I struggled with food a lot as a new player as well. The game is tough, especially in the first few days as you have to both learn the core mechanics *and* survive.
A couple of tricks I learned:
Biomes are important. Each has its own quirks. Some are more plentiful than others, and may be harder to start out in. You may have to travel a bit to find the best place to settle but survival should be possible in most/all of them.
The areas with lots of water tend to have a few cranberry bushes and a lot of cattails. If you are desperate, head for a big lake, gather firewood and cattail roots and use the area as a semipermanent campsite.
Meadows may have a lot of berries. They will also have a lot of other plants.
You can actually see the different plants as different colors on your map, allowing you to head to bushes and crops directly instead of wandering aimlessly hoping to find them.
Forests and rocky areas tend to have less vegetable and berry food. Check mushrooms to make sure they will not kill you. They tell you how much damage is done.
If you are grabbing berry bushes only grab the ones with 8+ days to bloom left. Grab them after you take the berries if possible. This ensures that you dont remove all the berries on day one. If a bush has 3 days to produce berries, let it produce the berry in 3 days. I grabbed all the berry bushed on my first and second world and spent the first week starving.
Cattail roots are not great but can keep you alive if you don't have berries. I grab a bunch to plant near me when I finally settle down. Cattail roots do not go bad, far as I can tell. If you settle near a pond you can plant them next to you for easy reed access and emergency food. Downside is you have to cook them.
If you can't find berries you may be forced to hunt early on.
Meat in a cookfire isnt great, and you definitely want to fast track learning to make cooked meals but its better than berries.
Real meals requires pottery, which takes a couple of days to prepare. Make at least a cook pot and 4 bowls when you settle down.
Big animals will murder you. Small animals are hard to hit. But there are tactics to help.
Rabbits are attracted to crops so I set up my first garden next to a pond. The rabbits flee into the water when they see me and give me time to throw spears at them. The water slows them down.
(Above pit trap method may be better but I have not tried it)
Ponds may hold fish which are really easy to spear if the pond is small (ie, nowhere for them to escape). I keep 3 spears, and throw the first two. Larger ponds are also good for escaping wolves. Throw spears, swim around the enemy. Keep a spear in reserve. Throw from above, stab from below (but not directly under them, they can dive to attack).
Fighting big animals is a risk. Throw spears from a distance and flee if they charge you. The animals do way too much damage in my opinion. Not balanced for stone age- so avoid confrontations. If you can hit them from a place they can't hit you, do it.
Keep fat if you can, its used in crafting and storing food for the winter. But if you need food, fat is worth 2-3 berries and doesnt need to be cooked. Its found more often on larger animals though.
You can make healing items with the asparagus looking plant found in pine forests. Don't wander around on low health. Wolf and ram can kill you in 2 hits.
Don't fight the monsters at first. They rarely drop loot and aren't worth it. Dirt makes decent walls though. I like to have a backup hut in case they spawn in my base.
Emergency supply hut near spawn may allow you to survive the night after dying. (Havnt actually tried this yet). Campfire and some cattail roots with fuel stored there. Cattail roots do not expire.
You can put a torch in your left hand and that lets you see at night. You need this to identify blocks when its dark.
F6 is minimap. B (or v?) Toggles description of the block in front of you.
Press H to view the in game resources instead of alt tabbing for the wiki. Unless you want to stop time while you browse for info, which is valid.
You can open you map and place a marker after you die, but before you respawn. That helps a lot. Stuff despawns in 10 minutes so don't spent an hour looking for it like I did.
The problem with restarting on a new world is that you aren't learning from it.
Dieing isn't game over, its a chance to use the knowledge gained from your past life experiences.
I restart when I want to see how much I've learned since I started the world. I'm on world 6 or so and feel confident I can survive the first week now... though its no guarantee. (did I mention wlves do 8 dmg and you start with 15 HP?)
Press c for character stats.
As Maelstrom said, try playing something other than blackgaurd. Hunter might be a good option for the first world because you can make crude bows. I assume you regret it when you try and get ore though.
Also, if you can find friends to play with, that might help a lot. (Mine wouldn't let me join their world until I hit copper age, lol)
I restarted a few times out of stubbornness or when I died too many times and wanted a change. In the end, the standard settings are a pretty intense survival game. Even if you do not like changing settings of the game, you still have several modes to choose from. If you don't want a hardcore experience while learning to survive, try exploration mode while you learn the basics. Its ok if survival mode is not for you.
Oh, and fun fact: you can bounce stones off the floor so that they fall down and hit the target at the base of your wall. But the stones can bounce and hit you too. I recommend standing on the block next to the top of the wall to try this. I have to jump to throw spear straight down without hitting myself. Still working on how to do murderholes with these physics.
(This isnt a good fighting strategy, but might save your life if the monsters wont leave)
The drifters barely drop loot. I got my first gear by panning sand. Second by killing a fancy drifter after a light storm. Avoid them unless you need string or have the gear to make the fight fair. (I fight for fun no judgement here, just little profit with stone tools.)
