Quite an early and important step in CryoFall is setting up a base of operations. There is only so much you can do without at least some land claimed anyway. I knew for now I had found a decent spot for my short to medium-term needs.

One of the more interesting things about claiming a space in CryoFall is you only have so much of an area. You can however as you advance technically through the game upgrade each claim to expand out further. You can also put down more than one claim marker to try and claim a wider area around you or set up another base elsewhere.

I rather like how they show you the total amount of area you will take up as you upgrade the claim marker. For now, I'd just be taking up tier-1 space. It was, however, quite important to note anything around me that might get in my way of expanding later on.

If I was playing on a server in other areas, I'd have to take note of it. If I recall in the past, I've had to set up next to people that would prevent me from fully being able to expand my base. Since I'm playing as a single player, I just have to check no terrain will get in my way.

Once the claim marker was down, I spent some time clearing out the area. There were quite a few trees rocks, plants, and other stuff in my way of building. I was also going to need quite a lot of planks for building anyway, so I had to farm trees for that. The little local area I cleared was not going to be enough to build all the walls, but it would at least be a start.

One of the first things I built beside a bed and campfire was the first crafting station. It was quite critical in building better items to have that one crafted and at the ready. Thankfully in CryoFall, they let you move items around in your area. So, I did not need to worry about the exact placement of items. I could always fix things later. Even more so when I expanded out the base if I felt like it.

At this point, my inventory space was starting to fill up. I had crafted better pickaxes and ax for faster gathering. I had already mined out at least once that rocky area to my south that was quite a decent size. Storage space would end up being something I always improved and built more of at quite a frequent level.

The last thing you want to do is have to go out for a single item that might take you twenty minutes to obtain. You would at least for me rather overfarm everything you could get your hands on. Just stockpile everything you could as sooner or later it was going to be needed anyway.

At this point, I also unlocked the ability to craft a basic firearm. I ended up crafting a single-round rifle. While having to reload all the time kind of sucks. In this game range is king and I'm careful to keep myself within range of any trouble I can.

Quite a lot of my early resources were going to go into crafting ammunition for that gun. It’s quite the process as well. Like a lot of things in this game, nothing is an easy single-step craft. It requires crafting components and then further ones in some cases before you combine them for a final product.

Some nasty things like wolves were wandering a little too close to my base than I would have liked. On top of that the mining spot up north had some nasty things waiting for me to re-enter the area that I did not want to face in short-range combat. A rifle was the exact answer I needed to the level of aggression that was slowly showing up in the area.

I was also struggling to have enough food. I thought I'd use my new technology even if it was quite primitive to go on a bit of a hunting trip. I had to be mindful that I did not have a lot of ammo with me as I was going to need to do a lot more mining and smelting copper to resolve that shortfall.

While I could have put a bigger focus on growing my food. That requires planting, watering, and harvesting. Not to mention just finding the seeds in the first place. I also had used up all my space to build without leaving myself any real grown room. It would be some time before I put a bigger focus on not needing to go out and hunt for food.

Once I got back from my hunting trip, I cooked everything up. I even crafted any new food items I could. The first time you consume a new item, you get learning points for doing so. As I progressed along in the game over time I would on occasion check to see what new kinds of foods I could cook up just for that. Otherwise, most of those food items were usually more of a hassle to craft and cook up than any benefits I'd get. I was just far too lazy then that when cooked meat would hold me over well enough for quite some time.

Over time I worked on crafting up the basic crafting stations I would need. From crafting guns, armor, medical supplies, cooking, and advanced components. This game has a few crafting stations to make. I would sometimes forget where I'd need to go to craft what. It did not help any the further along in technology I got the more and more items I could craft. Sometimes it became more of a task to find what item in a crafting station I was looking for than it did to gather everything needed to craft said item or component.

Final Thoughts

When I was not out hunting at this stage of the game. I spent most of my time either mining or sitting AFK waiting for my ores to smelt. Often, I'd need to go out and get more wood to keep the smelters going.

Since I did not need to worry about anything breaking into my base. This ended up being a great game I'd leave open and just run. Once in a while, I'd check in to see what needed to be done to keep things going. Otherwise, I'd just leave it to me and tend to other matters elsewhere in life and other games for the time being.

At least now the base things are starting to come together nicely. It’s kind of insane just how many hours are spent in the base waiting around for things to finish before I could go craft more ammo or work on progressing to the next thing I wanted in this game.

Other Content

• CryoFall | It Has Been A While

Information

Screenshots were taken and content was written by @Enjar about CryoFall.