Animals & Coins Guide: Tips, Tricks & Strategies to Collect More Golden Coins and Build Your Kingdom

Games don’t necessarily have to be complicated. Sometimes the simple pleasures in life are best, and for games, that’s a setting where you can kick back, relax, and just let the money roll in. Enter Animals & Coins.

Animals & Coins is a game that focuses on building your own animal kingdom…which for some reason is comprised entirely of human amenities like taquerias, island resorts, and so on. Don’t ask. To build your kingdom, you’ll need to accumulate gold, and lots of it. Those who yearn for a quick, relaxing game without too much thought can get the game on the Google Play Store or the App Store.

Animals & Coins is a very simple game that almost anyone can pick up and play without worries. If, however, you’d like a little extra guidance on what exactly you’re supposed to be doing, what else you can do in the game, or want some practical tips and tricks to help you get ahead, you’ve come to the right place.

In this Animals & Coins guide, we’ll be covering:

• The game’s basics: your objectives, stealing gold, earning stars, and unlocking characters.
• Getting even more gold via minigames, cards, ads, and so on.
• Practical tips and tricks to help you avoid losing too much.

Game Basics

Get gold, build islands, rinse, and repeat. It doesn’t get any more basic than that. Here’s how to progress and build your own kingdom in Animals & Coins.

Quick Tips:

• Progress through the game by building up your floating islands.
• The main way of earning gold is by playing the bridge-building minigame. Each new island gives you a random goodie, but mostly it gives you gold.
• Landing 3 perfect bridges allows you to use auto mode for 5 minutes. Auto mode automatically places perfect bridges for you while it’s active. Practice makes perfect!
• You can increase the amount of energy each bridge consumes by tapping on the “bet” button above your energy. This also multiplies anything you get as a result of that bridge by the same amount (e.g., a 3x bet means you’ll get 3x gold if you get coins).
• You can also attack players via the island minigame. Getting a slingshot lets you hit somebody else’s island to damage it and take some of their gold, while the steal board minigame directly lets you pilfer their gold stores.
• You can protect yourself from slingshot attacks by getting shields from the bridge-building minigame. You can have up to 3 shields.
• There’s no defense mechanic against the steal board game but check out the “Practical Tips and Tricks” section for a suggestion on how to mitigate the damage it can do to you.
• Stars are earned when you complete islands and other tasks. These are a symbol of player progression – the more stars you have, the further along you are. There are also friend, country-wide, and global leaderboards for the most stars.
• There are multiple characters in the game that can be unlocked via a variety of methods. These don’t have any bearing on performance, so pick whoever you like most.

Gold is Good

The objective of Animals & Coins is simple: build up your kingdom of floating islands. To do that, tap on the hammer icon below then tap any of the signs. You’ll need to pay gold to build the part that goes in that spot. Once you’ve completed all purchases on an island, it’s complete and you’ll move on to the next. Easy, right?

However, nothing is free. To build your islands, you need gold – whether that’s from digging up treasure on floating islands or taking it from your neighbors and friends!

The most basic way of earning gold is by exploring the floating islands that surround your kingdom. To do this, you’ll need to build bridges to those islands. This is done by holding the energy button at the bottom of the screen. The longer you hold the button down, the longer the bridge. Longer isn’t necessarily better – overshoot and your character will fall off the bridge! On the other hand, if your bridges are too short, your characters won’t be able to cross. Energy will be spent whether your bridge is usable or not, so be sure to get some practice in!

Landing 3 “perfect” bridges (as in the end of the bridge falls smack-dab in the center of the next island) enables auto mode for 5 minutes. Auto mode causes all bridges placed to be automatic perfects and will continue placing them until you tell it to stop or run out of energy. To toggle auto mode, tap on the purple auto mode button when it’s active.

If you’re short on time and confident in your bridge-building skills, you can increase your bet level.

Bet levels increase both your energy consumption and potential winnings. A 2x bet multiplier means that placing the next bridge will cost 2 energy but any treasure revealed will have double the amount of goodies inside. The higher your current energy, the higher the bet level you can take.

