Anagoge Island

Assuming you've made some initial graphic, controls, and GUI changes, it's time to get back to the gameplay. The island you start off the game on is called Anagoge Island. It is also known as and referred to in this guide and by some players as “newbie island”, “tutorial island”, or just “the tutorial”.

Walk up to your first skeleton and punch it (for Unarmed skill) by hitting 1 on your keyboard or follow some of the tips on screen about equipping a sword and armor if you want to level the Sword skill. After it dies, you can loot its body. This is similar to your standard MMORPG fare for a tutorial zone. Kill something, loot it, equip the the interesting stuff you find, and move on to do it again. Click on the interactables you find in the world. Read the texts of items completely as much as you can. You will get Lore experience in some cases. Lore levels will be important for getting certain sidebar abilities.

Eventually, after you get bored of fighting stuff on the coastline, you'll work your way into the island and meet all the NPCs. Click on “Do Favor” if the option is available or go through their Talk options to learn more about your situation (and theirs). Meet and speak with all three major NPCs: Riger, Elmetaph, and Lawara. Also, do their quests. Especially Lawara's as she will give you a skinning knife. That is the only way to get a skinning knife early game.

While I give a few hints on this page, the wiki has an entirely spoiler-full page about how to do every quest on the starter island. If you need this much help, you might want to reconsider playing this game, however. This is just my opinion, but the game doesn't get easier from here and you aren't going to get a full guide anywhere for how to do exactly everything step-by-step. Project Gorgon is a game where you don't just explore the world, you'll also explore the mechanics of it and it is far too complex to make a guide for everything, though I certainly try my best to introduce you to various mechanics throughout the pages here!

The “More Info” option that comes up when you right-click on any inventory item in the game is worth its own section. It is your best friend in the game. It's absolutely one of the most important things you can do to evaluate the general worth of an item and the more you explore the more you'll be able to correctly assess the worth.

If you use More Info on an item and see on the Recipes tab that it's only used for a few things, or check out the Gifting tab and see only a few people want it (or no one you know wants it), you can probably drop the item or sell it early on. There are very few items that are completely junk – unlike most MMO's, everything has value in some respect – however, as a new player, you likely cannot justify saving every piece of Green Glass, Goblet, or Rat Tail you come across due to all the early inventory problems you will run into.

The fact that nearly every item has value to someone means that the economy is actually quite robust. You can set up a shop and advertise Rat Tails and Green Glass for twice their stated value and someone, somewhere will inevitably want to buy them. It might take you a month or more, and you'll need either a lot of money or some Industry skill to set up your first shop, but almost every crafter or person leveling certain skills will want to buy any particular item in the game at some point.

One of the tabs has info on if you have the item already and, if so, where it is located. This is really handy later on for when you are looking at Work Orders or a new recipe and you are trying to figure out if you have one already or to determine if you have enough of the materials you need to make the items.

There's an adage in the game that goes like this: Craft → Favor → Barter → Sell. Sometimes the first two are switched around for certain players that just aren't into crafting.

The reason why players say this is because when you pick up most items, you should be checking all four things and doing them in the order they come up. If you can craft with the item and it's relevant to be crafting for a Work Order or leveling a crafting skill you want to increase now, then hold onto the item. If not, see if the item can be given to an NPC you are trying to be friends with for a reasonable amount of Favor, if so, do it. Lastly, check to see if the item is used in any Barters. If so, keep it for that. If none of these things matter to you, and you don't have the space, then sell the item to whoever will buy it. This order of Craft → Favor → Barter → Sell will apply the entirety of the time you are playing PG.

Also, while you are on this island, you are not necessarily going to know who to give items to later in the game, but you'll learn over time. Never forget that this “More Info” command exists, it will become essential later on when determining the worth of something you're holding that seems like junk. I use it constantly in every gaming session nowadays, mostly to see if I already have a stack of a particular item in stock (and to know where I'm storing it).

As an Honorable Mention, if you know the name of an item or partial name but don't have one in your inventory, you can also type “/isearch <item name>” to search to see if you are storing that item in a particular location. It's assumed that your character has an eidetic memory and knows where they are keeping everything.

