Beginner tips

Tips to help you survive, thrive and reproduce!

Intro

Updated 21.05.24

So you’ve created an adorable character and they’ve been left clueless on a plot of land. Here are a few tips and some general information to help you get started!

This guide has gradually ballooned as I kept discovering new things about the game and seeing the most frequent questions people asked. Feel free to skip down to the topics that most interest you, or 'What to Aim for in Year 1' down at the bottom of the guide if you want a shorter list of tips to get started.

For more details on many of the topics below, check the Wiki [echoesoftheplumgrove.wiki.gg]

Basics

You can find several useful things on the Family tab of the menu, on the left underneath your character portrait:

• Turn your lantern on and off (the mini button next to it refills it with oil if you have some)
  
• View your collections (fish, recipes etc.)
  
• See what level your various skills are
  
• Attach lures to your fishing rod
  
• Check the calendar

Little tutorials will pop up as you start doing things, but there are also some helpful tutorial pages in the menu, on the rightmost tab.

If you need to use something on your toolbar that isn't a tool, hit the spacebar. Space is how you refill your watering can, eat food, and read recipes/blueprints.

Don’t want to worry about food, sleeping or diseases? Turn those options off in the menu. I’d suggest trying with them on though, as it makes the game unique and fun.

Things you can interact with have a darker outline. If you don’t get anything from shaking a tree/bush, it might not be in season.

Trees!

Always shake trees twice as you go past them in the world. Not only is the wood needed for building things, it can also make you a reasonable amount of money – each piece is worth 10 gold, so a stack of 50 is worth 500. Selling excess wood can help you buy seeds or tools in the first few days.

Food

Easy early recipes to start grinding up your cooking skill:

• Survival salad: 3 x plantains and 1 violet (foraged)
  
• Cabbage stew: Cabbage, potato, pea
  
• Turnip soup: turnip, onion, bread
  
• Bread: Flour, egg (make a flour maker, buy eggs cheap from the animal farmer)
  
• Journey cake: Flour, milk (same for milk)

The best way to cheaply feed yourself (indefinitely) is to put fruit/vegetables/fish onto a drying rack or in a preservative jar. This produces an item that will refill 10-20 hunger and last for a long time in your inventory. And all you need are the fruits you can forage off bushes, some crops from your garden, or some spare cheap fish. If you have 3 of any combination of drying racks and preservative jars, this will more than fulfill your hunger needs and give you leftovers to sell.

Tea and coffee give you a walking speed buff, which I find one of the most useful buffs in the game.

Farming

You can buy seeds from the farmers working in the fields in the area to the left of your farm. NPCs in the top right and bottom left fields have different stocks from each other, and change their stock each day, so check back if you are looking for different seeds. You can also get a lot of starting seeds by doing the Mayor’s quest to meet people.

When you harvest them, crops are likely to spawn more seeds of that type.

You have to water each plant or tree individually – if you miss a day, the plant will go brown, but will still be alive. If you miss another day, it will die. If you place seeds but don’t water them, they will disappear at midnight.

Fertiliser, obtained from putting rot in the compost bin, can help improve the quality of your crops. It does not make them grow faster.

Items gradually turn from gold to silver to bronze quality, and then they rot. Eat/sell your bronze quality food first.

The dead bushes on your farm are cleared using the hoe.

Farm helpers

If using your family as farm helpers, ensure you've built and placed the helper chest and put tools in it they will need. You have to provide them with filled watering cans in order to water, and they will not refill them themselves - having higher grade watering cans will help. The steel watering can does not need refilling.

Once you select farm helper in your spouse/child's drop down menu (found in the Family tab), you may want to untick every option except for watering underneath to ensure it gets done and they don't wander off to pick weeds.

Helpers, especially children, only have a certain number of working hours in a day, so check to see all your crops got watered in that time. 9-5 adults, 9-3 children.

Farm helpers have a rest day on Sunday and some festival days, so you will need to water yourself. If your farm is too big for this to be practical, you could let the crops dry out for the day, as long as you can guarantee they will get watered the next day.

