Echoes of the Plum Grove – Beginners Guide with Tips

Getting Started Guide

Controls & UI

Keep an eye on your status bars. If you don’t eat (equip food and press Space Bar or Gamepad West), your health will drop. Conditions show up under your top bar. Hover over icons to see effects and times. To sleep, click the bed in your farmhouse. You can also access chest items and open gates this way. Click or walk into doors to enter buildings.

Quests

Get new quests from the town hall bulletin board, villagers with a [?], or your mailbox. Track quests via the quest page icon top-right or by pressing J or Gamepad North. Complete quests by finding the items and going to the map tab to locate the quest giver. Use the “Turn in Quest” button or mail it in if they’re unavailable.

Tools

Tools are specific to tasks on your farm. Yellow outline means right tool, red means swap it. Tools break. Fix them at the blacksmith or they disappear when the durability bar empties. Refill watering cans at any water body by pressing [E]. Use a hammer to remove furniture or items on your farm.

Lanterns

Use lanterns in dark places or caves. Make sure you have one, then activate it from your hot bar. Refill lanterns with oil when the indicator is low.

Foraging

Click on trees and bushes to collect wood and shake them for drops. Items on the ground have a thick black outline. Check daily as foraged items change.

Food & Cooking

To eat, select food and press [E]. Food spoils, check duration by hovering over it. Use the cooking pot in your farmhouse to cook. Meals take time, return later to collect them.

Crafting

Craft at the crafting table in your farmhouse. Unlock crafting recipes through blueprints from purchases, leveling, or quest rewards. Some items are for indoor or outdoor use only. Rotate items by clicking [R].

Buildings & Upgrades

Crafting buildings requires fees and materials. Visit the sawmill for this. Place buildings with enough space on your farm. Carpenters will work there for days.

Animals

Buy animals for specific buildings like barns or coops. Feed animals daily. Buy straw, cut grass, or grow it. Milk cows and goats once daily with a milk pail. Shear sheep every two days. Animals age and eventually die, affecting product frequency and value. Check their age by clicking on them twice. Animals can reproduce if conditions are right.

Fishing

Fish by equipping a rod and pressing [E] near water. Activate the mini-game with [W] when you see a [!] and hear a shutter sound. Use lures to improve fishing. Check lure durability often.

Events

Track events via the calendar in your family tab. Events vary, but the Sunday market is weekly. Check your mailbox for event details.

Family

Befriend villagers to marry. Buy a bouquet, then a ring, and propose. Children won’t die but can develop negative traits if unhappy. Apprentice children to professions for skill buffs and earnings. Change their jobs through the family tab.

Diseases

We have six diseases. If sick, see the doctor at the apothecary. Some diseases spread, so avoid others if sick. Children can spread but not die from diseases.

Death

Death can occur from several causes. Ensure a living relative is in your family to avoid game over. Adopt by buying papers from the mayor.

Taxes

Pay taxes weekly to the mayor by Sunday to avoid game over. Use the map to find the mayor or pay by mail in the quest screen.

More Tips

You can do the insult villagers quest with no serious long term repercussions, you’ll just have a slight drop in relationships that can be fixed by a day or two of saying hello to people. I was also really wary of doing that one!

It’s not a game where you can really go wrong, so anything you start doing will be building towards your family’s future.

Top Tips:

• Talk to everyone. Friends send you free stuff!
• Shake trees for wood. You’ll need lots of wood, and can sell the excess.
• Make another drying rack/a preservative jar.
• Get innoculated.
• Get married – free labour and generational insurance.

General FAQ

How to fish?

Find the Fisherman and trade for a fishing rod. Press space near a body of water and wait for a “!” to appear above your head. Hold W to chase the line the fish makes, you can also find instructions in the tutorial tab in game.

How to get more tools?

Trade with other villagers, the blacksmith will be able upgrade your tools as well.

How to just cook a single fish without cooking a dish?

You need a drying rack or a preserve jar!

Where to find glas

Ships usually have it. The carpenters or the blacksmith sometimes do. You can also smelt it. The easiest way to get a lantern is through the blacksmith quest line though.

Where do you get seeds?

At the farmer or indigo farmer right when you leave your home. Once you harvest any crops, they will also give you some seeds.

Is EOPG historically accurate?

No, though it is inspired by 1700’s Massachusetts, devs pull from other eras of history and locations as well.

Does the game work on Steamdeck?

It won’t be steam deck verified on launch; it runs well but the controls need to be fixed up along with some of font sizes. The developers are trying to fix the joypad controls in the first couple of updates and will test it when they can.

Will there be online play?

There are currently no plans to have online play.

Crops

Spring Season

You can grow 6 crops and 3 fruit trees. Crops are cabbage, onion, peas, pineapples, potatoes, and turnips. Fruit trees are cherry, plum, and apricot.