At first I didn't want to get into story or plot specifics about what exactly to do on the island because you spend such a short amount of time here and it is not going to be a big part of your play as either a demo or regular player. While the game does introduce you to some of the stuff I'm going to get into in more detail in the Serbule section, the island itself is remote and you will only be coming back here for specific reasons. That said, I'm going to go into more detail even though I probably shouldn't. You should really consider exploring the island and figuring out the game on your own without a guide and then return here only when you need help.

This remote island location is mostly an intro to how the game plays and if you absolutely hate some the self-driven questing, puzzles, and quirkiness early on you're not going to like it any more once you get to Serbule, so it's best to play this section without a guide and make that determination, in my honest opinion. For me, it was enticing enough to see some of the unconventional gameplay to intrigue me further.

While on Anagoge Island, I would recommend playing around with Sword and Unarmed to see which one you like more, learning how to Charm Rat (there is a Pet control menu between your health/stamina globe and your combat skills), finding a Louse Comb (especially if you tangle with a Mangy Wolf and end up needing one to get rid of your Lice), making a Pick-Me-Up Juice to give to Riger to cheer him up and learn Psychology (as a demo player this is imperative to learn now if you want to use it as your primary or secondary skill), eat some food, get a Skinning Knife and Autopsy Kit if you can find them or get them through questing, and collect as many Crabs, Strange Dirt, Femurs, and Amethysts as you can.

You may want to hold onto these items specifically as you leave the island, but can drop most other things if you need inventory space. Do not bother picking up any gear or equipment that isn't magical as it really doesn't sell for that much. Green and Cyan colored gear is the lowest level, but will at least sell for a decent amount. Even the red and purple gear you find on the island here isn't so precious that you should hold onto it forever, but you can fit yourself out with a full set of Helm, Gloves, Boots, Chest, and Leg pieces.

Why you should not hold on to or loot “white” gear (without treasure mods) is a bit more nuanced. Yes, white gear/equipment does sell for more than some of the Wolf Tails, for example, but some items like Strange Dirt are worth far more than their stated value for trading to players as you'll eventually learn. Also, some items stack, so 199 shoddy skins is going to be better inventory-wise to hold onto than 5 white pieces of equipment because the equipment is going to sell for less and it's going to take up four extra inventory slots. In the end, when you get to crafting, you might wish you had the skins instead of the gear, and one less piece of gear isn't going to be the end of the world when you are getting filled up on inventory space so fast anyway.

However you otherwise proceed, never forget the "More Info" command to assess item value.

Project Gorgon is a skill-based game where what you do determines what you level up in. You do not pick a “class” and level up only in skills for that class, however there are some skills that negate others or require you wear certain gear or exclude certain playstyles. While on the island, you are somewhat limited in what skills you can use, and I would highly recommend using primarily Sword or Unarmed (or both) for now. You might leave the island with five to eight levels in both, but do NOT feel obligated to stick to only these two skills just because you spent time leveling them. When you get to the real game in Serbule, you can get your first ten levels in any skill in just a matter of an hour or less, so even if you ultimately want to go Pig/Mentalism or Archery/Animal Handling with your character, it's not going to hurt you to go Unarmed/Sword or Unarmed/Psych or Sword/Psychology (assuming you get Psychology while on the island) for now. You'll need to get money or farm items for Favor to unlock other skills anyway, so the first twenty levels or so are easy to get for any combat class.

I just wanted to mention this, because a pretty significant number of players come out of the tutorial thinking that because they have sunk time into Sword or Unarmed that they have to stick to one or the other when that's absolutely not the case. You do probably need to stick with one of them for a short while even when you get off the island, but that's only to get money to buy a skill or items for Favor to unlock another skill. That said, if you like Sword or Unarmed, you are certainly free to stick with them or combine them with other skills later on.

In one area of the island you will find four pedestals, one in the north, east, south and west. This is a puzzle to which there is a solution that can be deduced using logic with trial and error, or by finding a piece of paper with a particular direction-based solution noted in capital letters referring to the direction order to activate the pedestals.

Solving this puzzle can get you an early ability or skill that lets you charm rats. It's slightly different from Animal Handling. Instead of taming rats, you are charming them so they only follow you around till they die and cannot be revived like a pet can be. Later on when you get to Serbule, you can learn how to tame different kinds of pets.