Once you build a usable bridge, your character will automatically cross and get a random reward. Usually, it’s gold, but sometimes you get better items – which we’ll discuss in the next section.

Highway Robbery

Why work for your gold when you can take it from others?

There are two prominent items you can get from the bridge-building game. The first is the acorn slingshot. This will allow you to attack a random player’s island, wrecking their stuff and taking some of their hard-earned gold for yourself. Mean? Probably. But if the shoe was on the other foot, they’d do the same, so plunder away!

Of course, you aren’t immune to this system. Other players can randomly get you as a target, in which case it’ll be their turn to hit your islands, setting you back and taking some of your hard-earned gold for themselves. To prevent this, you can store up to three shields that are automatically used if someone slingshots your islands. A shield will protect an island from damage but will be consumed in the process. The attacker won’t walk away empty-handed though – they’ll still get a base 50,000 gold for their efforts. Shields can be acquired from islands in the bridge-building game.

The second way to plunder someone else’s stuff is via the steal board minigame. When moving across islands, you’ll sometimes get a purple paw print as your prize. This item automatically summons another player and subjects them to a shakedown!

You’ll be given a board with 9 stickers. Tap any sticker you want to reveal either coins, a chest, or a bomb. Coins will steal some of that player’s “liquid” gold (gold that appears in the upper panel), a chest will automatically steal the maximum amount, and the bomb will end the stealing minigame early. Unlike the slingshot attack, there is no inherent defense mechanism to protect you from this kind of stealing – but check the “Practical Tips and Tricks” section of this article for some mitigation methods.

Note that stealing with a higher bet multiplier affects how much money you get.

Stars

As you make progress in Animals & Coins, you may notice yourself accumulating stars that go into the upper right of the screen.

Stars don’t really do anything by themselves but are an indication of player progression. The more islands you complete and the more tasks you do, the more stars you’ll have. If you’re feeling particularly competitive, there are star leaderboards for friends, countries, and the world.

Characters

Animals & Coins has multiple characters for you to choose from. While your choice of character has no bearing on game performance, you may want to collect them just because they match your style better!

You can see a list of characters and how to get them in the game, but I’ll include this list here for good measure:

• Harry the Bear: Available at the start.
• Donna the Deer: Available at the start.
• Kevin the Pig: Unlock island 5.
• Gina the Hippo: Log in for 7 days.
• Danny the Rabbit: Unlock island 9.
• Seth the Crocodile: Complete 6 card sets.
• Ruddy the Moose: Unlock island 25.
• Sarah the Giraffe: Unlock island 80.
• Phil the Elephant: Smash 10 piñatas.
• Rob the…Lemur? Raccoon? Anyway: Complete 20 card sets.
• Roger the Fox: Win 50 tournaments.
• Christy the Chicken: Win 30 races.
• Elvis the Horse: Unlock island 180.
• Edward the Bull: Complete 40 card sets.
• Timmy the Tiger: Invite 15 friends on Facebook.
• Leon the Lion: Log in for 30 days.
• Taylor the Gorilla: Log in for 180 days.

Getting More Gold

Honestly, the “steal gold, build stuff” cycle is the core of the game. However, there are more ways to earn the gold you need to build your kingdom – here’s how you leverage those methods.

Quick Tips:

• You can watch a daily ad for 1 million gold and 10 energy.
• Piñatas can be smashed with bats for prizes. The more piñatas you smash in a day, the tougher they get and the bigger the prizes. Piñatas reset daily.
• If you don’t have enough bats to smash your current piñata, it’s a good idea to save those bats for tomorrow.
• You can collect cards starting from island 5. Completing all the cards of a set allows you to exchange them for a reward. The further along you are in the game, the more card sets become available.
• You can buy card chests with gold or get them as random drops from islands.
• You occasionally gain access to minigames like Jackpot Sammy as you play.
• Always participate in events, if they’re free. They’re a great way to earn bonus resources.

