12 Essential Tips and Tricks for Beginners in Survival: Fountain of Youth

Survival: Fountain of Youth is not a particularly difficult game, but it contains quite a few mechanics that a newcomer will need to learn. I completely finished the entire available story within the first few months after the game’s release on Steam, spending dozens of hours on it, and I’m ready to share with you the secrets and tricks that I’ve learned in the process.

Map the hidden areas of the islands

This is the basis of all gameplay, because once you map a part of the island, the available resources start to appear in that area: for example, lianas, which almost everyone has problems with at the beginning of the game.

To map new areas, you should craft more Mapping Charcoals using a Campfire.

The mapping mechanic works in such a way that the higher the character is above sea level, the larger the area around them they can map at one time. To facilitate the process of mapping, there are special Cartographer Trees on the islands, but you will have to find lianas in the jungle to climb them.

Remember: mapping unexplored lands is your key to successful and comfortable gameplay.

Set up camp in a cove by the water

As you will soon discover, the gameplay of Survival: Fountain of Youth is inextricably linked with sea voyages on boats. For this reason, it is worth building your camp by the sea. Ideally, you should set it up in a cove on the eastern part of the island.

The cove extends quite far inland, so by setting up camp there, you’ll get quick access to the jungle, mountains, sea, and savannas. Essentially, you’ll be much closer to the center of the island, making it convenient to deliver resources from any point.

Organize a warehouse right on the ground

Among the multitude of sandbox games, Survival: Fountain of Youth stands out with a rare mechanic that allows discarded items to lie on the ground indefinitely. Of course, discarded animal carcasses and food will rot within a few days, but all other resources, whether they are logs or coconuts, will remain in their places.

This is why I strongly recommend not trying to store all these heavy items in chests, but to keep them right on the ground in a convenient place or to build some kind of warehouse for them. This way, it will be very easy for you to monitor your supplies and control them. After all, you can visually see how much of what you have left, not to mention the convenience of the “walked up → picked up → moved on” view.

Build carts as soon as possible

In Survival: Fountain of Youth, there are 2 types of carts: regular and Log Cart. The regular cart is used for transporting resources. You can walk up to it, hitch it to your character and quickly haul it around the island, storing resources inside.

The Log Cart is designed for transporting logs, which drop when cutting down trees. Logs can’t be placed in your inventory; they can only be carried one at a time on your shoulder.

So if you’re far from a source of logs, you should craft a log cart as soon as possible, otherwise, you’ll just tire yourself out hauling logs back and forth.

Actively work on unlocking new recipes

In Survival: Fountain of Youth, recipes are unlocked as the player acquires new resources. That’s why you should initially strive to gather any new resources that appear within your reach. See a new tree – find out what grows on it. See a new animal – find out what resources you can get from it. This is a very simple tip, but I assure you that by following it you will progress much faster.

Stock up on water and food

For this, you need Rain Water Collectors, Food Dehydrators, and Primitive Barrels. As soon as you unlock these recipes, you should immediately build as many units of each of these facilities in your camp as possible. Rain Water Collectors will passively collect a large amount of drinking water for you during rain. You can store this water in Primitive Barrels.

Food Dehydrators will allow you to dry food (for example, meat or fish), thereby greatly extending its shelf life.

Some food, dried this way, can be stored for over a year of in-game time. And yes, as you’ve likely realized, in Survival: Fountain of Youth, food spoils over time.

Stock up on medicine

Your character can get sick – for example, get heatstroke from the sun or get poisoned after an insect bite. Illnesses are not critical but very annoying. When a character gets sick, they have a good chance of recovering, but the illness can also progress to the 4th level. When a character is seriously ill, they start to feel hungry, thirsty, and sleepy much faster and also cannot recover their health properly.

For treating diseases, there are several special medicines in the game that can be created using a campfire from local plants. Make sure you have a few units of medicine for each possible disease.

In any unclear situation, drown your character

This is a very silly mechanic, which I’ve already mentioned in a detailed review of Survival: Fountain of Youth. If the character dies, he loses inventory (except for equipped items) and his maximum health decreases slightly.

Items remain where the character died, so they can always be picked up, and the maximum health can be restored using Living Water, a bottle of which you will find many times as you play through the game.

So if your character is seriously ill, you can simply drown him in the sea, pick up the items and go about your business. It’s banal, it’s primitive, it shatters the immersion of gameplay, but it’s effective. WHY it’s effective is a question for the developers.

Complete “Survival Tasks”

While figuring out the leveling system in the game, you might notice that the character has Survival Abilities, which require Perk Points (PP) to unlock. My advice is to actively complete Survival Tasks (the next tab), which will earn you additional Perk Points.

Survival Tasks are still poorly balanced, but they will introduce you to the game and provide a small acceleration of leveling.

Thoroughly search all corners of the map

You can find many interesting things on the islands and even underwater. That’s why you should search every corner of the places the story leads you to. You will find books to unlock new perks, Living Water, various potions, valuable crafting resources, ready-made arrows for the bow, sources of fresh water, and more. This will speed up your progress, so be attentive.

Use the Concentration skill (V)

To get this skill, you need to unlock it in Survival Abilities by spending 1 Perk Point. This skill is very useful for finding points of interest as it highlights both the points of interest themselves and some useful items.

In addition, the skill will highlight arrows that you have fired from the bow, so you will easily find them and won’t have to make new ones.

Craft first – plot second

My final advice for beginners: first think about character development, crafting and building, and only then about advancing the plot. After you have established your camp, strive to obtain all available types of resources, unlock all recipes available at a particular stage of the game, craft all available items. Only after you’ve “hit the ceiling”, not being able to open / research / create something new, move on to the story missions. This is quite logical for such games. Just in case, I leave you links to a complete walkthrough of Island of Hope and a full walkthrough of Buffalo Region.

Conclusion

If you have additional tips, tricks or tricks that you would like to share with beginners, feel free to leave comments. Thousands of readers who will read this post after you will be grateful. Happy surviving! 🧐