Livestock

If you have any two of the same species, there is a chance for them to reproduce, which can get you free livestock!

Pigs now produce waste that you can use in the composter, which can be useful if you have item degradation turned off.

Double click on an animal to change its name. You can also see it's star rating in the top right of this info page.

You need to have enough straw to feed your animals through the winter. You can cut the grass on your farm and plant hay seeds to make more. Some farmers and the animal farmers will also sell straw, though in limited amounts in the winter when you need it most. If you realise you cannot sustain your current population until the end of winter, it is better to butcher/sell some of them so that you can keep your favourites alive.

Making Friends

Talk to everyone! You can talk to people 2 times per day (until their talk button is greyed out). Once people are friends with you, they will send you presents in the post – sometimes very expensive, helpful ones.

If you see a question mark above someone’s head, it might be that they are offering a quest, but they could also want to give you a gift, so it’s worth clicking on them.

Insulting people annoys them for that day, but if you were friends it will only put a minor dent in your relationship. You can safely do the quest to insult people without losing too much ground. Indeed, insulting other people makes some villagers like you, if they have the cruel trait!

Giving gifts can end up losing you friendship points, as people can be very picky about what they like. They will frequently tell you a favourite item one of the first times you talk to them, but otherwise cooked dishes seem to always get a good response.

Quests

You are frequently offered quests that you cannot complete yet – they may require out of season items, recipes or equipment you don’t have, or things you would have to buy that wouldn’t be worth the reward. Don’t worry about not taking or finishing a quest if it ends up too hard. you don't lose anything.

Prioritise quests that give blueprint or recipe rewards. Once you have a comfortable amount of money, take these quests even if you cannot produce the items needed but know you can buy them – it’s worth it to get blueprints.

When you have the items you need for a quest, that person’s icon will show up on your map. If they are unavailable due to sickness or another reason, an icon may appear on the quest page that lets you submit the items by mail, the same way you can for your taxes.

Tools and Materials

Tools made of hardier materials give increased durability, but no special abilities. In the case of the watering can, more expensive cans give higher water capacity but do not let you water more squares at once. Move to the next level up when you feel it’s worth it, and otherwise give your tools to the blacksmith for repair just before they break - you'll find them returned in your mail box the next morning.

Steel tools appear rarely at the blacksmith, and are also sold by ship captains at the docks at the weekend. These never break or run out of water.

Trees and stones you clear from your farm do not currently grow back. You will have to use alternate sources of these materials once you’ve cleaned up your farm.

Wood can be gained from shaking trees in town, stone from the mine, straw from growing hay. Villagers will also sell these items, so it’s worth checking with the carpenter and farmers if they have some in stock if you need a boost.

Crafting

Sometimes you need to put several of an item into a crafter for it to work – ie. 3 wheat in the flour mill to get flour, 3 iron ore into the smelter to get an iron bar.

Many items you can craft, such as scarecrows, the herb garden and the flower garden, are entirely decorative. They look very cool, but you don't need to rush a scarecrow to protect your crops.

Don’t think that you have to craft everything! You are given a crafting station, and might therefore assume you will need to do a lot of crafting to obtain all the items you need – the way you do in other farming games. But one thing Echoes does really well is emphasize that your starting character is a farmer. You do not have the skills or the equipment to make your own iron nails at the beginning. You first need to unlock the anvil (crafting skill 6 or a quest) and a smelter. That will take a while. So embrace the game. Be a farmer. Go to the blacksmith and buy your nails. At the start it might seem like a lot of money, but you’ll soon have plenty of that, and you’re not in a hurry. Build up your crafting empire gradually – your child can always do what you didn’t get around to.

The Carpenter

The first house upgrade includes a cellar, which essentially contains a free mini fridge, with 8 storage spaces where items won't rot. This is almost as many as the small ice box gives you. The second house upgrade cellar has 24 slots.

To upgrade your house you’ll need paint, which you can buy from the ship captain at the docks at the weekends.

