We show you how to get started in Crashlands, an insanely addictive RPG for iPhone and iPad, with a guide to crafting killer items and defeating monsters, as well as completing the early quests.
Getting started in Crashlands
The spaceship
When the game starts, you’ll have to escape from your rapidly disintegrating spaceship. This section is quick and easy to complete; just be sure not to approach the various machines when a red circle appears around them, as you’ll get shocked. When you pick up the hammer, you can use this to smash the machines and safely pass. Just wait for the red circle to disappear and then give it a tap and you’ll bash it in. Two hits later, it will disappear.
Be sure to pick up the pies before tapping on the escape pod and then you’ll find yourself on a strange alien planet…
How to gather resources and get building
Your first task on this new world is to gather resources and build some essential equipment for survival. Simple enough.
That weird box thing next to your downed ship is the BS SSSS SS5 (referred to from now on as the BS). This catchily-named thingy will build what you need, providing you have the right ingredients. So for example, to construct some flooring, just run around the area and tap on all of the sawgrass you see, then head back to the BS and give it a tap. On the left side you’ll see a grid of items you can build, so tap on the Thatched Sawfloor and you’ll see that you need ten bits of sawgrass. As long as you’ve collected enough already, you can tap ‘build’ and the BS will churn out your lovely new flooring.
To lay down your flooring, back out of the BS menu and tap the hammer icon in the bottom left of the main UI. This new menu allows you to position everything that you own. Tap the floor icon in the bottom right to enter Floor Mode and you can then lay down each individual piece of flooring simply by tapping on the world. Don’t worry if you screw up the positioning; you can just tap the offending item when in the building menu and you’ll take it back into your inventory.
After your flooring is complete, you’ll be told to construct a saw for chopping down trees and tough plant life. Repeat the above to collect the required ingredients and your tool will be integrated into your suit and automatically used when you tap on a tree. You can construct a sawmill with the gathered wood, again using the BS, which is another crafting device for building armor and other bits (check out our crafting guide further down the page).
If you don’t have enough resources for something you want to build, tap the Track button in the build menu. You will then see how close you are to gathering the necessary bits in the top right corner of the main UI.
Your map is your friend
You’ll want to explore the nearby area to gather more resources (make sure to click on every stick, plant and other stuff that you find as you wander around). But don’t worry about getting lost as you have a handy map, which you can pull up by tapping the icon in the bottom left corner of the main UI.
From the map, you can place waypoints by tapping the blue icon in the top left of the screen, which is handy when you need to explore a specific area. Even better, you can warp back to your knackered ship at any point by tapping the Home icon. And as you start to explore the world, you’ll come across glowing teleporters that you can then tap in the map to instantly transport. It’s an essential means of travel as the map opens up, saving you loads of time.
Power ups
You’ll occasionally stumble across weird crystal shards sticking up out of the ground. These things are power ups, and a quick tap of them gives you some kind of bonus for two minutes. For instance, you might gain the ability to fly (which is handy for clearing vast bodies of water and quickly exploring large areas), or one-hit resource gathering to avoid hacking for ages at trees.
Monsters and combat in Crashlands
The Crashlands world is a dangerous one, with wild beasts roaming the land aimlessly. And of course, they won’t hesitate to chew you into pulp and use your guts as a piece of floss.
Fighting tips and tricks
You’ll know when an enemy is after you, as an exclamation mark will appear over their heads. Just before they attack, a red danger zone appears on the ground (or multiple danger zones if they have a particularly strong attack). Make sure you get out of these zones immediately or you’ll be struck and lose a chunk of health.
To attack a monster, you need to just tap on it – with a weapon equipped, of course. You’ll then smack them about until you either tap somewhere else on the screen to move away, or one of you dies. Most monsters attack rapidly, so we’d recommend a hit-and-run approach. Tap on them, get one or two hits in and then dodge away by tapping outside of their red attack circle before they unleash a counter-attack.
Stunning enemies is also a great way to get a couple of cheap hits in. Simply tap the hammer icon at the bottom of the UI, then tap on a monster. This only stuns them for a couple of seconds however, so you’ll have to act fast. Try stunning them just before they attack for maximum impact.
Taking a pet along for the journey is also a good form of backup. The other monsters will never attack it, so you can get lots of free hits. Try upgrading your pet as early as possible, to increase the damage it does – check out our Crashlands Pets guide below.
Here’s our guide to Crashlands’ major early monsters, but note that the game will gather information on each creature as you come across them. Just tap the notebook icon in the bottom left corner of the main UI, then tap Data to see a list of encountered monsters.
