Merge games, as a subgenre of puzzle games, started with an explosive popularity back in 2010. While there may have been earlier games that exhibited the simplistic yet catchy, drag-and-drop “merge” mechanics, Merge Dragons! was undoubtedly the most popular face of the genre back then.
Initially, the plethora of merge games on mobile have flourished largely because of its core gameplay mechanics that have proven to be attractive to players in general but over time, new twists, additional gameplay mechanics, and events have typically been incorporated into merge games to bring a unique experience, especially to experienced players of the genre.
Whether or not you have played some merge games before, Alice’s Dream: Merge Island is sure to provide you with a one-of-a-kind adventure brimming with a seemingly endless stream of new quests, challenges, and rewards. The ring puzzle photos on the game’s page might lead you to think that it’s all Alice’s Dream: Merge Island has to offer but the puzzle challenges are only a small fraction of the adventure that awaits you in the game.
If you are fond of a rather relaxing eye-candy adventure that you can progress at your own pace and even with short visits at a time, then Alice’s Dream: Merge Island might just be the perfect virtual getaway for you.
On the other hand, if you find yourself unrelentingly hooked on discovering new horizons within the island, then we have you covered. Check out our comprehensive Alice’s Dream: Merge Island guide for a bunch of useful tips, tricks and strategies, so you can expand your island fast!
1. Follow The Objectives
The explosive popularity of merge games, especially in its earlier incarnations, can be largely attributable to the simplistic yet addictive element of actually merging 3 similar items to create a new one. Especially when you are faced with an abundance of items to merge, it becomes rather easy to get lost in the adventure as you merge items one after another. There is a lot more to Alice’s Dream: Merge Island, however, than just simply merging items. While doing so does contribute to progression, going about merging tasks should be aligned with the objectives or quests at hand.
To start, the initial minutes you spend on the island will be rather linear, as you will be forced to strictly adhere to the instructions in line with the introductory tutorial. Towards the end of it, you will have a couple or more icons at the left side of the screen, indicating quests or goals that you should accomplish. While the abundance and seemingly unending line of goals may appear overwhelming at first, the entire array of quests you will see are not all accomplishable simultaneously. For the most part, some objectives may be available immediately but can only be accomplished after completing the other ones.
For efficiency, it is best to make a habit out of peeking into each available quest on the left side of the screen and reading through each requirement. Naturally, even as a beginner, you will be able to determine which ones can be accomplished with relative ease as against other tasks that are likely to take some time for you to accomplish. This may not necessarily be just an issue relative to the items you have on the island but also the remaining energy you have at hand.
As the tutorial session is rather short and simple, you can likewise expect a sort of extension to the introductory part of the adventure to form part of the initial quests. Changing your name, for example, will be among the quests that can easily be accomplished within a minute or less and while you are free to take on most quests in any other you want, the best approach is to finish the easiest ones first to make way for other ones.
Just because a quest came in later does not necessarily mean it will be more challenging as most of the regular quests you will have revolve around merging a new item, opening a new area, or upgrading an unlocked establishment. Keep in mind that unlocking new areas and buildings can mean having more features to look into so if it is not much of a burden you can prioritize them over other tasks.
2. Strategize Around Energy Usage
Items to merge and establishments are not the only things to find on the island. Your route toward expanding your reach is typically blocked by obstacles that you need to remove first. Of course, you will have helpers around to dig through these obstacles for you but on top of the limited number of helpers you have, doing so also consumes energy.
There are different types of blockades and, sometimes, even similar ones require different numbers of actions to fully break down. The further your helpers go in breaking down the obstacles, the more energy it costs. With limited energy available at a time, it becomes only rational for you to strategize around your choices as to which blockade you want to tear into first. Similar blockades may also net you different rewards but the roster of potential drops will always be known to you.
These factors should be considered instead of simply plowing through every obstacle in your way. Additionally, it is also important to consider what emptying the blockades will lead to. In most cases, obstacles deter you from reaching a new area to unlock while some of these breakable items simply take up space. Naturally, if it is more of the latter, then you can opt to save them for later when you have extra energy to spare and no new areas to unlock.
Alice’s Dream: Merge Island provides you with plenty of ways to replenish energy when you are out of it but still itching to tidy up your island. For starters, accomplishing quests and reaching new levels will earn you some free energy. In a way, you can strategize around the activities you engage in so that you will have some extra energy when you need it by calculating how much XP you still need to get to the next level and earn some extra energy.
Additionally, you can also access the energy shop quickly and conveniently by clicking on the “+” icon just beside your energy at the top of the screen. There is an Energy Lotto that is available once every 8 hours. You can also play a 15 to 30-second video ad to earn an extra 30 energy and you can also purchase additional ones if you are in dire need. It costs 350 coins to buy 80 energy.
