How to Beat Certificate, Please

The opening is a controlled crawl: you start chained, pick up what the dungeon leaves for you, and walk out through an abandoned settlement. Mushrooms are the first food you meet — they restore energy when the bar dips. The pickaxe matters twice over: it is your first tool, and it is what frees Larry from his spot in the dungeon. Larry leaves; the debt does not — remember him when the Forest Pass chain comes around.

Energy is the gate on every early action, and the opening teaches it with a shrinking bar and a floor full of mushrooms. Eat what you forage instead of hoarding it; the dungeon is generous on purpose. The lesson outlasts the quest — food and energy management frame the entire early game. By the time you hold the certificate, the habit should already be automatic.

• Work the cell first — the escape steps are linear, and the journal prompt keeps the order.
• Eat mushrooms as energy drops rather than banking them for later.
• Take the pickaxe, and use it to free Larry before you leave his area.
• Cross the abandoned area toward the graveyard and accept the burial certificate when it is offered.

The graveyard becomes your base the moment the ink dries: church, burial ground, and the basement Factory and Resurrection Lab all come with it. A New Beginning, the first of the twenty story achievements, pops for the opening itself. From here the game stops holding your hand — the Plague Doctor and Sweet Dreams are the next real gate. Take stock of the base before you chase them.