Wild Wompit
The first creature you’ll come across is the Wild Wompit. These weird one-footed rhino head buggers aren’t too dangerous unless you hang around them too long, in which case they’ll start hopping madly in your general direction. This means you can usually get the first strike in before they attack.
Note that you can still hit the Wild Wompit even when they’re in the air, mid-stomp.
Glidopus
This annoying Cthulhu-looking fella simply charges straight at you, over and over. As such, you’ll need to dodge a lot and get in a crafty strike whenever you can. Don’t go for more than two strikes at once time, as you may end up being headbutted.
Glutterfly
You’ll encounter these glowing gits at night. They fire poisoned projectiles at you, occasionally firing off three at once, although they’re slow moving and very easy to avoid. When you see the red spots appear, run around the Glutterfly and attack from behind. Rinse, repeat.
Protect yourself
The best way to keep from losing too much health is to build some armor, which you can do once you’ve constructed the saw mill. Tap the saw mill and you’ll see that you can craft all kinds of wooden wearables, including an awesomely fashionable Loghat crown. However, you might want to hold off until you get the skinnery (which happens about ten minutes after you get the sawmill), as the leather armor you craft offers better defence.
If you do lose too much health during a battle, the screen will start to flash red at the edges. You can regain health by consuming baconweed, which are the tiny flowers scattered around the world. Tap them to add them to your inventory and then tap the flower icon at the bottom of the main UI to eat one. You’ll regain 81 points of health over 30 seconds.
R.I.P.
If you happen to die, you’ll drop all of your items – but fear not. Head back to where you died and tap the gravestone and you’ll pick up your old gear. Hell, you can even collect the gravestone, as a lovely memento.
If you can’t remember exactly where you died, fear not. Just check the map and you’ll see your most recent footsteps, nice and bold. Just head to where they suddenly stop and bingo.
Crashlands Pets
Early in the game you’ll stumble across a Wompit egg, which you can hatch back at your base. All you need to do is gather enough wood and sawgrass and then head to your skinnery and construct a Wompit Incubator. Stick this down and the egg will start to shake when it’s ready to hatch. Give it a tap and your lovable pet will emerge.
First things first; we need to give him (or her – I’m not really sure if these things have sexes) a name. Tap on your pet and then tap Name and you can pick any moniker that fits.
With that done, you’ll receive a new quest: Mother Duck (Seriously, Milk It). Check out our quests section for more info.
If you tap your Wompit’s nest and then tap the face that pops up, you can order your pet back into its home. Give it a tap when it’s nesting and you can order your pet to follow, feed it some treats in return for milk, or clothe it.
Your Wompit is a little weedy right now, yeah? Well, no worries. If you clothe your pet with a Wompit Garter, it’ll magically grow big and powerful. To do this, collect a load of Wompit skins and 12 Wompit essence (gathered from the larger blue-coloured Wompit Bulls when defeated).
Finally you’ll need 149 Flatstones, which can’t be gathered until you progress through the story a little and get the pickaxe schematic. When you have the pickaxe, check out the territory to the south of Powaapol, where you’ll find the flatstones sat on the rocky terrain. Grab every one you see and then head back to your skinnery when you have enough and craft the garter.
With the garter in your possession, send your pet back to its nest and then tap it and tap the garter icon. Your pet is now ’embiggened’, which means it’s a tough mother. You’ll stand more of a chance in combat against the beefier monsters now.
Crashlands crafting guide
Starting off
When you first crash, you’ll only be able to harvest basic resources like sticks and use them to create floorboards and other bits in the BS. However, you’ll almost immediately collect some better tools like a proper saw to hack down trees, plus a variety of schematics for crafting more useful items.
Here’s our guide to help you get started with crafting.
Sawmill
You can build the sawmill after constructing some flooring for the first time and then building the saw. You’ll need to gather some wood first, then return to the BS to build the sawmill.
The sawmill gives you the ability to craft basic wooden armor, although you’ll very shortly be able to build tougher level 3 armor with the skinnery, so we’d recommend holding off. However, you can also craft your first weapon, the SawgrassSword, which finally gives you the option of attacking those pesky monsters.
Skinnery
To create the skinnery, you need to hack up loads of Wild Wompits and collect their fleshy bits. It’s well worth the effort though, because this gives you the ability to craft level 3 armor, the sawboard (a level 2 weapon) and wompit incubators (to hatch their eggs and create a pet).