In just a short time you will realize just how valuable energy is in Alice’s Dream: Merge Island. If you do not have as much time in your current visit, at least ensure that you can empty your current supply of energy before leaving.
If you have more than the usual amount of time available, then a more prudent approach towards consuming energy might be the better choice. As obstacles and their corresponding levels have different energy requirements to process, feel free to check on each available one in line with your current quests and targets before deciding on a course of action.
3. Keep The Island Organized
There are much simpler merge games across Android and iOS platforms from then till now and these are usually characterized by a limited number of items to merge. In Alice’s Dream: Merge Island, you can expect the variety of items lying around to exponentially increase in just a small amount of time. Although in most cases it will still be manageable to find what you are looking for when 3 or more similar items are not within proximity of one another, it is best to make a habit of organizing items at an early stage in your adventure.
As expanding your reach within the island is one of the most basic determinants of your progression in Alice’s Dream: Merge Island, you can expect to have more open spaces as you move forward, ultimately having more than enough vacant areas for new items that will spur out. While having more space for your merging tasks is an improvement considering everything, it also entails a bigger task as far as managing everything you have on the island.
The requirement of merely bringing together 3 similar items to merge can be regarded as simple and easy in every respect but as the objectives laid out before you can be expected to require higher and higher levels over time, it becomes common to experience keeping some items idle, particularly the 2 copies of the needed item as you continue to merge and create the third piece to finalize the merger.
In some cases, progression will come to a halt as there are no current means to secure the item you need to finish the task and you will be compelled to move on or to switch your focus on another objective. As these scenarios go on, you will sooner or later find yourself with an island littered with pairs of items waiting to be merged.
For best results, we recommend keeping your island tidy by arranging items that are waiting to be merged in such a way that you will find any of them easily when the time comes and also to prep empty spaces for incoming items. Not to trigger obsessive-compulsive tendencies but just like in base-building games, our general strategy is to always place related items close to one another.
By category, there are some items that you can choose to merge at will. Some, however, like treasure chests, coins, and gems, are best kept and merged later to gain more from them. For the latter, you may opt to move them at the furthest corners of the available space to you especially as some of them will just be sitting around for a long time. Newly generated items can drop anywhere but will more likely head close to where similar items are.
4. Accomplish Quests And Tasks For Extra Rewards
Every stage of the obstacle you clear gives you items and EXP and every merge provides bits of EXP as well. These basic activities you engage in take you steps closer to accomplishing the targets laid out before you. Beyond all that, however, Alice’s Dream: Merge Island provides additional incentives that make active adventuring all the more rewarding, and that is through the quests system you can access via the compass at the lower left side of the screen.
Although the sheer excitement of merging items and tidying up the island may initially make you miss seeing the quest icon, it becomes rather difficult to ignore when there are indicators on it to signify that rewards are available for you to claim.
There are Daily Quests, Weekly Quests, and also Novice Tasks that you can accomplish. Naturally, the Daily Quests are the easiest list of tasks to complete and can instantly earn you some coins and even some gems for each objective you accomplish. There are extra rewards to earn if you manage to accomplish every task on the list so be sure to make an effort to do so before the reset time.
Weekly Quests typically take several days to accomplish as these objectives are designed for you to grind for an entire week. Points, coins, and extra energy can be earned from each completed objective, and points accumulated from doing so earn you extra rewards at the top of the page. While being idle and waiting for your energy to replenish, you can look into your status relative to completing each weekly target as you would want to clear every item on the list.
Finally, Novice Tasks serve as milestones or achievements that not only give you extra rewards but also double as an extension of the introductory tutorial that exposes you further to the basic mechanics of the game. To some extent, the Novice Tasks may also inform you ahead of time as to what can be expected ahead of your adventure.
5. Some Items Are Best Saved For Later
Although we have already mentioned that there are items in Alice’s Dream: Merge Island that are best saved for later, like the consumable items, every item that you can merge also has more worth if you can extend a bit of patience before choosing to merge. It can be understood that the itch to merge items one after another can be rather tempting, but in most cases, the promise of extra rewards for a dose of extra patience can convince you to hold off on merging.
Relative to merging items, the basic idea in Alice’s Dream: Merge Island is that you can merge as soon as you have 3 items of the same type and level. This will take the item to the next level and different item types have a different number of levels accorded to them. The thing is Alice’s Dream: Merge Island makes it so that instead of merging 6 items to generate 2 new items, doing so will require one less item.
That might be a little confusing to some, and perhaps actually experiencing it the first time in the game may lead you to believe that it was luck or probability that yielded the surprising results. This, however, is a standard gameplay mechanic in Alice’s Dream: Merge Island and all you need is just 5 similar items to merge to get 2 items of the succeeding level. This enticing mechanic is not without obvious drawbacks, though, as you have limited space to work with, especially in the early part of your adventure.
