Difference between revisions of "Category:Gameplay Tips"

Latest revision as of 04:06, 3 May 2011

General Suggestions

• When you create a new garden, the last thing you want to do is spend the first 45 minutes smacking hard dirt. You can also use fast cursor mode while holding down the A button to whack the hard soil continually. (This way you can finish whacking the hard soil in 5-10 minutes. This works best on the demo because the post office is unavailable.) Go to the post office, buy a shipping crate, and use that as your shovel (Picking up crate and placing it over hard dirt). This cuts about 20 minutes off your land preparation time. Later in the game, once you can buy a big house (the elephanilla house is best), ship that to yourself and 'unpack' then 'undo' five or six times to do the whole garden!

• To plant grass faster don't forget to switch to 'fast cursor' mode by clicking down on the Left stick.

• Try not to overwater your plants and vegetables. You want a balance of half-blue (wet), half-white (dry), on the Water Meter. If you overwater a plant, leaving it alone for a while will allow the excess water will drain off over time. It can also make plants to go blue forever if you're looking for a themed garden

• If you have a Sprinkling helper, a good time to plant things is right before dawn. If you finish your planting around 6-7:00am game time, the sprinkling will show up first thing in the morning, and help you water the new plants all day. By the end of the day they should sprout without you having to worry too much about how much water they are getting. If you plant right after dark and expect your helper to do the watering, they will be dried out in the 12 or so hours it will take for her to show up.

• Just because it's nighttime in your garden, it doesn't mean that you can sleep. Some predators, like the Pretztail, like to hunt and eat other species at night. Some species, like the Mothdrop, will only romance at night.

• If you have a Chewnicorn you can use it to heal sick Pinata by directing it to the sick Pinata.

• Classic: If you are having problems with Ruffians or Professor Pester, then you should buy a Captain's Cutlass from Ivor Bargain. It will keep them both out of your garden.

• Trouble in Paradise: If you are having problems with Professor Pester, one option -- see the TiP FAQ for others -- is to build a fence on the right side of the Tower of Sour. Note that Professor Pester can literally get stuck in place behind the fence, becoming a permanent/annoying part of your garden, even if the fence is removed later.

Piñata Advice

• Hitting or breaking a piñata with your shovel might be fun, but it will have consequences. A piñata of that same species may be afraid to come to your garden.

• You can increase pinata's happiness by giving it an accessory to wear. (Some accessories also prompt a piñata to perform routine tasks on its own, such as a Goobaa getting shorn.)

• If you have an ill pinata, call the Doctor as soon as possible. If you wait and the doctor cannot make it in time, Dastardos will come and smash the ill piñata. There are several ways to prevent this: Firstly, you can purchase a Halo of Hardness for 2,700 chocolate coins. Also, a shovel upgrade becomes available at Rank 20 for 3,150 chocolate coins that will stop Dastardos in his tracks.

• It's better to tame Sour Piñatas than break them. Each tamed Sour has a helpful trait (stopping fights, scaring off Ruffians, etc.). They don't drop candy when broken open. They will, however, drop sour candies as they roam your garden if not tamed or disposed of. Any candies dropped can be destroyed with a single swat of the shovel. Your piñatas will voluntarily eat sour candies and become ill. (In Trouble in Paradise, broken open sours will drop weed seeds.)

• When creating a new species from an existing resident, it's helpful not to change your only resident species into a different species. Wait for a second one to become a resident, then romance them first, so you will have some of both species.

• Simply renaming a piñata can make it happier. It will only make that piñata happy once.

• If you have a Cocoadile, it is possible use its tears instead of fertilizer, to do so, direct it to a plant with . This also unlocks an achievement.

• If there is a species that is visiting at unwanted-times, try hitting it with your shovel to break it and that species will be reluctant to return for about the next few days

• If you have two species that start fights often, but are only working with one, put a crate in your garden, then enter pack mode and select the animal you aren't currently working with. A small crate icon will appear above their heads, and they will stop moving/interacting, preventing them from fighting. Until you un-select them or send the crate, they will effectively be sidelined.

Strategies

• A little forethought in how you want your garden to look will help avoid problems like cramped habitats, or traffic jams as Piñatas and Helpers travel around from spot to spot.

• A good plan for the player who likes to sell and trade their pinatas is to surround their houses with a fence. That way you keep all your species organized. Just make sure while fencing them in that you give them adequate space so they don't get sick.

• A Piñata's value will increase as it returns from parties, eats candies and/or adds new accessories.

• Don't let your bigger piñatas trample your smaller ones. It makes them sad and more prone to fighting.

• A Tower of Sour will help keep unwanted sours out of your garden. As you tame each species of sour piñata, you will receive another section to add to the tower. Each section may be turned on or off, and when on they will prevent that sour species from ever returning. You can also buy Tower of Sour segments from Costolots General Store in the garden items section.

• If your piñata is too depressed to eat a happy/joy sweet, go to Paper Pets and buy it an accessory. This should cheer it up enough to respond to your commands. The more accessories you buy it, the happier it becomes.

• If your piñata is in its home you can tap the house and it will come out. This is especially useful when you need a Chewnicorn to heal a sick piñata before Dastardos gets them.

