A Township Tale: How To Play Solo

A Video version of this article can be found on the Reality Remake Youtube Channel.

A Township Tale, which recently released on the Oculus Quest, is meant to be a Mulitplayer RPG experience. The Developers say that it is meant to be played that way. The mechanics clearly show that a lot of hands are meant to work together to achieve the goals of a burgeoning town in a fantasy wilderness. Crafting items, cooking food, collecting resources, fighting monsters, all of these things are meant to be specialized roles that players can excel at. In the end it seems that the goal of the mechanics of A Township Tale is to create a specialized labor economy of sorts. A fun specialized labor economy, but specialized none the less. The experience system also lends itself to that. Do one thing more, get more perks and abilities that help to do that one thing.

What if that’s not your bag? What if you don’t like to play with others, or don’t know anyone you would like to play the game with, or would find the experience of exploring and building a town more relaxing on your own? Is A Township Tale simply not for you? If you’d like to find others to play the game with, just join a server, or look on the Reddit page. There are loads of people willing to teach you the game and have a fun time in it. For those who prefer solo play, we will answer those questions here, and possibly show you a path forward to a, if not bustling, at least well constructed Township.

Note that this article is for the Oculus Quest version of the game, which does not currently have the same features as the PCVR version.

The Learning Curve

As we have already covered here at Reality Remake, A Township Tale has horrible tutorials. A lot of what you need to know will be covered here, but if you ever get stuck on how to do anything and just can’t figure it out, do yourself a favor and watch a youtube video about it, or read the wiki. These resources are invaluable for figuring out the crafting professions. Gathering and fighting are much more intuitive, and relatable to other VR games.

If you would rather leave some mystery in the world, then we won’t spoil too much here.

A New World

So you spawn into your new world, wide eyed and bushy tailed. Ah the possibilities, the adventures in store for you. Nothing but you, the open world, an an experience to enjoy. There are sticks, stones, and pieces of flint littered about. All of the resources for basic tools are abundant. There are even pots and crates around, which you can smash open for more limited resources. It’s a great time to wander about and get your bearings. Oh, and watch out for the birds.

Soon enough you’ll have wandered through all of the buildings of your Township. You may even come across the mines, or blocked passages and unbuilt bridges. There seems to be so much to do, but where to start? Well, as much as you might dream of wandering into untamed wilderness right off the bat, there are things to be done first to acquire the proper tools in order to do so without death or worse, a serious lack of inventory slots to hold that sweet, sweet treasure.

Keep an eye out for any treasure chests you find, and visit them often. They can spawn useful items that you can’t make yourself yet. More importantly they also spawn book pages and metal molds to expand your crafting and gathering capabilities.

VR Survival, but still Survival

Early on in survival games there are two things which always limit a player and either make work much slower, or make areas harder or impossible to explore. Those two things are equipment and inventory slots. The grass backpack you begin with can hold six items, and your belt can hold 4 for a measly total of 10. If you’ve broken any of those pots while exploring your Township you will already feel the pain of leaving useful items scattered around, and needing to run back and forth to store them all. Without a team of other players, quickly cutting down on running around storing things is a top priority. Luckily one of the few recipes you begin with is to create a leather backpack, which holds 9 slots instead of 6.

Priority #1: Stay Fed

First things first though. You have a hunger bar and you need to eat. Time to rustle up some food. You might remember those birds from earlier. Well get your favorite rusty tool or rock on a stick and get to bashing.

The birds will drop meat, an easy way to get nutrients and a full belly. No need for cauldrons or pots, just toss those pieces of meat near an open flame until they smoke and eventually turn brown. Carry them with you, and eat anywhere on the go. Of course that will take an inventory slot, but now it’s time to lessen that particular problem.

Priority #2: A Better Backpack

While you’re walking around town, smashing pots and crates, there are a bevy of useful items that you cannot attain in any other way which you will find. The three you will need most of all to start with are metal buckles, leather straps, and the differently colored rolls of leather.

You will need at a minimum 2 leather rolls, 7 leather straps, and 11 metal buckles. Bring as many of these as you can find before you begin, especially the straps and buckles. You will probably break some of them. If you thought making the grass and sticks backpack in the tutorial was hard, then making this new backpack brings a whole new challenge. That is, not breaking pieces off of it when you are hammering in nails.

Hammering in nails is an art and a science. You must hit them directly. Not too hard, not too soft. Too hard and you damage the new piece that you are nailing in. Too soft and your blow will have no effect. If you make too many mistakes before hammering in a single nail you can always remove and re-add the piece to bring it up to full health. If you hammer in a single nail then you have to either hammer them all in successfully, wait for the piece to pop off by itself, or keep going until you either succeed or break it. Some of these pieces require a lot of nails, so being careful and precise is key. If you tend to hit too hard, use a rock on a stick. If you tend to hit too soft, then one of the many rusty hammers lying around may be easier. There should be plenty of the required pieces around town to make a single backpack.

