Autumn is the first season you play in. It lasts from day 1 to day 20 on default worlds. It is a rather simple season as there is no temperature change and days are rather long. As soon as you spawn in the first thing that you should worry about is light.
Darkness isnt usually a big issue but if it is. It REALLY is. Most characters get two hit killed by the darkness. So be careful. You should collect twigs and grass as that is what you will need to make a torch, and easy to make and portable light souce.
Once you have figured that out you should start focusing on where you are going to base. A good base is usually near the desert, pig king, spiders (not RIGHT beside), Beefalo (optional), a good source of rocks and wood and what ever else you think is important to your base. You should make a science machine and then an alchemy engine from the science tab to start your base and you should also make a fire pit, a permanent refuelable camp fire. As you survive you might start to hear barking or come across enemies that are too difficult for you to kill without weapons or armor this may be an issue so you should go and get some armor and weapons (duh). An easy and simple weapon to make is a spear.One rope (3 grass under refine tab) some twigs and flint. An easy piece of armor to make is a log suit. It is under the fight tab (as well as spear) it requires 8 logs and two rope. It goes in the chest slot so you wont be able to wear a backpack while you have this. Now you are ready to face anything that comes your way! (well, sort of) Next thing you will need is a reliable food source, you'll probably start getting hungry.
A good and simple food source is farms and berries. To obtain this you need rocks, grass and manure (which can be gotten from beefalo) to make farms. You plant seeds in these and they will slowly grow crops. To get berries you should make a shovel and go around the map digging up berries. You can plant these back at your base and fertilize them with manure. They will slowly produce berries over time. If you have a wickerbottom she can make her book called applied horticulture and instantly grow your farms and berries (And if you have grass tufts and saplings, because you can dig them up too.) (omg we got three dragonfruit first try) Still not enough food? Well you can try hunting monsters for meat. Some easy to kill monsters are spiders and hounds (in small groups) They will drop monster meat which isnt very good on its own but we will get to that. You can also hunt pigs (Be careful, if you attack one, any other pigs in the area will come to assist it!) and koalephants (You get them from following suspicious dirt pile foot prints) They each drop a good amount of meat and pigs drop much needed pigskin. Food by itself is great, but what if you could combine food with food to make more food? Well, you can! Just make a crockpot at a science machine or alchemy engine (3 cutstone, 6 charcoal and some twigs.) This will let you interact with it and cook food using four ingredients. A good recipe for starters is meatballs. If you put one monster meat, drumstick, normal meat or morsel into the crockpot with berries, carrots or other foods like that you will get meatballs. This restores 67.5 hunger! Wow! You also might need an icebox to store food. To get this you will need to find clockworks and kill them for their gears. Clockworks spawn around the map so you should find them eventually. You feel a cold wind approach from the north, It's winter on day 21!

Winter is a pretty dangerous season if you aren't careful, it lasts from day 21 to day 35. You may just end up freezing to death. Some of your regular food sources wont work, plants wont grow in the winter! ANd you wont be able to travel very far without freezing. So you will have to make preparations ahead of time in autumn. Ice will appear around the map and you can mine it with a pickaxe. ice is good in the crockpot so you can still mix it with 1 meat and get meatballs. For winter you will need a winter hat. To make one you will need beefalo wool and silk. Silk is gotten through killing spiders. Beefalo fur is gotten from shaving beefalo with a razor (Flint and twigs at a science machine or alchemy engine under TOOLS) You can only shave them while they are asleep so wait till night. Other than the cold and plants not growing winter is pretty simple. Sit by the fire, collect food and other resources and dont die. Some time in winter around day 29-35 you will hear a groaning noise. Your character will make a comment about it. That is the deerclops, the giant of winter. When this happens you need to get away from your base and find an open area and make a fire. Make sure you take spare armor and weapons with you. This is going to be one heck of a night! After you hear the groaning for a while you will feel heavy stomps on the ground. Be ready for a fight. The deerclops does a lot of damage so be careful. You can try tanking it but you will probably end up dying. Instead try to hit is 2-4 times and then dodging its attack by running away. He should eventually die
He should drop his eyeball which can be made into a good hat for next season. You may notice while playing your "brain stat" is going down. this is called sanity. If it goes below a certain point you will go insane and be attacked by nightmare creatures. They are relatively easy to fight but can be dangerous. The attack pattern is you let it attack but before it hits you walk out of the way. you then attack it back and repeat until it dies. Some easy ways to keep your self from going insane is picking and cooking cactus, sleeping on a staw roll, fur roll or in a tent or siesta. You can also pick green caps and cook them.

Oh boy, it's spring, this season lasts from day 36 to 55. It is mostly like autumn except for the frequent downpour of rain. You'll need some items to keep you safe. The umbrella is a really good one. It is under the survival tab and is made with silk, pig skin and twigs. Combined with the straw hat or football helmet, you should be just fine! You can also make a rain hat with moleworms, bone shards and silk. This should negate most if not all of the water. Finally you can make the eyebrella from the deerclops eyeball you got from deerclops. On top of that you will need a lightning rod to keep lightning from catching your base on fire. Also in spring crops will grow back like usual. The point of spring is so you can prepare for summer, the harshest of the four seasons. In summer you base will catch on fire and your crops will wilt. To counteract this you should build ice flingomatics to protect your base. For this you will need more gears and ice. Go look for some clockworks if you dont have enough.[/previewicon] Once you get gears you just need to go find ice! It should be around the map in the form of mini glaciers. Just mine that with a pickaxe until you have about 30 or so. Next you should head to your base and make an ice flingomatic. Try to make it cover your base but not your firepit, otherwise it will extinguish it. That is about it for spring. You will find moose goose nests around the map so be careful.

Congratulations if you have survived this long! Summer is a very harsh season, but now that you hopefully have ice flingomatics set up it should be a bit easier. Summer lasts from day 56 to 70. In summer you overheat which is a bit like freezing but opposite. Bottomline, it kills you. Your crops will start to wilt if you do not have an ice flingomatic on them and the antlion will appear in the oasis desert and try to kill you if you do not appease it. First thing you should have is an endothermic fireplace. As long as this is fueled it should keep you cool. Traveling is still an issue so you should make some thermal stones at an alchemy engine under survival. cool them down beside an endothermic fire or toss them in the icebox for a bit. Other than the heat and wilting, you need to focus on one thing. Appeasing the antlion. You will need to get a couple of fishing rods and find the oasis. It is in the desert with the cactus with arms. once you arrive there, there will be a sandstorm so it is better if you know where the dried up oasis is beforehand. Once you arrive at the dried up oasis it should be filled with water. Keep fishing there until you get a fashion goggles blue print and a desert goggles blueprint, you will need these to travel in the oasis. They should be found in crumpled packages you get from fishing in the oasis, learn them and make the goggles. Next you will need to travel in the desert searching for antlion with your desert goggles, bring the trinkets you get from the packages with you. Once you have found antlion you should then proceed to give her the trinkets, so she doesnt try to kill you and break your base. That is about all for summer., you will need to keep appeasing antlion but that is it. I hope you survive your first year and good luck!