Beginner Guide: Your First Levels
Welcome aboard, counselor. Ten minutes here buys you: how to clear Levels 1–5, how rookies blow their quota, who to draft, and the tricks veteran counselors paid for in campers.
“The biggest newbie killer is not the axe murderer, it is the "just one more camper" greed. Hit the quota, close the door, count heads.”
First 5 Minutes Checklist
- 1.Lock your squad on the select screen: Dave (Rally) + Wyatt (traps) + two mobile slotsKEY
- 2.Click terrain for intel: confirm where mountains, rivers, bridges and cabins sitKEY
- 3.Find the single (or fewest) bridge on the map — that is your trap corridorKEY
- 4.Post Dave at the rally point between stray campers and their bedsKEY
- 5.Send Wyatt straight to a cabin by day to restock all 3 traps
- 6.Sweep the minimap (top right) to confirm where this level's monsters spawn
Opening Squad Picks
Safe Start (recommended)
Dave + Wyatt + Ashley + flex
A dual-core of Rally escort + trap attrition, fully formed with the three starters. The most forgiving lineup — Levels 1–15 can pass nearly casualty-free.
Trap-Line Start
Wyatt + two Gather slots + Dave
Everything feeds the traps: the cabin resupply loop never breaks and the bridge corridor stays carpeted. Monsters fall before they ever see a camper.
Escort-Line Start
Dave + three mobile slots
Skips trap depth for a full escort chain: Rally, relay and bedtime running in parallel. Best on levels with scattered beds and humanoid-heavy monster pools.
Classic Rookie Wipes
Wipe 1: Playing "save" as "slay"
The clear condition is "save enough campers before losing 10" — not "kill every monster". Chasing wounded monsters while campers wander unguarded is the number-one rookie throw.
Wipe 2: Ignoring the bridge rule
Rivers are only crossable at bridges and mountains are impassable — monster approach routes are effectively fixed. Not trapping the bridge means refusing the free defense the game hands you.
Wipe 3: Dueling the Axe Murderer
Axe damage is brutal; trading blows is a guaranteed loss. The correct answer is always trap attrition plus a stationary focus-fire turn, never heroics.
Wipe 4: Forgetting cabin resupply
Wyatt restocks all 3 traps by visiting a cabin — plenty of players reach level 10 without knowing this. The moment your trap play runs out of ammo is the moment the defense starts collapsing.
Wipe 5: Never reading the minimap
Random movers like the Toxic Horror arrive from directions you would never expect. Glancing at the top-right minimap at the start of every turn is a habit that saves entire camps.
Veteran Must-Know Tips
- Check the minimap at the start of every turn before moving anyone — intel always comes before action.
- Pass is a legal, often optimal choice: once your defense is shaped, keep your hands off.
- The 10-camper loss quota is a budget, not a floor: players who write off perimeter strays actually score higher.
- Cabins are armories: fix Wyatt's resupply route like a patrol route.
- Procedural maps have no memorization value — internalize the judgment principles of "bridge, river, mountain, cabin" instead of any single level's layout.