Food and Long Sticks in the early game

[Onikage]

I'm struggling a bit here and maybe its because I'm trying to follow the tutorials that keep popping up. Is there some source of Long Sticks that I'm missing? I find a few on the ground here and there and if I cut down a Large Tree I usually get 1-2 more. I know you can turn Pine Branches into regular sticks.
Also the starting food is good for a day and a half but my Rabbit Snares aren't doing much (really unclear how I'm supposed to chase them into it when they run in random directions)
I usually kill a few coyotes but I can't seem to cook the Blight out of the meat. The wood says its 500 Degrees but the cooking says its 100 degrees? Do I need to cook it in something other than the campfire or do I need to use a different bowl?
Lastly, regarding the tutorial I'm not sure how much I should really be building. It seems like a lot of setup when I'm sure in a few days the Blight is going to come through and make my base unusable.

[Onikage]

Also, what items am I supposed to use as a "Crucible"? I panned and got my copper/tin pieces and I got the furnace built but I couldn't find anything that would place in the crucible slot. I thought it might be asking for a mold but that wouldn't work either.

[AlphabetHunter]

1. Long Sticks are plenty in forest areas, and they usually spawn on the ground near Large Trees (hence the reason you can find many of it in forests). You can also get a few more long sticks when you chop down a large tree.
2. Rabbit Snares will randomly trap a rabbit after a day or so if they are far enough away from your camp. Alternatively, you can hunt rabbits down with throwing spears (you just need a long stick to craft into a throwing spear with your knife).
3. Yes, blight in coyotes and wolfs is very high, to the point that their meat is unusable unless you already have access to blight healing (honestly, I played the game quite a bit and I couldn't figure out how to make blight healing soup...).
4. You can make a crucible mold out of soft clay and then harden it in a Kiln, after that, you can place it inside the smelter.

[nab]

I also had some issues surviving in the couple of games I played.
It's not obvious at the start, but the initial choice of where you build your camp can help a lot:
- there are more fungi, short and long sticks in the woods.
- collecting wood is way easier with huge trees just by my camp.
- plants, dogbane grow more in plains
- you need to have access to water.
- not sure about this, but I think rabbits seem to prefer running around in plains.
Weighting those factors in the choice of camp location can make your life way easier, which is logical once you know a bit of the mechanics of the game.

I don't know if there are better strategies, like spreading the camp over several locations. Or if it's possible to move camp at some point when an area is depleted.

Originally posted by AlphabetHunter:

3. Yes, blight in coyotes and wolfs is very high, to the point that their meat is unusable unless you already have access to blight healing (honestly, I played the game quite a bit and I couldn't figure out how to make blight healing soup...).

There is a hint about the blight healing soup in the last stream of developer play, in his conversation with the cloaked figure. But I don't know if it's already implemented in the demo and I don't want to spoil. I'll have to try it in my next play. For now, that's one of my hurdles, I end up accumulating blight by eating meat.

And I ended up in a death loop by trying to eat various mushrooms to see if some had a hidden effect. (eat mushroom, autosave kicks in, die, last save reloads just after eating the mushroom).

I had to play and restart several time to learn the mechanics, so that it gets easier to survive, I think just following the tutorial without knowing a lot of the basic survival skills makes the game pretty hard. Once you know the tricks, some food recipes and all, it gets easier.
In one way, that's what I like about games, discovering the mechanics and getting better at it. In other ways, it's pretty frustrating (and takes a long time when you don't have a lot of gaming time available) to have to restart from scratch multiple time to survive longer.