Stone cutter
Now we’re talking. With this stone-shaping machine, you can craft level five armor and level three weapons, which is essential when taking on the tougher enemies.
Legendary items
If you collect enough sawgrass, you’ll eventually find the Hydrablade. This three-pronged sawgrass is a vital ingredient in your first piece of legendary equipment, the Hydrablade Woodshankers. These level 3 gloves offer better defence than the bog-standard offerings – but you’ll need to gather quite a lot of wood (52 pieces to be exact) to craft them.
This is just your first legendary item, with many other legendary schematics hidden around the world for you to find.
Crashlands early mission/quests guide
Check out your active quests at any time by tapping the book icon in the bottom left corner.
Find the light source
At night you’ll want a source of light to illuminate your surroundings. Once you finish constructing the saw, you’ll be told that there’s a light source nearby that you can turn into a handy lamp stick thing. This source can be found on an island directly north of your starting position.
Make sure you have at least one piece of flooring in your inventory before heading to the island and lay down the flooring in the water to form a bridge. You can then grab the light source, which is integrated automatically with your suit.
Potted baconweed and Nightwalkas in Uugy’s Meadow
Head south-east from your crashed ship and you’ll happen across the Uugy’s Meadow teleporter. A few steps east of this teleporter, partially surrounded by water, you’ll find Uugy and his buddy Aarnd. Tap on them to chat and you’ll be asked to bring them five potted baconweeds.
All you need to do is collect 25 wood and 5 baconweed flowers, then head back to your sawmill. You can build the potted baconweeds and then return to Uugy.
Pleased as punch, Uugy will instruct you to ‘sploosh’ a creature called a Nightwalka. You can find the Nightwalka immediately south of Uugy when night falls, so you won’t have to search for long. The Nightwalka is basically a mega Wompit with loads of health. Stick to the hit-and-run tactic and stun him lots and you should be able to defeat him without losing any health.
Clearly figuring you as a do-good sucker, Uugy now demands that you bring him 31 wooden walls and a door. This is the last of his demands thankfully. Gather 37 wood and head to the sawmill to craft your items and then hand ‘em over. Quest complete.
Mother Duck
After birthing your first pet Wompit, you’ll have to feed it sawgrass and then…milk it. For real. Tap on the Wompit’s nest and then the picture that pops up and your pet will be ‘stabled’. Give it another tap and you’ll have three options: Follow, Feed and Clothe. Tap Feed for now. This will take some sawgrass from your collection and give you delicious Wompit milk in return.
Quest complete!
The Powaapol
Your next ‘story’ mission is The Powaapol. Head to the map marking south-east of the crash site to find Powaapol and head inside the hut, where you’ll find a slightly mental Tendraam guarding the energy source you need.
No worries. Just head outside and talk to Burl, who will give you a new quest.
The Trust of a Tendraam
Burl offers to get you the energy source, but first you need to clear the wild Wompits from his house. Well, nothing’s ever easy, right?
His house will be marked to the south-west of your current location, so head straight there and do as bidded. The Wompits should be easy enough to dispose of, especially if you already have your pet Wompit providing backup.
Kill ’em all and head back to Burl, who rewards you with the pickaxe schematic. This can be quickly crafted using basic ingredients and gives you the ability to mine stone, at last! Use this to mine the energy source.
Grafting Roots
Next to the Powaapol hut, you’ll find another Tendraam called Auly who’s all mopey because he high-tailed it from a picnic with his loved one when three mean Wompits attacked. To make him feel better, you offer to dispose of the pesky romance-ruining Wompits.
These three Wompits appear to be randomly generated, but I found all of them close to Powaapol, with the distance increased slightly each time. Just wander around the area until you spot a large Wompit with a special name over its head – Gromp, Wallop and Saucy are at least clearly marked, so you’ll know them when you see them. Be careful, because they get tougher each time. And remember to return to Auly each time you defeat one, or the next Wompit won’t show.
You can also help out Auly’s partner, who is sat at the opposite corner of the hut. She lost her ring in the kerfuffle and you can find it by hacking down the whistleroot in the surrounding area. One of them will contain the ring.
The adventure continues…
Now that you have a pet and some decent equipment and you’ve kick-started your adventure, try exploring the the rest of the Crashlands world. It’s bloody massive and there’s tons of cool stuff to do.
This Crashlands walkthrough and guide is constantly being updated with new information, tips and tricks. If you have any tips of your own, please feel free to share in the comments below.
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