The difference between The Forest and other survival crafting games is that in The Forest, everything evolves. The cannibals get smarter and they won't wait for you to get stronger. There are multiple tasks that need focusing on and so little time when the enemies could raid at any moment.
It can be overwhelming to start or you could be naive and not focus on the important things before first nightfall. Spending time on the right things will get you far in survival against the cannibals, the elements, and yourself.
Prepare Weapons And Armor
You can craft and find different weapons in the game or use your own axe. You'll need these against the wildlife, the plants, and the cannibals. To upgrade any, you need teeth and tree sap.
Tree sap is collected casually as you chop down trees, but you can craft a sap collector by combining an old pot and some sticks. This can be found on the sixth page of the Custom Building section of the Survival Guide, titled Utility. With this, you can equip it to any tree you want and wait until you can collect sap from it. Teeth are collected as you kill cannibals. It's important to have a lot of these as it makes your weapons or axe stronger and better. The teeth fall off as you wack the enemies so you'll have to quickly grab them.
The easiest armor to acquire is lizard armor. All you have to do is kill a lizard, skin it, and equip the lizard hide that's in your inventory by right-clicking. You can add as many as you want, layering the skin. The best way to hunt lizards is to either use a bow and arrow or have them step in rabbit traps. There's stronger armor out there like ones you collect from massive cannibal demons, but lizards are a good first start.
Crafting
There are no instructions for how to craft and what to combine to make what. If you don't experiment by combining random things together you'll find yourself not having any useful items for days.
The game does give you a little bit of information, though. You have to put down objects into the crafting section by right-clicking and then hover your mouse over the cogwheel to see what you're able to craft. You'll have to guess what the icons are and how to get them, but most of the basics are straightforward.
Fight Fire With Fire
The cannibals are afraid of fire. No strong and terrifying phobia, but they won't try and leap on you with a ginormous bonfire between you and them.
A smart tactic is to set multiple bonfires around where you usually get jumped by enemies. Or just have one. Either way, when they start coming, lead them to the fire. If you hug the bonfire, they will either end up setting themselves on fire by getting too close or not get close to you, allowing you to do ranged damage.
The slight downside to the bonfire idea is that sometimes the stronger ones will destroy it and you'll have to rebuild it. Sometimes you yourself destroy it by accident while trying to swing at the cannibals. Crafting a torch is also an option. Combining a stick and cloth together, you can light the stick and use it as a light source or to light enemies on fire and make fights easier.
Building Essentials
Building protection and warmth for the long nights brings both comfort and safety. With a home to go back to, you will never have to worry about dying and the darkness won't seem so scary.
There is a shelter section in your Survival Guide. The first two are pretty useless as they break, are small, and are only good for one night. Those are best for when you're going on a long journey away from home. You can craft a small cabin or a tree house for long term use. Everything requires a lot of wood logs to make.
Where ever you put your house, you must also prepare a cooking spot, storage, and a bed. All of these require basic items to craft like logs, sticks and rocks. The bed will probably take the longest because it needs multiple rabbit hides. A cooking spot will allow you to keep up your hunger, thirst, and health levels up. A storage is important because you will end up having too much in your inventory. You can craft small shelves made out of logs to place valuables like medicine and chocolate bars, or craft a stick basket to store arrows, and/or stick racks to store weapons.
When you have all the essentials, you should build a perimeter. A log wall around your base so that even when the cannibals raid, they will have to break through the walls to get to you and you'll hear them first. This gives you time to prepare instead of being jumped randomly.
Important Survival Guide Tabs
In general, the most important Survival Guide tabs to focus on when you first load into the game are Fire, Food and Water, and Traps.
You will have to constantly build fires. If not for accidentally breaking them during fights, you'll need multiple bonfires and campsites around your living areas. Multiple fires ensure more water being boiled and more food at the ready, if you're playing with friends. Food and water is self-explanatory, as you'll always need to manage your health states. You can start producing herbs on a farm of your own and keep a stockpile of goods at the ready. If you hang meat on a drying rack for a long time, their cooking time becomes instant. With traps, you will end up needing to rebuild any broken ones, replace some, and start crafting bigger and better ones down the line for a larger foe.