Windows Grounded

[Huntn]

I was out this morning weeding my wild flower strip looking into the mass of 3' tall wild flowers and suddenly I had an urge to pick up Grounded again, the Honey I shrunk the kids game. I had stopped playing it in Feb, was doing coop with my son and we had drifted away from it. So I picked back up with my solo game.

The environment, visuals are really nice, you are itty bitty out in the back yard and it appears, not by accident. Something nefarious is going on. If you want you can play this coop with 4 people. Unfortunately it has not been released on MacOS.

And the bugs, OMG, this is not that casual of a game. You have to watch out for the spiders, even the mosquitos are kicking my ass. Fortunately the game has a soft respawn, but you will lose stuff in your backpack, not in your toolbar, and you can decide to go back and fetch the backpack, which the game makes pretty easy to see on the map and on the horizon of your view.

Anyway, I decided I needed to do some research and up my armor and weapon rating before I'll be able to take these big brutes on. IMO, the research tree is complex enough you may feel compelled to research online.

https://store.steampowered.com › app › 962130 › Grounded

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[diamond.g]

I was out this morning weeding my wild flower strip looking into the mass of 3' tall wild flowers and suddenly I had an urge to pick up Grounded again, the Honey I shrunk the kids game. I had stopped playing it in Feb, was doing coop with my son and we had drifted away from it. So I picked back up with my solo game.

The environment, visuals are really nice, you are itty bitty out in the back yard and it appears, not by accident. Something nefarious is going on. If you want you can play this coop with 4 people. Unfortunately it has not been released on MacOS.

And the bugs, OMG, this is not that casual of a game. You have to watch out for the spiders, even the mosquitos are kicking my ass. Fortunately the game has a soft respawn, but you will lose stuff in your backpack, not in your toolbar, and you can decide to go back and fetch the backpack, which the game makes pretty easy to see on the map and on the horizon of your view.

Anyway, I decided I needed to do some research and up my armor and weapon rating before I'll be able to take these big brutes on. IMO, the research tree is complex enough you may feel compelled to research online.

https://store.steampowered.com › app › 962130 › Grounded

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The survival aspects of the game became too much for me to enjoy the game. It is on Game pass for those that subscribe and is at least worth a try.

 

[Huntn]

The survival aspects of the game became too much for me to enjoy the game. It is on Game pass for those that subscribe and is at least worth a try.

There are adjustments to make the game more comforatable:

Game Modes

Game Modes are options that allow the player to customize the game difficulty. There are 6 Game Modes in total. Note: Most Achievements are disabled in all "Creative" and "Custom" modes.[1] These settings are utilized by all Game Modes: Difficulty (Mild/Medium/Whoa!) All Recipes Unlocked...

grounded.fandom.com

I just decided I did not want the game to baby me too much. Don't get me wrong, there are times when I hard core cheat in games, to make it more like cruising than struggling. And in Grounded I have not looked yet at accessing the console if there is one. I can't explain why but something is stopping me from doing that. 🤔

I've found it's not that hard to stay fed and watered. However, because there is no fast travel, I usually take the day night cycle into consideration when I take off on a trek, leave at first light. I currently have my initial base, and the oak tree base. Navigating to and finding the Hedge lab was a challenge. I would say never ever try that at night. I would go to the assent point (up into the hedge), set up a leanto, maybe build a plant plank wall around you, sleep, and then the next morning head up into the hedge. I had to go in prepared with food, a full canteen, and some first aid, although you will find water and food in the lab. Even include some material to throw up a lean to/respawn point, once you are up in the hedge, but not yet to the lab...And once you get to the lab, there are a series of buildings you have to navigate through and fight some critters. Did I say it was a challenge?

One other tip, you die while out in the wilds away from your base, first choice is pick plain "respawn", don't pick "respawn at base" you'll likely end up not close to where you died, Option 2 if you know you are in deep, you can make a manual save and reload that if you die. Without the fast travel, it's just too much of a pain to have to trek all the way across the map again.

