I've cleared the challenge mode with all characters surviving, and I believe I now have enough experience to share with everyone. This is simpler than it seems—as long as you think clearly and are patient enough, keeping everyone alive shouldn’t be considered a miracle.

Before diving into the details, we need to establish a general direction: What is the most important resource in this game? Actually, I can conclude:
Time > Stamina > Space > Others

Time is always the scarcest resource, especially in the first two weeks. It essentially determines your success or failure for the entire year. You must prepare for the late game while food pressure is still low, because later on, almost all your time will be spent on farming, with little left for mining or chopping wood. If you don’t expand production scale in time, you’ll fall into a vicious cycle where food is never enough, leading to failure.

Therefore, regardless of the specifics, always remind yourself that time is more valuable than anything else. If possible, trade other resources for time.



Now, let’s get into the details.

Starting with character creation, it’s certain that the Bear is the worst choice. Bears gain no extra stamina benefits. If you’re challenging higher difficulties, it’s best not to choose Bear. Rabbit, Fox, or Deer are all viable. Their secondary skills aren’t crucial; what matters is making good use of the extra stamina they gain from food. To discuss in detail, Fox and Deer are better. Fox is good because meat restores more stamina, taking up less space. Deer is good because it saves a lot of stamina and time when harvesting hay—almost all stamina in the late game will be spent on harvesting hay.

For skills, the initial skill should undoubtedly be +20% movement speed. After entering the game, the first skills to unlock are +20 Stamina and Weeds Yield Seeds (Tier 1 skills). Stamina is self-explanatory. The number of seeds is key to determining the upper limit of plant-based food. Later, even if you buy all the seeds from the store every week, it’ll only barely be enough. The extra seeds from weeds are very important, and the earlier you start collecting them, the better.

Next, among Tier 2 skills, choose the one that highlights forage. This is situational, but trust me—the number of forage you miss because you didn’t see them is higher than you think.

Aside from these, you don’t need to spend more skill points on Tier 1 and 2 skills.

In Tier 3 skills, prioritize Efficient Crafter, Angle and Mole. The reason for these is the same: early game demand for fishing and mining is high, but later, you won’t need to do either. The mining skill might seem less rewarding, but note that it applies not only to ores but also to regular stones. In the early game, the demand for ores, coal, and regular stones is very high.

After unlocking these, you can choose other Tier 3 skills based on preference. I recommend Seed Saver and Butcher—they’re more useful compared to other Tier 3 skills.



Once in the game, every minute from day one until the second week is precious because you don’t need to collect food during this time.

On day one, quickly find all the villagers. If you can’t, check the map. The decoration gifts villagers give, such as beds, tables, and wallpaper, should be sold immediately—they’re an important source of initial funds.

For the first week, quickly run through the entire map daily, collecting everything you see and fishing as much as possible. Then, donate everything you can to the museum as soon as possible. Plant all your seeds, use available food to replenish stamina, bring enough food, leave enough inventory space, and go mining.

The goal is to upgrade to a copper pickaxe in the first week and ensure all seeds are covered by copper sprinklers.

In the mines, there are several things to note:

• Mine as much coal as possible.
  
• Wooden crates can be broken down into planks—this is very important. Each mining trip should bring back at least ten planks.
  
• Bring back all quartz (for crafting fish traps), but sell all other gems, including topaz. This is the most important source of income.

Mining is something you should do as much as possible every day in spring for two reasons:

Sprinklers, fish traps, barrels, tool upgrades, building construction, and community projects all require large amounts of metal. The sooner you finish these, the more time you save and the faster you can expand your farm.

You need to unlock barrels early to start preparing for winter from summer, storing excess food. Museum donations for fish and crops can’t be completed early, but minerals can.



Back on the farm, let’s talk about what’s needed:

The size of your fields depends on how many sprinklers you can make. Use every sprinkler you craft immediately.

Except for the first two weeks, every Saturday and Sunday, buy all seeds, oil, and vinegar from the three stores. The oil and vinegar from mines alone are far from enough.

Once iron sprinklers are unlocked, upgrade your copper sprinklers. The goal is 400 tiles of farmland, ideally achieved by summer.

Fertilizer is very important. Even if you can’t fertilize all crops, at least fertilize all repeat-harvest crops. You’ll need about six compost bins, using feces and weeds for compost.

Fish traps are the most important source of meat. Place each one as soon as you craft it—aim for at least twenty. With enough fish traps, you’ll never need to fish actively again.

For coops and barns, fully upgrade them by spring. When building, you can have them share the same fenced area filled with hay. Before processing harvested crops each day, go out to find critters so you have their preferred items on hand. Use regular feed for coops and high-quality feed for barns, as animals grow slowly.

For feed, you’ll need a lot of hay. If you’re not playing as Deer, I recommend reserving at least 200 tiles for hay, and don’t slack—harvest grass daily. In the early game, you can even buy hay seeds to plant.

For food preservation, I suggest crafting 20–30 dry racks. Two smoking huts are enough—use them for processing meat on rainy days and smoking cheese later. Use twigs as fuel for smoking; if not available, use hardwood, but never coal. Prioritize drying crops and fish daily; use barrels for any surplus. Donate dried food to the basement directly, and store barrel-preserved food for winter.

If everything goes well, you’ll have a food surplus every week before autumn. By autumn, you’ll start consuming stored food.


Now, about community projects:

• The first project doesn’t matter much; choose freely.
  
• For the second, choose Clean Water Pollution. Since your fish come from traps, not fishing, cleaning the water prevents diseased fish from wasting meat and fish ponds from wasting time.
  
• For the third, choose Taming over hunting—it’s a long-term benefit. We don’t need temporary meat.
  
• For the fourth, for same reason, choose Eliminate Crows Completely.

If you’re short on money even after selling gems and topaz, sell expired seeds, furniture made from weeds, and furniture from the lost and found. Also, make good use of the blacksmith—buy commonly used metal bars from the store weekly.

Villager quests generally don’t need to be done, but it’s okay if you do them. Usually, there’s no time to chat with villagers, at least not in the early game.

In summary, the main goal is to expand the farm scale as quickly as possible, ideally completing all preparations by summer. Autumn and winter are basically downtime—just managing food will take up the entire day. Keep going like this until the end, and you should have around 100 days’ worth of food left. Good luck!