Riger is one of the first NPCs you may come across. He's not feeling well and is generally upset about the situation he's found himself in. If you look in other structure locations around near where he is at, you might find a page of a book that explains how to make a Pick-Me-Up Juice that you can then keep in your inventory and talk to Riger to give him a way to be happy. After that, he will let you read his personal book.

Of all the missions to do on tutorial island, this is one I would highly recommend completing. It gets you some Alchemy experience and helps you to learn Psychology which will let you do one of the other quests on the island. There is a book you can buy in Serbule to learn Psychology when you get there, but learning this early on for “free” gives you a ranged combat skill that you can use with either Sword or Unarmed.

If you need water, there is a pool not too far away from Riger's house (to the north of it) that you can fill a bottle with.

When you do get the skill, there is something in this above ground zone of the island that cannot be destroyed by normal physical skills, so you should try killing it with Psychology.

Psychology is one of the skills that I do highly recommend you at least try out and/or learn early. You don't have to stick with it and may end up wanting to go with some other combo of skills, but Psychology is a combat skill that is compatible with every other combat skill in the game and in all races and animal forms, so having it as an option is good.

If you've run into a enchanted dummy, you might remember that it was immune to physical damage from Sword or Unarmed. Consider hitting it with Psychology damage now!

For a first time player, it may be best to just look at and interact with everything on the topside of the island and exit to the main game (Serbule) with Elmetaph's teleportation quest line. Otherwise, some warnings are worth mentioning now…

If you decide to delve into the Anagoge Records Facility (the one dungeon on the island) just be aware that when your screen goes red, alarms sound, and you see text on the screen, it is not joking about something dangerous that is about to happen that will change your character when you fail. If you're big-headed enough to ignore these warnings, feel free to proceed.

For what it is worth, the consequences on this one are minor enough that you won't see major setbacks and you can come back and complete the objective and fix what changed after a few more combat levels earned in Serbule. Plus, it's almost a rite of passage to fall victim here, so enjoy the silliness of it.

The game is giving you a very early introduction to curses, and some will get worse and even considerably worse over time. For example, I had a poison curse on my main character for six months in real time that I got from the Rahu Sewers. I could have gotten a few other players together to remove the curse, but other more important things always came up and while it was a pain in the Fae Realm with bee poisons being more deadly than normal, I was just too proud to ask anyone for help removing the damn thing. Ultimately I did end up removing it myself, but it took a while before I was “good enough” to do it. Some curses you are simply going to have to have help to fix, so keep that in mind any time you see a red flashing screen. Join a guild that can help you or ask in the Help chat.

It is important to note that very few curses are permanent or are intended to be permanent, but they might seem like they are given what you have to do to undo them. Some could be (or used to be) arguably beneficial (Ursula's Curse), but many are bad. Even Death in the game isn't very consequential in comparison to many of the curses. In fact, Death is a skill that you level and has benefits at level 10. That said, some decisions you can make are permanent, like becoming a Werewolf or Druid. You cannot undo these. They will change your character forever. You will gain both the benefits and drawbacks of your decision.

Lastly, a few players have purposely taken on some of the curses and other changes to their character, especially ones that affect their speech, intentionally and role play with them. Keep that in mind when you read chat and are trying to figure out what someone is saying. Their character could be drunk, or they could be an animal, or they might just have their grammar cursed in game. Yes, you read that correct, some decisions will change your ability to communicate or make you say things you didn't type.

The game has a story and plot that I wouldn't recommend skipping if you want to go through the Anagoge Records Facility. There once were forty different gods or godlings in the game, but as a player you'll only maybe see direct references to a handful of them in the early Lore. You will also want to make note that one died and two gods were lost. Arisetsu is one of the more relevant gods that will come into play if you get into Fire Magic or Priest combat classes. Dreva is important to Druid, etc. Most of the players know about these gods, some of them roleplay their devotion more or less seriously than others. Some gods, like the exploration god Enoyos, rely on curses for their support amongst the players.

I would recommend you read everything you come across as the story is both necessary to progress further into the facility and, in some cases, sad or humorous. If you're new to this kind of heavy reading, keep in mind that these sorts of Lore items were a big part of early MMORPGs that had you combing over a lot of text and Gorgon is like old school RPGs in many respects. This game goes a step further than some of the older games and rewards you with Lore recipes for reading about the history.