• Turnip: Ready in 3 days, drops 1-3 turnips.
• Cabbage: Ready in 6 days, drops 1-2 cabbages.
• Onion: Ready in 5 days, drops 1-2 onions. Also grows in fall.
• Peas: Ready in 8 days, drops 1-3 peas. Keeps giving crops all season.
• Potato: Ready in 6 days, drops 1-2 potatoes.
• Pineapple: Ready in 12 days, drops 1 pineapple. Seeds are rare, buy from traders.

Summer Season

Summer’s busy. You have 8 crops, 2 fruit bushes, and 3 fruit trees. Crops are corn, cotton, cucumber, dragon fruit, hops, indigo, tomato, and watermelon. Trees are coffee, peach, and lemon. Bushes (raspberry, blueberry) need no watering once grown, fruit only in summer.

• Corn: Ready in 6 days, drops 1-3 corn.
• Cotton: Ready in 7 days, drops 1 cotton.
• Cucumber: Ready in 5 days, drops 1-2 cucumbers. Keeps giving crops.
• Hops: Ready in 7 days, drops 1-2 hops. Keeps giving crops.
• Indigo: Ready in 10 days, drops 1-2 indigo leaves.
• Tomato: Ready in 3 days, drops 1-2 tomatoes.
• Watermelon: Ready in 7 days, drops 1 watermelon.
• Dragon Fruit: Ready in 12 days, drops 1-2 dragon fruits.

Fall Season

Last season before winter. Grow beets, carrots, garlic, oats, pumpkin, squash, and onions again. Only fruit tree is apple.

• Beet: Ready in 3 days, drops 1 beet.
• Carrot: Ready in 4 days, drops 1-2 carrots.
• Garlic: Ready in 5 days, drops 1 garlic.
• Oat: Ready in 7 days, drops 1-3 oats. Needs scythe.
• Pumpkin: Ready in 7 days, drops 1-2 pumpkins.
• Squash: Ready in 6 days, drops 1 squash.

Winter Season

Only persimmons grow, and the tree must be mature before winter to bear fruit.

Tools

Tools wear out and you need to replace or fix them. Head to the blacksmith to buy new ones or repair the old ones. Repairing costs a fee, and you’ll get your tool back the next day. Better tools last longer before breaking. Watering cans don’t break but can hold more water at higher qualities.

• Tier 1 (Wood): Includes scythe, pickaxe, hoe, and axe. Cheap but breaks easily.
• Tier 2 (Stone): Better than wood, includes the same tools.
• Tier 3 (Iron): Includes scythe, axe, fishing rod, hoe, lantern, and pickaxe.
• Tier 4 (Steel): Top quality, lasts longest, sold by blacksmith or at the docks on weekends. Includes scythe, axe, pickaxe, and hoe.

Watering Can

Doesn’t wear out but runs out of water. Better cans hold more water. Fill up at any fresh water source like rivers or lakes.

• Tier 1: Simple, needs frequent refills.
• Tier 2 (Iron): Upgrade available at the blacksmith.
• Tier 3 (Steel): Holds the most water.

Lanterns

Lanterns run out of oil instead of breaking. Buy oil at Lavender Boutique, Brothers Carpentry, or the blacksmith. Their stock changes daily.

• Regular Lantern: Basic option.
• Iron Lantern: Better, available from the blacksmith, ships, or quests.
• Mushroom Lantern: Best lantern, only from the witch coven event.

Fishing Rod

Catch fish with rods of varying qualities. Basic rods are easy to get; better ones need more effort or tokens.

• Basic Fishing Rod: Get it from the fisher.
• Iron Fishing Rod: Sometimes sold by the fisher or the blacksmith.
• Rainbow Fishing Rod: Best rod, win it by earning 500 fish tokens at the Fishing Contest.

Bonus Tips

Here’s a heads up: occasionally, diseases cause towns to be completely destroyed, which might disrupt questlines and lead to other unfavorable outcomes.

Random diseases and similar things can be undone by saving and reloading the previous day, and as the day restarts at midnight, there’s always a risk that you and the NPCs can contract random diseases. You can erase disease by saving at around 11:30 p.m. the day before, loading that save, and starting over for the entire day. Please take note that the day resets at midnight (12 am), therefore you must create a save before then.

Your crop spawns (such as how many seeds will drop while picking plants) and quests (from NPCs, your mail, bulletin boards, etc.) will also alter if you reset your day. and events such as town marriages (do you have a non-player character you truly want to wed but he’s already married? Simply reset it so that alternate NPCs get married or there is no wedding at all.)

Avoid using the autosave slots when making a new save to savescum. They are overwritten each time the day begins over and when you save filth as well. Create a fresh save with a special name to prevent wasted days!

• Shake every single tree as much as you can, wood stacks up and is very very needed for everything, or you can sell them for 10 coins a pop.
• You have nothing to eat in the beginning, so be sure to pick any violet you see, everyone can make ‘survival salad’ and those will almost keep you filled up all spring long while you figure out how to eat normal food.
• Don’t forget to use and make drying racks. You may have to spend money on nails and coal, but just for example, a 5 coin crawfish, after being dried, sells for 20+ coins, and also can heal 16 hunger.
• Fishing was my money maker at early game, though I always fish in these sort of games.