Tips and tricks for PEAK
I'm no guidebook, but from my personal experiences and playthroughs of the game, there are a few things I can recommend and say. Some of the information I have could be wrong but it's what I've seen while I've been playing.
What to do on any run:
- Round up some friends and play the game at least ONCE with the in-game voice chat - it adds to the experience 100%.
- Because the map changes daily, try to avoid playing repeated sessions the same day. Take breaks and enjoy the game!
- Don't always expect to reach the PEAK. I play a lot and I don't always reach the top but I still have fun with the attempt.
- Always try things out - it will either be good or bad, but you need to experiment with it. This applies to food, using equipment and manoeuvring around the map.
- If you have some equipment, use it where you can. If you hold onto your items and avoid using them, you'll only be able to do standard climbing.
- Don't overcommit to a route - if you can't do it, don't waste your extra stamina. If the route looks like it would open more ground, consider using some equipment.
- Just to be unhelpful, don't undercommit to a route either. You might just need to approach it from another side, or from an angle that you can't quite see properly.
- When someone dies, their ghost can help you see platforms that you might not be able to. Communciate and use this information to your advantage. You won't get an item from the ancient statue at the next checkpoint, but it can be helpful if you are particulary struggling to climb.
Once again, there are some spoilers below so if you have not played the game and do not wish to be spoiled: pause here.
General tips:
- When cooking coconuts, cook the whole coconut. You can't eat it when it's whole but it cooks both halves when you eventually crack it open.
- Cook any food you find where possible because it gives you additional stamina. Cooking a poisonous mushroom does NOT remove its poison. Also be careful when drinking a cooked energy drink.
- Cooked lollipops and energy drinks do not give you the drowsy status after it wears off. It just depends if you have a campfire or portable stove.
- When combined, a lollipop and energy drink together are perfect for scaling a wall quickly. If you repeatedly grab the wall, you can scale the wall pretty quickly.
- Struggling with Ascent 7? Wait for ALPINE to be in rotation. The heat packs help so much with the cold night and blizzards. Once you reach the CALDERA, you don't have to carry a heat source anymore.
SHORE: ●○○○○
- Climb the palm trees, find coconuts and cook them on the fire. A cooked coconut half gives a little bit of additional stamina which is helpful for climbing. When you get to Ascent 5 onwards, I would rely on getting stamina from luggage as you pass it as the cold really does bite.
- Bridges collapse if more than one player crosses them at once. They can be very useful platforms for scaling the SHORE, just be sure to communicate with friends when crossing them.
- A yellow crispberry will give additional stamina upon eating them. I tend to eat these immediately if my extra bar isn't full. It's always good to keep your extra stamina bar as full as possible.
Relatively easy, but do not underestimate.
TROPICS: ●●●○○
- Don't try and climb while it's raining. If you look at a wall, if it has a shimmering texture moving down on it, it means that you will climb slower on the wall. If it doesn't have this texture over it, you can safely climb it during the rain with no effect on your stamina.
- You can climb up a tree using its leaves as a 'wall'. Sometimes, the arrangement of these trees allows you to scale up them to get to a higher ledge. If you're going for the Arborist Badge, this trick is very helpful.
- If you find yourself falling from a height, grab a vine if there is one close enough to you. This will negate all fall damage if you grab it. You may still receive a small amount of damage if you slide into a wall from the vine.
- The explosive bombshrooms have a larger range of detection than the poison bombshrooms. If a route is dense with the explosve bombshrooms, take more caution when traversing the area.
- If you are willing to sacrifice an item, or you have something you don't need anymore, you can always throw this item at an explosive bombshroom from a distance to remove it without touching it.
- Being poisoned randomly? Look down, you might have a tick attached to you. You don't need someone to pick it off you, you can get it yourself.
- Collect purple kingberries if you can. These give you a large amount of bonus stamina.
Can be difficult, but remain vigilant.
ROOTS: ●●●●○
- I'd advise to take the floor path rather than the canopy. The strong wind can often send you hurtling below if you aren't careful.
- Look up every now and then to make sure you aren't going to be climbing close to a spider.
- Bouncing on the mushrooms restore part of your stamina. Use that to recharge your stamina and then climb a wall at the top of your bounce.
- You can also throw an item at an spore bombshroom from a distance to remove it without touching it.
- The beetles are pretty harmless as all they do is ragdoll you, but they shouldn't be underestimated because they can throw you off a cliff quite easily. Avoid them if you can.
- Shroomberries, specifically the red and yellow type, can give a positive effect to the player. You will receieve a small amount of spores but these go away through time.
- Be cautious when picking up medicinal roots. It might be an angry one.
- Zombies spawn randomly here and activate when you get to close to them. I have no recommendations for them and haven't found a reliable method to avoid them properly.
Avoid the spores isn't helpful, but it's advice!
