Tips & Strategy

Every tip here follows directly from a mechanic documented elsewhere on this wiki — see the linked pages for the underlying numbers.

Keep the generator boring

Repair before you refuel. Condition below 30% risks a random stall at any moment, and wear itself adds up to 0.12/s to the burn rate — a generator at 50% condition burns noticeably faster than one at 100%, on top of everything else. See the burn formula.
Carry a wrench. It halves repair time (1.3s instead of 2.6s), letting you top up condition more often without standing next to the generator as long.
Don't light rooms you don't need. Burn rate only counts lit rooms past the 4th, so leaving distant, empty rooms dark costs nothing and saves real fuel over a night.
If it won't start, keep pulling. The starter has a hidden rule: the 4th pull in a row always succeeds, no matter how bad your condition is. Three failed pulls are just bad luck, not a sign something's wrong.
Clean up before dusk. Every uncleaned mess adds a flat 0.012/s to the burn rate and +0.8 resentment to Grump at nightfall. It's cheap insurance against both problems at once.

A lit room is a full stop, but only if you're not already caught. He gives up chasing the instant you reach one (unless he's standing right next to you) — so knowing where the nearest lit room is matters more than pure speed.
Crawl once you're hiding-adjacent. Crawling footsteps are quieter (0.16 vs 0.5 noise) and make you 45% harder for him to visually spot even in the open.
He can't check every locker at once. If he's investigating a noise rather than a confirmed sighting, his chance to actually find you in a nearby hiding spot starts at just 18% on night 1. The danger is only high if he watched you get in — that's a guaranteed check.
Tape a locker shut if you're deep into a night. Thirty seconds of guaranteed safety is a long time when he's circling.
He turns lights off as he patrols, from night 2. If a room you rely on goes dark, that's Bob, not a bug — the fusebox resets everything at once if it gets out of hand.

Say something, anything, every day. Not talking to him at all costs +6 resentment at nightfall — more than most single answers. There is no way to avoid paying him some attention.
Clean messes specifically to calm him. It's the only action in the game that actively lowers his resentment during play (−1.5 per mess), besides returning his crayon.
Return the crayon if you see the job. It's worth −15 resentment, a real dent, and it's only ever offered before he turns.
Once he's turned, lit rooms still matter. He's only slowed (not stopped) by them at night, but standing under lights long enough (4–10 seconds depending on the night) forces him to retreat for a few seconds — useful if you need a head start.
Daylight offers no light-based protection once he's turned. Only night-time ceiling lights slow him down; in daylight he hunts at nearly full speed with no light penalty at all.
He'll quote you. Once turned, assume anything you told him during his questions can and will be repeated back at you — it's flavour, not a mechanic, but it means the answers you gave are not forgotten.

Don't fight Jerry's chase. Hiding cancels him instantly and costs you nothing — there's no reason to let him corner you if a hiding spot is closer than he is.
A passed gym class is a real buffer, not just points. 150 seconds of half-rate sprint stamina drain is a genuine edge during a chase later that day — try to bank one before things get dangerous, not after.
Get lunch from Meredith even if you're bad at rhythm games. She never sends you away empty-handed — even a 0% run nets the Soggy tray (snack + milk) and some score. There's no downside to trying.
Don't make a special trip for either. Both are capped (Jerry at 2/day, Meredith at 1/day) and both stop working in the last minute of daylight — fit them in on your way between real objectives instead.

Spread your searches across containers rather than hammering one. A fresh container's first search is always the full loot table; a second search on the same one is already down to 45% odds of finding anything.
Repeat-searching is still sometimes worth it if you desperately need one more fuel can and you're already standing at the boiler room crate — just know the odds are dropping fast, not staying flat.
Aim doesn't need to be perfect any more. Since the aiming fix, you can search a long piece of furniture like a sandpit or lunch table from anywhere along its side, not one exact spot.

Eat before you're desperate. Below 20% food you move slower, and below 15% your fear rises faster too — hunger compounds every other problem at once.
A teddy is a fear-management item, not just a toy. Holding one cuts your night-time fear gain by 5/second; giving one to a toddler calms them for good.
Don't let your fear hit maximum near anything hunting. A crying baby is the single loudest noise in the game (level 1.6) and repeats every 3.2 seconds until your fear drops.
Rescue toddlers before dusk, not during the night. Every toddler still "lost" when night falls is taken by Grump automatically, one by one — there's no saving them once the sun goes down.
Check the map for red before you carry a toddler home. A hurt toddler shows red, and your classroom will refuse them until they've been patched up — save yourself the trip and swing by the nurse's office first.
Watch the difficulty tradeoff. Nasty gives you a shorter day (205s) to do more work, but a longer night (215s) to survive with fewer resources gathered — it isn't simply "everything is worse," the clock itself moves.

Grump the Baby Destroyer Wiki · last updated 2026-09-13 · matches game commit af3955c Play the game · Game source