To make the most out of every merge you enact, it is best to consider revisiting our second strategy, which is to maintain orderliness across the island as much as you can. A more organized array of items lined up will help you decide whether or not you can afford to wait for more items before merging the ones you have. As much as possible as well, setting prioritizations as to which items are to be kept over others is important.
Additionally, some quests will also require you to perform specific merges that involve 5 items so be sure to keep a keen eye on those targets as merging the same before the quest objective pops up will not consider it done and you will have to perform the task again.
Given this feature, it is safe to say that while Alice’s Dream: Merge Island can be considered a simple adventure game as it falls within the merge game genre, the strategies and planning involved to ensure a fast and efficient level of progression is well above most if not all merge games you may have played in the past.
6. Solve The Mini Puzzles When You Are Idle
The mini puzzle games that involve rings tied up to one another form part of the introductory tutorial that greets you in Alice’s Dream: Merge Island. Once you are done with the tutorial, however, there is a huge tendency that you may have forgotten about it as your focus will be on the island itself and your desire to unlock new areas within it. These mini puzzles that start very easily can pose some challenging stages later on but their importance, from our perspective, relates more to becoming an icebreaker of sorts or a way to pass the time when you do not have enough energy to perform any actions.
The Mini Puzzle Game can be accessed through its icon on the lower left side of the screen. When a new puzzle is available for you to solve, there will be an exclamation mark on the icon’s upper right corner. If you so happen to have solved the latest puzzle, you will be apprised of what you need to accomplish next to unlock the next mini-puzzle stage.
Each stage of the mini-puzzle you solve will either earn you some coins or some gems. If you are in desperate need of extra currencies, then feel free to solve puzzles as much as you can.
7. Partake In Special Events For Extra Rewards
Simply reaching the far ends of the island and solving puzzles along the way requires a lot of time and patience in Alice’s Dream: Merge Island. This is most especially true for casual players who may not necessarily ensure that their energy is always emptied before it reaches max capacity. At some point in your adventure, experience will make you plow through the usual activities at a faster rate and you will find yourself wanting to do more than what you have in-game energy or resources for.
To fill the need for more merging adventures and even more extra rewards, Alice’s Dream: Merge Island regularly hosts special time-limited events that you should engage in if you aim to progress at a fast rate. Alice’s Dream: Merge Island provides extra islands for you to explore and conquer simultaneously with Wonderland. Although Fairytale Island becomes available only after you reach level 9, you can already revel in the Mystic Isle, which is available for a limited time.
There is a separate set of energy for the extra islands in Alice’s Dream: Merge Island, which means that just because you zeroed out your energy supply in Wonderland; it’s already time to leave the adventure. In the case of the Mystic Isle event, there will be a separate set of tasks to accomplish in Doggy Paradise and there are rewards to earn every step of the way. You can move to a different island through the ship icon at the lower right side of the screen.
8. Take Advantage Of Ad Boosts And Freebies
The regular rewards you receive out of completing objectives in Alice’s Dream: Merge Island, paired with some extra incentives for completing quests and tasks should already be considered more than sufficient to ensure a steady progression rate in your adventure, provided of course, that you visit your virtual fantasy island regularly.
In addition to the perks and benefits that we mentioned, Alice’s Dream: Merge Island still holds some extra amenities for players who are insistent enough to maximize efficiency and speed as far as progressing the adventure is concerned.
We mentioned earlier that you can play a short video ad to earn some extra energy. Additionally, there are other ad boost opportunities that you can take advantage of especially in less active moments. You may notice floaters or bird-like creatures that occasionally fly across the island. You can tap on some of these floaters to have them instantly drop a random item. For the cream butterfly, though, clicking on it will present you with an option to play a short video ad to be awarded with one of 3 items to choose from.
The cream butterfly reward will typically be items you would want more of so there are no right or wrong choices. As much as you can, be sure to take advantage of these opportunities especially if taking time to play a 15 to 30-second video ad will not adversely impact your time on the island.
On the lower right side of the screen is a book that houses everything you have unlocked so far. Every new character or item you have encountered can be seen within this book and there are one-time rewards for new entries. Beyond the actual rewards, you can use this book as a guide to know if a specific item type still has plenty of new things to merge into or not.
While the shop contains items that you can purchase with coins or gems, there are freebies you can claim from the shop from time to time. Always take note of refresh times as to when new items will become available as that may also mean having new freebies for you to gain.
Regardless of whether or not it is for the freebies, do not hesitate to look into what items are being sold. Energy will always appear to be the best resource to spend your coins and gems on but there will also be instances when simply buying an item will save you a lot of hassle and time.
There is still an abundance of items and events to experience in Alice’s Dream: Merge Island that is best left for you to discover on your own. We are confident that the tips and strategies we shared with you in this article, coupled with some patience and dedication on your part, will suffice to ensure a fast and steady expansion of your virtual island. If you happen to stumble upon some cool tricks in addition to what we have covered, we are more than interested to hear about them!