One of the fond things I remember about the MMORPG named Asheron's Call was that the story and history were actually really quite deep and changed the way I looked at some of the NPCs. Many of the enemies I fought in that game I thought were just “cat beasts” and human NPCs would refer to them as lying and stealing and generally up to no good. In the case of reading the Lore, it turned out many of them were actually slaves of other enemies and brought unwillingly to the world and had been experimented on by yet another enemy. As for the lying and stealing, many of them were just trying to live comfortably somewhere between the more-friendly humanoid races while doing anything to avoid their evil former masters. They were struggling to survive and the human NPCs in the world didn't really seem to respect them for it. Project Gorgon has stories (most notably of the Mantises) that are similar in that respect. If you don't read the Lore, you will know nothing about this.

Worth noting here is that typing “/wiki <anything>” (without the quotes) in the chat window will open the wiki for the <anything>. One example is “/wiki Sword” to learn more about the Sword skill. If /wiki isn't working well /swiki will open it in Steam and may sometimes be easier to navigate. There are wikis for anything you need to find in the Lore or just for completing dungeons if you are having trouble. The full and official Project Gorgon wiki is more valuable than just this guide and the "More Info" command. My only complaint about the official wiki is that it doesn't have a chronological flow to it (hence why I made this guide).

While I would recommend doing as many of the quests on the island here that you can as the newbie island is a sort of unique experience compared to the actual game, one solution to getting out is to teleport out of Anagoge Island doing Elmetaph's quests. If you talk to the NPCs on the island and do all of the quests and record numbers from the obelisks, you can go this route (The order matters, and yes you need a pen and paper to record the numbers). If you get the wrong numbers or wrong order you might end up teleported to Gazluk Plateau, which isn't the end of the world, but probably not great for a newbie.

Or, you can travel out by going through the Anagoge Records Facility dungeon and some tunnels under the island.

In some cases, the paths to progress further in the dungeon are hard to see, so look at your map carefully if you get stuck. I would recommend you do most of the quests and unlock doors here. The code to get past one of the doors is the number of gods (minus the ones who died or were lost, see above). Finally, one of the rooms has Archery gear if you want to get started on that early on. There is a mini-boss through some of the rooms if you can work out the puzzle at the end, but you shouldn't need to defeat him to progress, just pay attention to the mini-map and you'll see the exit into the Spider Cave which will take you to Serbule Hills.

As mentioned earlier, you can come back to this island later by boat at the docks in northeast Serbule or via the Spider Cave in mid-northern Serbule Hills if you can find the lever. Nothing you skip here is so precious that you can never come back and do it again.

In the game, if your character ever gets physically stuck (not just you stuck on a puzzle), click the exclamation mark (!) icon in the top right of your right-hand sidebar and put in a stuck report. You will be teleported. You are not allowed to abuse this feature to teleport whenever you want to and the game will warn you of this (it should be noted that you should be physically stuck and completely unable to move before you use this). In my stuck instances, I have always been teleported back to Anagoge Island, regardless of what zone in the world I started off in.

It's a minor inconvenience to travel back to civilization if you find yourself on Anagoge Island later on due to a stuck bug or random teleport, as you can use the bell at the docks in Anagoge to summon the ship to take you back to Serbule. I think you can only do this if you've BEEN to Serbule though.

The wiki has pretty detailed guides here that even give you codes to the plot, be sure to click “Expand” on all the instances of the word to the far right of each of these to fully view the whole of each guide. These guides will spoil everything entirely so only expand the sections you can't otherwise figure out.

• Island Guide: http://wiki.projectgorgon.com/wiki/Anagoge_Island

• Another Island Guide: http://wiki.projectgorgon.com/wiki/Anagoge_Travel_Log

• Facility Guide: http://wiki.projectgorgon.com/wiki/Anagoge_Records_Facility

There is also an older guide by Massively OP which is pretty handy if you want a list of skills you can obtain while on the island:

https://massivelyop.com/2016/04/16/massively-ops-guide-to-the-project-gorgon-starter-island/

My guide is not going to directly cover passive or non-combat skills during Anagoge like the one linked above. Instead, I intend to talk about these more for when you hit the real game in Serbule and when all of the basic skills become more available. Head to that section when you are done here.