 

[Huntn]

I recently changed the game difficulty from normal to mild. As far as I can tell this eases the survival aspected of your existence, food, water being used, the amount of mats you collect for the amount of effort. Building a base was much less grind. But with my Level 1 weapon, a bow and arrow I took on a ladybug from an elevated area and the damage I did to it was minimal. I finally gave up the particular fight. More evaluation is needed, probably a better weapon. There is a setting to have the bugs ignore you, but I'm not doing that. 😎

 

[Spaceboi Scaphandre]

So...have you met the Brood Mother yet, AKA the one thing no one asked for but Obsidian added to mess with everyone? 😂

 

[Huntn]

So...have you met the Brood Mother yet, AKA the one thing no one asked for but Obsidian added to mess with everyone? 😂

“There is a setting to have the bugs ignore you, but I'm not doing that” until I meet the brood mother…
I did a quick search about the necessity to fight the brood mother to beat the game and found Nada….

 

[Spaceboi Scaphandre]

“There is a setting to have the bugs ignore you, but I'm not doing that” until I meet the brood mother…
I did a quick search about the necessity to fight the brood mother to beat the game and found Nada….

I always love how even Obsidian doesn't take this game seriously in the trailers. Like the initial trailer for the game they were like "If you're waiting, for the biggest game of the year...then wait for Cyberpunk. But if you're here for the smallest game of the year, we got you covered"

 

[Huntn]

I always love how even Obsidian doesn't take this game seriously in the trailers. Like the initial trailer for the game they were like "If you're waiting, for the biggest game of the year...then wait for Cyberpunk. But if you're here for the smallest game of the year, we got you covered"

I realized this was a pretty serious game when the mosquitos were killing me in 2 hits.

 

[Huntn]

I'm starting to wonder about my ability to progress in Grounded. Yes, I remember the warnings. I'm just trying to get an insect axe and I needed to kill a Stink Bug and one other bug. I'm finding that the strategy, the only working strategy because these things let off a big powerful deadly stink (if you don't have a gas mask, the same gas mask that is made from stink bug parts) is to get them aggro'd on you and have it chase you into some grass where it get's caught in the grass as it tries to press forward, and then pummel it with arrows. Thank goodness for dumb AI. I used this technique once to kill a Gigantasaurus in ARK:Survival Evolved, there it was caught in small trees. Thank goodness these things lack the AI. brain power to back out and come around.

A different avoidance strategy was to aggro an Orb Weaver from a high place where it could not reach and pummel it with arrows, a bunch of arrows. It just stood there flinging webs at me and let me kill it. Being caught in a web did not hinder my ability to shoot arrows. Gee it would be nice if I could upgrade my arrows. Oops, I need an Insect Axe to do that, lol.

One final note for anyone playing and behind me, I've gotten a complete acorn armor and a weevil shield. it seems doable to fight an Orb weaver, blocking it's attacks and stabbing it with a Tier 1 spear, that is until a second Orb Weaver shows up to help it's friend. 😬

 

[Huntn]

I’m making progress in Grounded. I’ve acquired a Insect Axe, an Insect Bow, and have Acorn armor. I made the mistake of thinking I could attack a sleeping Wolf Spider in the abdomen with a poisoned blade, then retreat. Relatively, it is about 9’ tall.
The thing woke up and spun around in a half second and things did not go well. However I am seeing how they move they tend to lung/jump and this can be anticipated. For many of these bugs, especially playing solo. engaging from range, and hoping they get hung up in the grass, or from a high place they can’t reach is the way to go. I’ve seen several instances where they seem to glitch and get hung up on their own. Some bugs actually retreat when on the verge of death, but I’ve not seen a spider do this yet. 🤔

I was stumped with how to kill gnats, they're usually so erratic, it’s hard to shoot them with an arrow, but then I discovered a lantern where at night large numbers of them hover. why would I want to kill gnats? As with basically all he bugs, mats for gear and equipment.