Watch Ads

The most straightforward way to get more gold is to watch an ad.

Once per day, you can watch an ad that yields 1 million gold and 10 energy. It’s not much, but every bit helps. To access this ad, go to the store – the first button on the panel at the bottom of the screen.

Piñatas

Piñatas are unlocked after making some progress in the game (after island 3 if I’m not mistaken). These aren’t just fun party favors – cracking them open yields a ton of juicy rewards, so you’d best unlock them as soon as possible!

Once piñatas have been unlocked, you can also get bats as a random goodie from building bridges. When you have enough bats, go to the piñata screen at tap it to break it open and collect your prize!

Each piñata is sturdier than its predecessor, so keep that in mind. Piñatas also reset daily, so if you don’t have enough bats to break the piñata you have, it may be wiser to save those bats for tomorrow.

Cards

Collecting cards is another activity you can do in Animals & Coins.

Cards become available after unlocking island 5. Once cards are unlocked, you can choose to spend gold to buy card packs in the shop. Cards will also be added to the pool of goodies you can get when getting treasure from an island.

Individual cards don’t do anything – it’s when you complete all the cards in a set that things get good. Once you’ve completed a set by owning every card in it, you’ll be able to redeem a prize for finishing that set.

If you choose to buy cards with gold, there are three chests available in the shop. The more expensive the chest is, the more cards it contains.

Minigames

Occasionally, the devs will release minigames that you can play for some bonus resources. The most prominent among these minigames as of writing is Jackpot Sammy, who occasionally shows up when you build bridges.

We’ll discuss this odious owl in the “Practical Tips and Tricks” section as he’s very good at his job of parting you with your hard-earned gems.

Events

Almost all games have events, and it’s always a good idea to participate in them as they dole out basic resources like candy.

Whenever there’s an event running, take the time to study its mechanics so you can reap the most rewards. Do note that some events have a leaderboard that will likely involve spending to get there – ignore those and just nab the freebies.

Practical Tips and Tricks

Animals & Coins is a casino-type game. With all its shiny gold coins, events, gems, and cute art style, it can be easy to lose yourself to the razzle-dazzle and make some, shall we say, unwise decisions. Here are some practical tips and tricks I’ve discovered while playing the game and collated from the internet.

Quick Tips:

• Spend as much of your gold as you can before logging out. “Liquid” gold is unsafe – the only way to secure your gold for sure is to spend it on things that cannot be stolen.
• In the same vein, don’t claim your piñata rewards until you’re ready to spend them immediately.
• Because card sets are automatically redeemed, don’t buy cards until you’re ready to trigger the bonus. For safety, assume that the next pack you buy will complete your set.
• Don’t always bet high on bridges. Betting high gets you more resources at the cost of resource variety and you’ll need to be very good at the bridge-building game to not waste energy.
• In theory, rolling with lower bets gets you a bigger variety of resources due to more attempts. Do note that this is statistical conjecture on my part – I’m not sure if the game uses different tables based on your bet amount.
• Jackpot Sammy can pay out huge amounts, but the minigame is rigged. The best way to go about it is to reach the tier with no snake, take your winnings from that round, and then quit.
• You can spend gems to continue the Jackpot game, though in my case, I spend gems depending on how much further I am from the no-snake tier (i.e., if you spend gems to get to the no-snake tier, that’s about the same as spending gems to buy something).
• Remember to weigh exactly what you would get against the gem cost when choosing to continue!

Spend Everything

Take a step back and simplify the game to a resource-spending machine and you’ll inevitably conclude that the only way to ensure that you actually keep your gold is by spending it.

Before you log off, make sure you’ve spent as much of your gold as possible, whether that’s on island upgrades, cards, events, or what-have-you. Remember: “liquid” gold (as in “it appears in your gold stash at the top of the screen”) can be stolen by other players while you’re offline. Even shields aren’t a foolproof solution to being mugged as you can fall victim to the board steal minigame. Thus, by spending your gold, you’re putting it somewhere other players can’t reach.