Ensure that the entire area you want to place your coop/barn/house in is clear before you visit the carpenter, otherwise you’ll end up doing several trips back and forth.

Your house will have a larger footprint every time you upgrade, so be careful where you plant trees. The coop and barn stay the same size externally.

When you upgrade your house, furniture may get moved around or placed into a chest. The chest will be temporarily expanded if there wouldn't have been enough space in it.

Build requirements:

Building	Coin	Wood	Stone	Nails	Straw	Iron Bar	Copper Bar
Chicken Coop	999	80	30	15	20	4	0
Large Chicken Coop	2100	160	59	30	40	4	3

Building	Coin	Wood	Stone	Nails	Straw	Iron Bar	Glass	Brick	Steel Bar
Barn	1200	100	40	25	20	7	4	0	0
Large Barn	2700	200	57	30	40	0	4	10	2

Building	Coin	Wood	Stone	Nails	Iron Bar	Glass	Paint	Brick	Steel Bar
Saltbox Home	1699	122	40	30	5	8	5	0	0
Atlantic Home	4999	300	57	50	0	20	10	35	3

Building footprint:

Building	Width	Depth
Starter Home	5	5
Saltbox Home	6	5
Atlantic Home	9	6
Coop	3	4
Barn	5	7

Disease and Death

Once you have a bit of money, ask the doctor for an inoculation. Smallpox can wipe out half the town, and you don’t want your character to be one of them.

It’s nice to gradually build up a stockpile of medicine, because if you get sick, the doctor might diagnose you but not have what you need in stock on the day.

If you see someone looking ill, don't talk to them. If you are sick, don't talk to people - you are the biggest potential vector of disease on the island.

If you were exposed to sick people, try using a bar of soap that day - soap protects you from getting or transmitting sickness on the day you use it. This can be particularly useful at weekends, when there are visitors that come bearing diseases.

If the village blacksmith/carpenter etc. dies, and there is no one to succeed them, someone new will arrive by boat in a few days to take over the position.

There are items in game that are labelled in a way suggesting they bring horrible death to people that consume them. It is possible to give these to people. If you want to.

Marriage

How to get married:

• Befriend a villager and give them the bunch of flowers bought from the lighthouse.
  
• Fulfill their quest to reach 50 friendship level with someone from their family.
  
• Select the day and place for a ‘date’ and make sure you buy a ring before you go to it.
  
• Once the time for the date has started, propose. The nicer the ring, the more chance they will say yes, but there is the possibility for them to refuse. You can always save right before the date if you want to and try again.

You don’t need to upgrade your house or bed to get married and have children.

While scouting for a spouse, the 2 unmarried people you have the highest friendship with will not randomly get married to other villagers. For everyone else, there's a chance at midnight that the game will couple them up.

Your spouse will live in your home, and you can track them on the map (enable on the family page). If you want all hours access to a carpenter, blacksmith or doctor, maybe choose to marry one!

Children

Once married, there is a 25% chance to trigger the option to have a baby each night if you go to sleep before midnight.

You can also adopt orphaned children with adoption papers, bought from the mayor. To do so, you’ll need to find a child with no parents (you can have a look on the village tab, or just talk to children). This normally only happens after a wave of disease. As long as you have space in your house, the option to adopt will appear in yellow at the top of the menu when you talk to them.

Children will go to school by default, but you can also talk to the head of a profession to get them an apprenticeship there if they have space. You can modify what any of your family spend their days doing in the drop down menu in the family tab of the menu.

What your children do affects what skills they have when they grow up. Kids that go to school start at approximately level 2 in all skills. Children that apprentice or help on the farm will be more specialised.

Consider having another child late in life. Children you had early will likely have been adults for quite a while by the time you die, and will therefore have a shorter remaining lifespan when you take them over. Elders can still get pregnant!

Family

You can have a total of three other family members in your household, eg. a spouse and two children; no spouse and three adopted children.

Once children grow up, there is an option to kick them out of your house (they will live in the village instead), at which point you could then have more until your house is at capacity again.

