-beginner trap. Unlocking the Garden Plot feels like the natural next step. It’s not. It requires water every single day. I planted 6 tomato seeds, forgot to water them for one day, and they all died. I haven’t planted a single seed since. Unless you’re ready to commit to a water schedule, skip it. The Berry Bush Farm requires zero maintenance and gives you the same nutritional payout. Just plant the bushes and they do their thing. This is a much better use of your time.

7. The torch is trash. The lantern is life. The basic Torch lasts 60 seconds and takes two hands. The Hand Lantern lasts 4 minutes, stays lit in your hand, and uses oil. Get the oil press operated by the animal wheel. I know it’s a lot of resources, but the night walks become completely stress-free once you stop having to re-craft torches. I literally carried six torches in my inventory before I made the press. Now I run with one lantern and a stack of oil in my bag. Way better.

Dumb Ways to Die (And Lose Progress)

I’ve died a lot in this game. A LOT. I’ve cataloged the most common ways that friends and Discord members have died too, so you can avoid the same pain.

• Eating the yellow mushrooms. I already said this, but I’ll say it again because it’s my top "rage quit" contender. The game describes them as "sweet." They are poison. It gives you 4 hearts of damage over 10 seconds. I had over 30 of them in my inventory before I realized they were killing me. What a waste of mushrooms.
• Climbing the tall rocks without stamina. The taller rock formations require Stamina Upgrades. If you have 100 max stamina, you can only climb half the cliff before you get stuck. There’s no "relax" button. I tried jumping mid-way and fell 30 feet, broke my leg, and limped back to the cabin with no food. The Stamina Food before climbing is not a suggestion; it’s a requirement.
• Building the animal trap early. It costs 25 wood and 10 fiber, and you need it for the main quest, but I built it ASAP and placed it near my camp. It does NOT work as a passive trap. It’s only for the main quest mission. Don’t waste resources trying to farm rabbits with it, because that was my big failure.
• Storing items in the outdoor barrel. I get it, storage is limited. But the outdoor barrel is just... not the same. I lost a whole stack of copper ingots when it despawned after 3 days. I thought it was safe because it looks like a chest. It’s a decorative despawn point. Only use the indoor chests or the Chest Upgrade from the workbench.
• Sprinting everywhere. This is a big one. Holding Shift constantly drains stamina and it takes forever to regain. The game rewards a walking pace �� you move fast enough and you’ll save time because you’re not stopping to rest every 30 seconds. Once I stopped sprinting, my exploration skills improved dramatically. That sounds like nonsense, but it’s true.

Questions I See Every Single Day in the Discord

Q: How do I get more backpack space?
A: You build the Leather Satchel at the workbench — it requires deer hide. That gives you +2 slots. The Large Backpack is the next tier, but you need to finish the story line until the carpenter comes back. It’s not early game. Don’t stress about it.

Q: Why won’t the deer drop anything?
A: If you kill a deer, you get 2 meat and 1 hide. But if the hide is "old" or the deer is the "tame" variant — the ones that don’t run — you only get meat. Blame the update. The Tame Deer are bugged. Don’t waste arrows on them. Hunt the nervous ones.

Q: What’s the point of the axe "Shockwave" ability?
A: That’s the Heavy Cut ability — it uses 15 stamina but chops down a medium pine in one swing instead of three. It’s unlocked after you upgrade your axe to the Steel Axe. It’s fantastic, but the hitbox is finicky — you have to aim at the center of the tree, or you’ll whiff and spin around. I accidentally hit a rabbit once and knocked it flying. Not useful, but funny.

Q: How does the fast travel work?
A: There is no fast travel. This was the most requested feature in the forums. The devs added a Cabin Map item that teleports you back to your bed, but it costs 5 mushrooms and you lose the items on your back if you use it wrong. It’s only for emergency escapes. If you’re exploring far away, you have to walk back. This is why the Trail Markers tip above is crucial.

Q: Is the Wolf Companion worth it?
A: I’m going to speak for the community and say: No, not really. It’s cute. It follows you around. But the wolf only attacks wolves. It’s afraid of bears and deer. It also gets stuck on rocks constantly because the AI pathing is broken. You’re better off saving the 20 berries the taming recipe asks for. I’ve heard the Crowt (a bird) is better because it scans for resources, but I haven’t unlocked it yet. That’s next on my list.

Q: How long to "beat" the game?
A: The main story (coloring all the Wall Paintings) is about 10 hours if you know what to do and you head straight for the objectives. If you are a collector and you want all the deco items and to unlock the Ski Lodge area, you’re looking at 35+ hours. I’m at 140 and still missing 2 painting colors. So the answer is "longer than you think."

This game has been a weird obsession of mine, and I mean that in the best possible way. It’s short, it’s clunky, and it doesn’t guide you at all — but it rewards patience and memory like few other games do. If you stick with it past the first few frustrating hours, you’ll find a quiet joy in managing your little corner of the forest. I still die every now and again to a bear because I forget my own advice. It happens.

If you want a similar cozy-survival fix but with a bit more direction, I’ve been playing Valheim lately and it scratches a similar itch, though it’s way more combat-focused. This mechanic of base-building and resource hoarding is also pretty close to Sons of the Forest — but we don’t talk about the cannibals in front of our peaceful Among Trees friends. Anyway, go chop some trees and get out of my comment section.