Mortal Shell

• There are three temple zones that you need to clear to beat the game. You can take them in any order but I would recommend doing it in the order of, Fire shrine > Catacomb/Ice area > the Obsidian tower.

• To unlock additional weapons, you need to interact with a book and defeat a mini-boss each time. All the books are conveniently located right at the entrance of each temple zone. So consider visiting each temple once to find the weapon that suits your play style best.

• Abuse the Harden ability in combat. it's a one-hit invulnerability that runs on a cool down timer, activates instantly even in the middle of an attack and you can hold the button to remain harden for a long time. Always have Harden ready to activate right before you make a risky attack.

• Watch out for beartraps.

• Beeline for the central tower. It's pretty much directly in front of you after the tutorial area. Inside you will meet your level-up lady and be able to detect where the other shells and weapons are. The weapons are all also at the entrance to the three dungeons you need to clear.

• Thoroughly explore the tower. The first floor holds your shells and the level-up woman, the second floor has your weapons and forge, across from that is a crumbling tower with a large armored birdman thing who will grant you the ability to parry, and going outside on the second floor and jogging around the tower will lead to a set of steps near a bell that takes you up to a merchant and a cat you can pet.

• Keep in mind the difference in tar and glimpses. Tar will drop when you die, glimpses you will hold onto but are exclusive to the shell you got them with. Make sure you're in the right shell before going ham with the glimpse-giving items.

• The shell you start with is kind of lame, it's not real great at anything but farming. The best shell, I think, is the Venerable, which you will find in a kind of blasted-out area surrounded by monoliths. It has enormous health and you should unlock its ability to gain "execution stacks" ASAP which will make it incredibly powerful. It has a small pool of stamina, but considering that stamina comes back faster when hardening, it's not a big deal at all.

• Mushrooms respawn every five minutes. There's a pretty good circuit you can carve out around the central tower that will net you ~6 healing mushrooms and ~4 poison mushrooms every lap, if you need the items and have the time.

• Using an item more will raise your familiarity with it, and maxing that out will either improve its effect or unlock a secondary one. The aforementioned poison mushroom will inflict you with poison the first time you eat it, but from then on it grants poison immunity.

• There are three acids you can get almost right away, which will level up your weapon damage and be a huge help. One is in a chest at an encampment near the big burning effigy, the other two are for sale at 2500 tar each, which seems like a lot but its worth the grind.

• There is an upgrade for the starting sword right by the tower, in a cave across from the entrance. There's a big wolf-beast boss in there, but you aren't locked into a fight with him. You can just sprint in, grab the treasure behind him, and sprint out before he even goes full aggro.