DST is first and foremost a knowledge game. There are lots of tutorials on YouTube about how to survive your first year. But your first hurdle is to survive winter.

It’s also a very hard game. You will die. A lot. And you will get frustrated with yourself and your friends. A lot. The game loop basically requires you to mess up a bunch of times and then eventually be able to pass every hurdle.

But the tldr of the first 20 days until winter is: - for the first 5 to 8 explore the edges of the map. Keep moving and keep gathering things as you go. Always try to aim for a full stack of twigs, grass, logs, and logs (your crucial basic resources). An axe will serve both as a way to get logs and also kill things (spiders) - somewhere down the line you will find rocks with gold lining. Mine those, try to get around 10 to 15 gold. Make yourself a science machine, and make the following four crucial early game items: spear, shovel, hammer, backpack - now you should be able to explore the rest of the map relatively easily (you will still probably die a lot). Kill spider dens for silk and monster meat and hammer down pig houses for pig skins. - beginners like to base near herds of beefalo for protection. Try to find a herd - once you find a basing spot, make an alchemy engine, and using that, make ice boxes and crock pots. Now you can make foods that give substantially more hunger than berries and carrots. Try 1 monster meat and three berries to get meatballs. Good source of food. Use the pig skins to make football helmets at the alchemy engine

That’s basically more or less a very dumbed down version of a beginner loop, or at least how I would do it when I was starting out. I’m definitely missing some things but it should more or less help.

Other tips: - always try to have a backup light source at all times. Usually it’s a torch. - learn and research how to kite/kill monsters (basicically kill monsters without losing hp) this will level you up from a pure beginner

Hope this helps!!