If you’ve ever missed the nostalgia of old socially-driven MMOs, Ubisoft’s Growtopia may be just what you need to scratch that itch.
Taking place in a 2D world with basic gameplay reminiscent of other sandboxes like Minecraft or Terraria, Growtopia is a game where players are mostly free to do as they please in the limitless worlds created by both players and developers. Growtopia is available on both the Google Play Store and the App Store.
As Growtopia is more of a social MMO than a traditional “game”, much of the experience comes from the social experience as well as making your own fun. With that said, this guide won’t be so much a “do this, get that” checklist, but rather a list of suggestions to help you find things you might want to do in Growtopia. For those who are staggered by the amount of options Growtopia offers, this guide is for you!
Items and You
No matter what course you decide to follow in Growtopia, you can’t avoid the need for items. These range from the mundane – dirt, lava, stone, to more technologically advanced fare, such as telephones, robots, and so on. Because every gameplay style will fall back on items in one way or another, it’s best to learn how to both produce and harvest your own items so you can save your currency for other more important things.
Harvesting Items
Unlike similar titles such as Minecraft or Terraria, you don’t need any specialized tools in Growtopia – all you really need are your trusty and probably very callused fists!
To harvest anything at all in Growtopia, all you need is to approach it and punch it enough times until it breaks. That’s it! However, note that you must have permission to break a block to harvest it. Essentially, this means that outside of public worlds (where you’d have to be crazy to try to run a farm anyway), much of your breaking and planting will occur in your own World Locked world.
Planting Items
Did I say planting? Yes, I said planting.
Most items in Growtopia drop a seed when destroyed. It doesn’t matter what the item is – dirt, a background item, clothes – these all have a chance to drop a seed. And as I’ve already indicated, you’ll need to plant that seed to get more of the item!
After a while, the seed will grow into a tree that yields the same item type as the seed. Do note that different seeds take different times to mature – the first few items can take a couple minutes at the most, but down the line you’ll have items that can take several days before they can be harvested. Also, if you’re lucky, breaking the tree will not only give you a good harvest, but also drop another seed of itself.
Splicing Items
Crafting in Growtopia is also quite unorthodox. Instead of combining items in your inventory to make new items, you combine seeds to splice them and cause the resulting tree to become the tree of a new item.
To splice a tree, first plant a seed, then plant another seed on the same tile as the first seed. Your character will notify you whether the combination was successful or if the combination you’re trying doesn’t create anything, in which case you won’t lose the second seed.
The Wrench
One thing that the tutorial doesn’t teach you about is the all-powerful wrench.
Where the fist allows you to break, the wrench allows you to modify. This allows you change settings on World Locks, doors, and other editable blocks. To do this, just equip the wrench – any editable items will have wrench icons on them. To edit those items, just tap their wrench icons. You can even wrench yourself by equipping the wrench, then tapping on the wrench icon that appears beside your name!
Note that you cannot equip both the wrench and the fist at the same time in your item hotbar. However, tapping on the fist will turn it into the wrench, and vice-versa.
World Locks and You
Ever played Diablo 2? Path of Exile? In those games, the lack (or lack of purpose) of the in-game currency system has led players to use items as currency. And that’s exactly what I’m getting at: Growtopia uses a similar system, with World Locks serving as the go-to currency. While Growtopia does have gems for its premium currency, those are not tradable, and so the community uses the next most valuable, tradable item.
So what do World Locks actually do? A World Lock binds the current world to the place of the World Lock. That means that when you plop down the lock that’s given to you at the start of the game, that world becomes exclusively yours – only you can edit and control it – at least until you decide to give admin rights to other players or remove your lock. World Locks are also used in several crafting recipes, but those are few and far between.
Apart from this, the Growtopia wiki also lists the following exclusive world functions only available to the World Lock owner:
- Make sheet music invisible or unplayable in the current world
- Change the music’s speed
- Set the world’s category (for rating purposes)
- Insert and remove items from a vending machine
- Toggle whether a world is public or not (public worlds mean anyone can place blocks)
- Set the autokick timer for idle players
- Add or remove locks
- Ban or unban players
Essentially, a world where you’ve placed a World Lock in makes you the administrator of that world, allowing you to claim more worlds for yourself – or sell these World Locks to other players.
There are multiple ways of earning World Locks, and here’s just a few of the ways to get them. Remember though: as a constantly-evolving game, you will need to adapt your farming methods and production to whatever is popular at the time. You’ll also need to account for inflation: Growtopia has been around for a long time so naturally, there will be a lot more World Locks and Diamond Locks in circulation, leading to fluctuating prices.
Earning World Locks Method One: Farms
One of the most reliable ways of earning tradable blocks, gems, and World Locks is by creating a farm. You don’t need anything to start a farm either: a humble dirt farm is a good enough starter.
Farms work by providing their world holders a large, open space in which to continuously plant and harvest items. This way, you’ll earn seeds, items, and on occasion, gems when you break blocks. Farms also feature continuous upward mobility: for example, your humble dirt farm can quickly be upgraded into a grass farm by splicing dirt and rock seeds.
