We’ll tell you about working toward definable goals, finding new crafting recipes, gathering resources, managing your inventory, and eating food to increase your health and stamina.

Some rules are obvious, like that wood tends to be near trees or stones are on the ground.

If you’re upwind, a deer will run away long before it sees you.

There are things you’ll always need, like wood for building or food for eating, but don’t be a hoarder.

Most of the time, a lean-to (a very simple structure more like a wooden shed than a house) will serve you just fine — like when you first build a workbench.

Don’t overcomplicate things and waste your time (and wood) building a mansion (yet).

Similarly, a quick and temporary camp with a roof and a bed are often all you need while you’re weak and new and exploring.

A house with a door, walls, a roof, a fire, and some basic amenities gives you the rested effect, which increases your health and stamina regeneration for a while.

You’ll start Valheim with a base health of 25 … points(?), and you’ll have a pretty limited stamina gauge.

Eat food to increase health and stamina.

Eating food increases your max health and stamina for a set time, and it heals you every tick (an in-game unit of time of about 10 real world seconds).

You’ll see all of this happen when you hover over a (food) item in your inventory (like we did in the image above).

Eating food immediately increases your stamina bar, but it does not immediately heal you.

You eat a raspberry, and your max health increases by 10 to 35.

(Check the duration stat in your inventory to see how long your new max health will last.) First you increase the meter, and then you fill that meter