You can modify the clothing/hair of your whole family at the tailor if you choose the tailoring option, where each of them will have a separate tab.

You can change the outfits and dyes of children for free.

Lifespan

If playing with normal aging, your character will stay in the adult lifestage until the end of the first year, then become an elder. If you die of old age, it will normally be a day or two before the end of year 2 summer for your first character.

Lifespan	Pregnancy	Baby	Child	Adult	Elder
Normal	3 days	3 days	2 seasons	4 seasons	2 seasons
Short	3 days	1 day	1 season	2 seasons	1 season
Long	3 days	6 days	4 seasons	8 seasons	4 seasons

Events/Festivals

General: Try to get to events on time, especially the fishing, cooking and crafting contests, as this affects how long you have to compete.

Spring - Fishing contest: Catch as many fish as possible during the day. Start the event quest by clicking on the banner next to the mayor in the town square. Make sure you have multiple rods if they are likely to break. There is a great unique rod available as a prize if you win first place - it's really worth the effort.

Summer - Bake Off: You can use the middle oven in the tent to cook. Ingredients are found in the piles behind you. The judges on the left will ask for specific dishes - if you don't know a recipe, reject it for a new requested dish. Complete as many as possible in the time available. The more recipes you know, the less points you will lose by rejecting requests, but it is still possible to win in your first year when you don't know many.

Fall - Halloween: You will see children roaming around the town in costumes. When you talk to them, the option to give them a treat appears. You can prepare candy ahead of time using the candy maker, or you can also buy candy on the day from some npcs (I think the baker and innkeeper). This must be completed before 5pm. After 5pm, go through the gate in the woods behind the carpenter's house for a small gathering.

Fall - Harvest festival: There are two contests - a grange display and an animal contest. For the grange display you can place 9 of your best items to compete. Remember to prepare some in the days leading up to it and take them along! For the animal competition, enter your favourite animal - it is more likely to win if it is one you pet often and has a high star rating.

Winter - Crafting festival: When you arrive at the tent by the school, talk to the mayor to start the event quest. Talk to the judges to see what they are looking for ie. small, affordable, to do with cooking etc. You then need to go home and craft the item, so make sure you are stocked up on materials. When the timer runs out, your inventory will open and you will be asked to select the crafted piece you wish to enter.

Winter - Winter Gala: You will receive a letter in the mail the day before asking if you wish to participate in cranberry picking. If you say yes, forageable cranberries will appear all over the island on the day of the festival. Collect as many as you can and turn them in to the mayor at the town hall before 5pm! After 5pm you will lose the option to do so. You need 40 to 'win' the event - caffeine and getting up extra early can help.

Winter - Lantern festival: Gather by the docks to release lanterns bought from the lavender seller. You can buy them on site.

Achievement: If you are struggling to get the festival achievement, the most common culprit is the Winter Gala - make sure you collect 40 cranberries.

Miscellaneous

Businesses: If you desperately want to build a house upgrade or get diagnosed with a disease, the responsible people will usefully still do these things for you even if it’s their day off – you just have to track them down.

Winter: Assuming you have some drying racks/preservative jars, you will be fine throughout the winter, as you can stock them with fish. Do a bit of mining, go to bed early, admire the snow.

Fishing: Be aware that fish may shift where they are found during the time of year, such as salmon, which switch from ocean to river in the fall, or shad that switch from ocean to river in the summer and fall. This information can be found on the quest page for quests, and can usually also be found on the collection page (accessed from the family tab) for fish you’ve caught.

Harvesting: Fruit/flowers on trees or bushes exist in a state of stasis, without the quality timer ticking down. If you need to collect a lot of something for a quest/crafting recipe, you might want to leave things to grow until you can collect enough of them at once. Likewise, your crops can be left in the ground without watering once they are mature - so you can just hoe some more soil and start growing elsewhere if you don't need to harvest them urgently and want to save them for a quest or syncing ingredients for cooking.