While farming is reliable and profitable, it’s tedious and slow. You’ll not only have to wait for the items to grow, but you’ll also have to spend time breaking each and every block to reap your harvest. And while dirt itself is easy to break, later blocks will have a higher hardness rating, meaning you’ll need to spend even more time breaking each block.
Once you’re done farming, you’ll need to find a buyer. Unfortunately, there’s no indirect way of selling items – you’ll need to go to a trade world and hawk your wares there. To find a trade world, you can either search online for world names where people buy the stuff. Alternately, there are usually worlds labeled as “BUY(Item name)”, without the parentheses, where people congregate to both buy and sell these items.
The best way to go about farming is to first find out what item is in demand. For that information, there’s no shortage of players on forums or on Youtube to help you get your first profitable farm started.
Earning World Locks Method Two: Buying Them with Gems
Gems are Growtopia’s premium currency, and unlike what you might expect, you absolutely can earn them through in-game activities. More importantly, you can trade them for more World Locks at the item store.
I did mention that breaking blocks has a chance of dropping gems, yes? Therefore, creating a block farm also inadvertently creates a gem farm.
The higher the rarity and tier of the blocks you harvest, the bigger the gem payout – if they drop any gems at all. And while you can technically still get gems from punching the dirt and rocks in your own world, don’t expect anything even close to say, 10 gems per drop.
Earning World Locks Method Three: Participating in Player Events
As much of the game’s actual content is dependent on player interactions, some players may decide to hold contests, such as parkour or building contests.
Be on the lookout for player-run events or even passive adventure worlds where you can earn World Locks. As these events are player-run, there’s no surefire way to get into them, so be sure to seize any opportunities you can!
Getting and Spending Gems
As I mentioned earlier, gems are Growtopia’s premium currency, and you can earn them without spending a dime. While I did say you can earn gems through farming them, there are also other ways to earn gems.
BFG Worlds
Some players have what are called BFG worlds, which stands for Break for Gems.
These worlds are configured to allow any and all visitors to break blocks in their world, which will give you gems. This isn’t 100% altruistic though: BFG worlds are often run by players who have a MAGPLANT 5000, a premium item that automatically harvests blocks and plants seeds. BFG players are essentially running a farm, but outsourcing the labor to other players. If you’re only farming for gems, BFG worlds save you the effort of replanting and resplicing trees. Win-win!
While BFG worlds are often free, their owners will often ask you to leave a rating as an entry ticket. However, do note that you have to be at least level 10 and have a GrowID to rate worlds, which means you’ll have to spend your first couple levels toiling away in your world. And before you ask, no, the MAGPLANT 5000 will never be put up for sale again (at least for the foreseeable future) as it was February 2018’s item of the month. You can, however, buy a MAGPLANT 5000 off another player…if you can afford the steep price that a limited item commands.
Spending Your Gems
Now that you’ve got a handful of gems, you’ll need to spend them on stuff to actually make them worth something.
You can open the in-game shop by opening your backpack, then tapping the store button. This will bring you to a market where you can choose from a massive selection of items or services. And yes, if you’ve nothing else to buy, or just want to trade with other players rather than farm gems, you can always just buy World Locks here.
I would, however, highly suggest you have a look at the Growpass. The Growpass is similar to battle passes from other games: by performing certain actions, you’ll gain point towards your Growpass level, and as you increase this level, you’ll gain more rewards.
While this is undoubtedly useful, what you really want to look at is the Item of the Season. This is a special item that’s available for a limited time by subscribing to the Growpass, and is usually the reason people go for the Growpass. The Item of the Season comes in both a regular variant, as well as a niftier Royal variant which you get by leveling your Growpass.
As you may expect, Items of the Season are only available in limited supply. However, if you hit 2100 Growpass points, you’ll not only gain the Royal variant of the current Item of the Season, but also be able to buy the Item of the Season of the previous Growpass season. Other than these, the only method to get expired Items of the Season are to buy it from other players – expect high prices.
Growtokens
You may have noticed the Growtokens category while you were browsing the shop.
Dial 12345 or 53785 on your phone to get these.
Growtokens are special currency that can be earned by completing certain quests or winning contests. These coins are even more valuable than gems in that they both cannot be traded and cannot be reliably farmed for. However, as a new player, you’re not entirely locked out: get a telephone (if I remember correctly, your starting world should have a telephone tree or seed somewhere) and dial either 12345 or 53785 to call Crazy Jim or Sales-Man to get some fairly easy tasks, which you can complete for Growtokens!
The World is Your Oyster
Growtopia’s sandbox nature means that there’s no way to win or lose the game – you’re encouraged to find your own fun with the tools given to you.
With that, my Growtopia guide comes to an end. Hopefully you’ve picked something up as a new Growtopia player. If there’s anything you found on your own and want to share it with other new players, the comment section below is free real estate!