You will want to save your old backpack in case you perish somewhere (for instance, deep in the mines) with your brand new one. Be careful just leaving it laying around as it may disappear.

With that done, what to do next? Well we’ll tell you.

Gating by Labor

A Township Tale gates off new areas not by requiring a certain item to progress, ala the Zelda series, or purely by placing enemies in your way which are difficult to progress past without better equipment. No, A Township Tale prevents your access to new areas via Labor. To build a bridge to a new zone you will need to add the materials necessary in order to build it. You will need a lot of these materials. Without anybody else to rely on to assist in getting them you will want to collect them as efficiently as possible. A piece of flint attached to a stick will work, but it will be slow. So naturally you will want to acquire better tools as quickly as possible, and the ability to make more when they break.

Priority #3: Better Tools

There are two buildings in the town that you cannot access right from the start. The Woodcutter’s hut and the Blacksmith. The Blacksmith is needed to make metal tools, though metal ore is freely available. Unfortunately, a whopping amount of wood is needed to build the stairs that lead to the Blacksmith.

So alright, just need to go cut down some trees and off we are to the world of advanced tools. Well no, there are only decorative trees in the town. The trees that can be chopped down in order to get such a large supply of wood are gated behind another labor wall. The first one you likely came across actually, a bridge to the forest near the starting spawn.

So it’s time to do some mining, and not for the stones you’ve been pulling out of the ground. You need white stones, also called sandstone, which are only found by mining nodes and occasionally some small amount in chests. Luckily you won’t need to do it all with a piece of flint on a stick. A fresh server will include a pick axe head and handle right next to the chest in front of the entrance to the mines. Just combine them and you’ve got the perfect tool to quickly acquire the white stone needed to build that bridge. You can also get some Copper and Coal while you’re at it. Saving any grey stones you find is also a good idea, as you will need a wagonload of those later on.

A good deal of all of these can be found without even entering the mine, just around the entrance. It is easier to break open a bunch of rocks at once, and then bend over and pick up all of the stones and ores in one swoop. If you thoroughly explore the entire overworld you can find all of the white stone needed to build the bridge, just barely. Otherwise you will need to stop down into the Mines. If you’d like to shake things up with a little adventure and danger, then definitely go into the Mines.

The Mines

The mines are very, very dark. Your torches will go out, and if you don’t like to put your torch on the ground while you’re swinging your pick, you can put a piece of dry grass on top of a flint on a stick and have light and mining capability in a single tool. Slow mining capability, but still. Since the way down is long and you may need a quick escape, you may want to bring one of the purple teleport potions if you’ve found one in your earlier exploration.

There is also a chest just inside the entrance, and as with all chests it is best to check it periodically for new items and recipes. If you want those sweet ores and white stones though, you’ll need to go down an ominous staircase to the first level of the mines.

The darkness swallows you in the depths. Sound echoes off of the walls. You will hear scraping coming from further within. Unless you’re really ready for a fight then don’t go too deep. The Rock Monsters hit like trucks and can take a beating. Gather the white stones first and foremost, and try to leave with your skin intact. There are also some chests and crates to be looted as well. If you have the stomach to go deeper, that is.

Off to be a Woodsman

When you have collected the white stones necessary to build the bridge, then congratulations. You’ve passed your first labor gate. It will get easier. Just put the rocks in the chest and watch as magic assembles your way forward.

Further in you will find the Woodcutter’s Hut, and a bevy of rusted tools laying about. Don’t bother with them. A proper axe is tucked into a log down the path. As with the pickaxe earlier this will make gathering a lot faster. You can see that some trees have different bark, and tend to stand up a little straighter than the decorative trees you’ve seen thus far. These can be chopped down just like the ones in the tutorial. Also make sure to bring a shield, as big a shield as you have found. Some of the trees will fight back.

The first big area containing a lot of harvestable trees will also have a large amount of these enemies. The first couple of trees can be harvested without attracting their attention, but the quickest way to get the lumber needed to access the Blacksmith is to take them out. Hope you brought your shield, because they like to shoot spores at you. Hold your shield up to block the spores, and whack them with your axe. Also, being made of wood, they will drop wood as well, along with some strange spores. Might as well take all of them. With the creatures gone and a few large trees chopped into wedges, you should have more than enough to build the staircase to the Blacksmith.

Congratulations once more! You’ve cleared the second labor gate and can now access every crafting building in the town. A world of new tools and weapons awaits you.

More to Come

Reality Remake isn’t done with A Township Tale yet. For the followup to this article we have another guide on How to Make Metal Weapons and Tools Solo as well. Now that you’ve gone through all of this effort to gain access to the Blacksmith, it’s time to make use of it.

Anyone who wants to follow this guide, but hasn’t played yet, can buy A Township Tale on Oculus Quest for 9.99 or play for free on PCVR.