What to Aim for in Year 1

Explore and tinker at your own pace, and remember the game is about gradually building over the generations. Getting money may feel like a bit of a struggle at the start, but that’s okay, that’s a natural part of the game. You’ll have plenty of money by summer/autumn.

Based on my own experiences, here are my recommendations for the first year:

The first few weeks
Prioritise farming a small square of land. Peas are great, as they keep producing every few days - I try and plant around 20 on the first day. Pea seeds are 5g each, so thats 100g, and they will pay you back in the thousands by the end of the season. A small mixture of other crops to give you ingredients, but don't make your farm too big as you don't want to spend all day watering.

Buying a fishing rod from the fisher is the next priority. Along with selling some of your excess wood, fishing should start making you some money.

Sell pretty much everything that has a quality meter on it unless you need it for an immediate quest or to eat – there’s no point holding on to it until it rots.

Prioritise achievable villager quests that give you blueprints and recipes. Feel free to ignore most of the others, unless they give particularly useful rewards.

Befriend the blacksmith, carpenter, doctor and tailor (and everyone else, but them especially). They will gift you tools, crafting machines, medicine and expensive clothing.

Take the story quests at your own pace. After the initial quest from the mayor and the ones from the blacksmith that provide you with useful tools, don’t worry about pushing forward. There’s no rush to repair the bridge to the west if you’d like to build up your farm a bit first.

The first few seasons
Build two preservative jars and keep them and your drying rack stocked.

Buy and plant a coffee tree seed in your first summer. Coffee bean + milk = coffee, which equals a speed buff.

A wave of some kind of deadly disease might well hit the town in the first summer/autumn, so it’s probably worth getting married and having a child as soon as possible, just in case. A spouse and children will also earn money or be able to help on your farm, so they’re useful to have.

Particularly useful things to craft in the first year are: Well, Drying Rack, Preservative Jar, Flour Mill, Compost Bin, Smelter, Small and Large Ice Boxes (stops items from decreasing in quality/rotting - click on the button in the top right to fill them with ice!), Candy maker, Soap maker.

Entirely personal preference, but a suggested build order is: house upgrade, barn, coop. The coop is the cheapest building, but will also struggle to pay for itself. The barn is more versatile and profitable, and it's fun setting up production chains. Upgrading your house gives you more room to put more crafting items and includes a free mini-fridge in the cellar. Despite everything I just said, I always build the coop first, because I love chickens.



I hope you enjoyed this guide and found it useful, it’s the first I’ve ever written! Have fun playing the game, and please comment below if you have any tips of your own or notice any mistakes!


Acknowledgements: I got the great tips on soap and leaving items until you need them before harvesting from Josh's Gaming Garden here: 12 Beginner Mistakes to Avoid in Echoes of the Plum Grove!

[The Misty Mountains]

this is great thanks! though now i'm worrying abt where i planted my fruit trees in relation to house lol

[Purple Fox]

@t_spacemonkeys thanks!

[t_spacemonkeys]

@Purple Fox - Sorry, I thought I'd already replied to this! It's an emotion wheel that, exactly as you say, lets you walk like you're in a different mood/age. It's entirely cosmetic.

[Kai]

@Nitervolus is this something that comes up on all playthroughs? because now I'm really curious ...although I have an inkling of why doing it, I don't know what the rewards are

[Nitervolus]

So i recommend marring the mayor's daughter along with poisoning her brother when he gets to be an adult. I wont say more

[Nitervolus]

i just learned that you can shake bushes too.

[Sheepy]

I followed your guide, but why can't I still complete achievement?Events/Festivals

[anetadoferreiro]

Thank you so much

[Radiant Rach]

I’m trying to build the barn or coop. I have all the materials and required gold. The area is clear (yellow around the building) but I can’t place it? I’ve tried every button and the only one that works is the b and it cancels out the build action.

[Angelic Slayer]

@easa4074 go into the family page and under your character you should see the square where your lantern is and a smaller square in the bottom right corner, thats where the oil goes in (can get oil from the people that work in the lighthouse)