Delayed Gratification

While we’re on the topic of protecting your gold, let’s talk about delaying your rewards.

Stuff like card collections and piñatas give out a large sum of resources like gold but remember that gold unspent is gold lying around waiting for someone else to take it. Thus, it’s best to delay claiming these prizes until you really need them – such as before a big island upgrade or event where you really need the energy.

In the case of cards, hold off on buying packs when you’re about to complete a set. Assume that the next pack you buy will complete your set, then ask yourself, “If I had these resources now, could I spend them before logging off?”. Of course, this won’t always be the case, but it’s best to mitigate damage whenever and wherever we can.

When To Bet Big

We talked about the “Bet increase” button in the basics section, but we didn’t discuss its intricacies.

Increasing your bet multiplier boosts all your winnings from building bridges, whether that’s from picking up coins, attacking someone else with a slingshot, or shaking them down via the board steal game – at the cost of amplifying your energy usage when building bridges.

Because of the massive amount of winnings at stake, it’s easy to overlook the fact that running solely on high bets actually causes a dip in the variety of items you get from building bridges, due to the fact that you burn through your energy stockpile faster. If you’re not good at building bridges either, you’ll be throwing energy into the void every time you miss.

In a nutshell, use high bet levels if:

• You only need a large amount of a few types of resources, especially gold. Because God knows we can never have enough gold.
• You’re very good at the bridge-building game and thus won’t waste 10 energy (or more) overshooting bridges.

On the other hand, use low bet levels if:

• You’re looking for a wide variety of resources – important during events.
• You need more shields to protect yourself while away.
• You’re still getting the hang of the bridge-building game.

Do note that this is based purely on mathematics. In theory, it should work – rolling more times should ideally get you a more random assortment of items – but I will admit that I don’t have the resources to create a larger sample size to thoroughly test this.

Know When to Fold ‘Em

Animals & Coins has a lot of minigames, but none of them illustrates the virtue of knowing when to quit more than Jackpot Sammy.

As we discussed earlier, Jackpot Sammy occasionally crops up as you’re building bridges. He’ll challenge you to a game of three-card monte (technically three-cup monte) – find anything but the snake and you win, get the snake and you lose.

The trouble with this, as with all monte games, is that it’s rigged. The chances of getting the snake are marginally higher starting from (I believe) the 3^rd round, which will entice you to spend gems or watch an ad to keep your winnings and potentially keep going. Some players have suggested that picking the first cup that shakes usually gets you a prize, but this evidence is anecdotal.

Here’s where it gets tricky: Remember, you can only watch ads once to resume your monte minigame. The higher up you are, the better the prizes, but the higher the potential loss and the more expensive it becomes to continue. You could argue that the jackpot is the only use for gems, but it’s important to remember that you must spend your gems wisely.

The ideal strategy for the jackpot for most players is to climb up to the single no-snake tier, take the winnings from that round, then leave. This ensures that you’ll get the most profit without spending gems.

There is, however, a chance that you’ll run into a snake in the early tiers. If that happens, spend your ad continue, then go on. If I must spend gems to continue, I usually measure how long it would take for me to reach the no-snake tier; if I’m still on the lower half, I’ll probably just cut my losses and leave, but if I’m on the third tier, then spending gems is an alright proposition as I’m guaranteed to get something next round. Of course, all this also depends on what exactly I’ve won – paying 200 gems for 1 million gold is an awful deal.

Always remember: there’s a good reason that “the house always wins” is an expression!

Raid, Rest, and Relax

The higher you go, the more obstacles you’ll need to overcome. Islands will cost more and more gold (going into the billions, even) and you’re going to need ever-higher amounts of energy just to keep up. However, remember that this isn’t a race unless you want it to be and that the most important thing about a casual game is that you’re having fun.

That concludes my guide to Animals & Coins, and I hope I was able to help you understand the game’s basics. If you have any tips or tricks that you’d like to share or have any suggestions on how to make this guide better, don’t hesitate to drop us a line in the comments below!