ALPINE: ●●●○○
- If you want to avoid the blizzard, there is the interior cave but this tends to be more vertical than the outside. If you have a few heat packs, climbing around the outside tends to work a little better.
- Stick close to walls to avoid the frequent blizzards. Huddling with other scouts is supposed to reduce the rate of the blizzard but it's much easier to hide in a safe spot.
- Place important items in a backpack so that you won't drop them if you fall unconcious from the cold status.
- Geysers tend to fire when you pass close to them. If there is one near the wall you are wanting to climb, I would suggest finding a slightly different route and see if you can get around it.
- Use already placed pitons here sparingly. They will break after holding onto them for a few seconds. Use them if you need to recharge slightly but don't rely on them for getting friends across a gap.
- This biome has the hot spring where you can find at least one yellow winterberry here. Yellow winterberries give a large amount of bonus stamina.
- Once you reach a certain height, the blizzards stop and the cold no longer affects you. Unless you're playing on Ascent 5 and higher, you need to light the campfire to make it stop.
The cold never bothered you anyway.
MESA: ●●●●○
- Move from shade to shade in the plateau. It's better to stick close to walls to avoid the tumbleweed and tornadoes.
- The canyon can be tricky if you don't have a chain cannon. Depending on the generation, you may be able to cross it with a run and jump.
- If you want to survive the sun, it's better to climb on the inside. However, make sure you can still see the outside if you can. It will make it easier to exit the interior when you are nearing the top. There's a small chance that you can climb all the way from the inside, but don't rely on that.
- Got thorns stuck to you? If you grab a wall, you can use the camera to find some of the thorns stuck to you and pull them off yourself.
- You can apply sunscreen to yourself. You use the item and walk quickly into the mist. You'll know you have the sunscreen if the corners of your screen have a white translucent border.
- Use pickaxes here sparingly. They will break after holding onto them for a few seconds. Use them if you need to recharge slightly but don't rely on them for getting friends across a gap.
- Use the dynamite to your advantage. It can cook food and kill scorpions for you to eat.
- Avoid mineshafts unless you know what you're doing.
- If you have a free inventory slot, you can pick up a cactus ball while climbing a wall. If you click on that slot, you will be forced to holding it and will need to throw it to free your hands.
- Sometimes the luggage can be a mirage here. If you use ping where the luggage is from a distance, and your ping goes further into the ground: it's a mirage.
- This biome has the oasis where you can find at least one yellow winterberry here. You may need to verify it exists because the oasis can be a mirage here.
- Once you reach a certain height, the sun will stop affecting you.
A sudden spike in difficulty.
CALDERA: ●●○○○
- Avoid climbing higher than you need to.
- If you have any cooked fortified milk, you can use it to cross a large patch of molten rock. Don't swim in the lava as you will move a bit slower. You can do short distances without the milk, however don't play around with the heat status and give yourself plenty of time between the next climbs.
- If you want the Mentorship Badge, climb as high as you can and play the Scoutmaster's Bugle. Eventually, the static should fade and you'll receive the badge. (I could be wrong about this but it worked for me!)
If you time your climbing well: it's a breeze.
THE KILN: ●●●●●
- Focus on vertical movement. Moving horizontally should be used to manoeuvre around for better opportunities for vertical movement.
- Having a chain cannon can help you switch to the opposite side if the walls on your side are not in your favour.
- If you've been getting the items from the ancient statues, the anti-rope and anti-rope cannon are excellent choices no matter where they are used here. Judge if you can climb a wall without it carefully because they are extremely useful and shouldn't be wasted.
- If you are not playing on Tenderfoot, the lava will rise after a few minutes. It doesn't rise that fast, so don't panic, but it slowly speeds up so keep moving where you can.
- If you are on Ascent 4 or higher, there aren't flares at the top of the PEAK and you will have needed to bring one with you. There is a very small percentage chance of one spawning in the luggage.
- There is no ancient statue after this climb. If you have a scout effigy, use that for a fallen friend when you reach a safe spot at the top.
Don't panic, think carefully, and try your best.
Stupid things you can do:
- Get out of bounds in the lobby area.
- Play dead on the escalator and mash the jump button.
- Incinerate the bugle and annoy your friends.
- Attach six balloons to a friend without explaining to them.
- Place a scout cannon, put a backpack inside it, light the fuse, hop in and play dead. You can't use this to reach the top anymore, because you need to light each campfire to unlock the next part. But you might hear the music from THE KILN briefly before you plummet.
- Throw a coconut at a friend while they're climbing. This also works on the spiders and zombies! Not the beetles though, don't try that.
- Throw a Cure All at the ground.
- Shoot a blowdart at a friend.
- Try climbing the outside of THE KILN after the CALDERA.
- Do a backflip into THE KILN. (I'm surprised this is not an achievement.)
- Fire yourself off the PEAK with the scout cannon. (Just remember to light the flare before you do!)