• Pinata Central will send you a factory request within minutes of creating a new garden. Usually it is a request for a "Single-Preferably a more valuable piñata". So just send 1 of your more valuable piñatas to yourself via the Post Office, and do the Challenge. This will raise the value of your piñata. Then just keep repeating.

• If you want quick master romancer awards, get a pinata that can be evolved, e.g. Quackberry, Sparrowmint, Newtgat etc. master romance the first species, then evolve all seven, for quick master romancer awards. If you do them all, you should get 5 awards, enough to tame a sour Macaraccoon and get an achievement.

• If you have enough money, buy seven of each pinata in the pet shop to get easy master romancer awards for each. (Note: If you sell them afterwards, you won't get the same amount back.)

• If you can afford to don't sell any pinatas that are excess to your requirements. Instead post them to yourself in the post office (no need to be on Xbox live to do this) and you can retrieve them, if necessary, to attract other pinatas, without needing to use Gretchen Fetchem.

• To minimize fights and sick pinatas, grow weeds in another garden and harvest the flowers or tinker them, (toadstools to mushrooms) and post them to yourself in the the post office (no need for Xbox live) and use them as needed in the other gardens.

• Trees and other garden items such as homes and statues can also be posted to yourself in the post office (Xbox live not required) to be used as necessary. This can minimise the time required to romance or attract a new species.

• You can have as many gardens as you can fit on your memory device. You're able then to separate species that don't get on together, ensure there's enough room for larger animals and fulfill water, grass or long grass requirements easily.

Making Money

• Grow Plants
  • Pumpkins and Chili peppers are two of the best. Both have inexpensive seeds and the produce sells for many more chocolate coins.
  • Poison Ivy: In Classic, create a new garden, and plant poison ivy seeds. No need to water!. When the plants mature, they will produce green flower heads and seeds. Sell the flower heads for 100 CC each and replant the seeds. You can rapidly fill the garden. Whack any stunted plants to remove them and make room for more. Warning: don't expect to keep healthy piñatas in this garden.
  • Venus Piñata Trap: In Classic, create a new garden, and plant Venus Piñata Trap seeds. No need to water!. When the plants mature, they will produce yellow flower heads and red seeds. Sell the flower heads for 360 CC each and replant the seeds. When seeds exceed the needed amount, they can be sold for 79 CC You can rapidly fill the garden. Whack any stunted plants to remove them and make room for more. Warning: don't expect to keep healthy piñatas in this garden.
  • Most Valuable Flowers become available at higher levels. These include the Bullrush, Bird of Paradise, Snapdragon, and Orchid flowers. Orchids are worth the most and grow relatively quickly.
  • Dig Holes for seeds to make them grow faster -- this means a faster payoff for you.
  • Fertilizing flowers (up to three times) makes more flowers per stalk. Fertilizing produce produces bigger, more valuable produce.
    • You can plant produce in tight bunches in order to fertilize several plants with each dose of fertilizer. Some flowers (such as Orchids) will be stunted if you plant them this close.
  • Harvest Fruit before selling a tree. You'll get a little more money if you sell the fruit separately.
  • Get coins from dead stalks after you tap a flower to separate the seed and flower

• Sell Resident Piñatas: You can always make money by selling the piñatas that you have made resident. You'll attract more later.

• Sell Wildcard Piñatas: Early in the game you can romance whirlm piñatas pretty easily, and the romance requirements are usually automatically fulfilled without any extra effort. If you keep at least 6 whirlms in your garden, you can earn wildcard or twin piñatas to sell for money. A well done romance game can bring in 3000 chocolate coins if you earn a pair of wildcard twins!

• Evolving a piñata makes it worth more money. Evolving a Taffly into a Reddhott to sell is one of the faster ways to make money early in the game.

• Very Easy money: If you need money fast look at the pinata's romance requirments in the encyclopedia. Some pinata such as squazzils or sherbats only need the home and one other requirment. After romancing and hatching the egg wait for the cocoon to hatch and the pinata will be worth more. Then you can do it again by using a romance candy.

• Captain's Cutlass: SUPER FAST MONEY!!! After buying the captain's cutlass(11000 coins) from costalot wait untill she has a sale and then sell the cutlass for 10000 coins and buy it again for about 8000 coins and then repeat. This strategy gets you about 2000 coins each turn. You can repeat this strategy when you run low again.NOTE: the sale will end at the end of the day, after that it no longer works. This strategy only works on TIP

• Scan Piñata Vision cards: If you have an Xbox Live Vision camera, you can scan one of the shop loyalty cards to get coins or save money.

Video Tutorials:

• Fertilizing Orchids:

• Fertilizing Chilis:

• Fertilizing Bird of Paradise:

• Evolving a Taffly:

• Evolving a Lickatoad:

What to avoid

• Try to avoid piñata fights before they happen by making sure that each piñata has enough of whatever it needs. If a piñata has broken open in a fight, it will be reluctant to return.
• Avoid boxing in piñatas with fences, without giving them adequate room to roam a bit. It will make them unhappy and also sick
• With the biggest pinatas try to give them their own gardens so they wont become ill, get stuck, or take up most of the room limit. Also their housing is very big for most of them like the Roarios, elephanillas and others.
• Avoid smashing objects near a sleeping piñata. It will suddenly wake them, making them unhappy.