Obsidian Entertainment’s Grounded just released. It’s a quirky new survival game about exploring a backyard. Sounds boring right? Now through in the complication that you’re a bunch of people shrunk down to the same scale as a common insect, and all ants and other creepy crawlies are much more deadly now.
Throughout the course of the game you have to deal with various puzzles and threats. One of the first puzzles is having to find your way around a giant laser that’s blocking your path, powered by three laser towers. Unfortunately, there is one grass stem that is blocking the path forward, and you need the Chopping Tool in Grounded to get past it.
You need an Axe for starters. This does require scanning a pebble at the crafting computer station. Crafting an Axe requires a tree sprig, 2 pebbles, and 1 woven fiber. Take that Axe and get ready for the next step. Woven Fiber is the hardest part. You will want to pay attention to the plant fiber nodes at the very first base camps you come across. Take a sample of the plant fiber from one of the nodes back to that camp. There is a crafting station computer there that will analyze samples. You need to scan the plant fiber to unlock the Woven variety. You will also want to keep bringing items back here and scanning them to unlock new recipes.
Once you have the axe recipe, you can get the materials together and craft it via the menu. Take that axe to the plant blocking your way and cut it down.
You will need the Chopping Tool in Grounded is one of the basic crafting and gathering tools in the early game. It can be used to harvest any Tier I material. Although for more complex material like the Tier II Weed Stems, you need something more. The Chopping Tool is basic enough to handle basic tasks just fine. However, it won’t last forever. You will then need to upgrade to the next progression in the tools to get access to better resources.
From there, you want to keep gathering recipes by scanning parts from Ants, Spiders, Ladybugs and more. You can unlock Ant Armor, as well as Ladybug armor pieces this way. The real goal is progressing to Tier 2 weapons and armor though, like the Insect Axe.
