Strategies

A few tips:

1. You can get iron bars from smelting iron ore in a furnace.
2. Swords are very damaging compared to spears, but spears have a longer range.
3. dropping raw food (meat, shrimp, ect) in a lava pool will cook the entire batch in seconds, however may "burn" and disappear if left too long
4. Shields considerably protect you if you are running away.
5. The red demon-boss can be trapped by a single spike wall and adamant ore node if placed correctly, allowing you to damage him with melee weaponry without getting hit (but I think swords may be too short for this).
6. You can jump with space. This is a must for running away from high level players.
7. If you time it right, you can preform a jump-slash with melee weaponry which can deal over three times its normal damage. (Not checked with all weapon types)