It’s a universally accepted fact that most people find hamsters cute. After all, hamsters are small, round, fuzzy creatures that make adorable pets. Unlike, say, cats or dogs, hamsters can provide companionship to those whose spaces can’t accommodate bigger animals. Because of their charming appearance, it’s also no wonder that hamsters have gained some measure of popularity when it comes to some forms of media like cartoons (Hamtaro, anyone?) or other commercial items like stickers, designs, and, yes, even games.
If you love hamsters or are just generally interested in playing a cute game to chill and pass the time, then Hamster Town is definitely right up your alley!
As you can see from the starting screen alone, you’re going to be treated to an eye-candy of a game that can get you hooked right away. Released by Super Awesome Inc. in October 2019, Hamster Town is a puzzle game that’s also a “hero collector” of sorts. Basically, you get to play puzzles whose main objective is to give candy to a hamster. You can do this by drawing lines and shapes to serve as paths that the candy can roll over to reach the hamster.
As of this writing, there are 36 available chapters that each have 15 stages. You can earn a maximum of 3 stars for each stage (thus bringing the total number of stages to 540, and the total number of stars you can earn to 1,620). You can only unlock the next stage upon completing the previous one. In case you fail to solve the puzzle, you can refresh the stage at no cost or consequence.
As you play through the puzzles, you’ll also be able to collect a variety of hamster friends through a gacha mechanic. You can earn hamsters as random rewards, too, or as rewards for completing certain tasks or an event. You may get 1-star, 2-star or 3-star hamsters depending on your luck, or whether or not you’ve selected the premium gacha or the regular gacha.
When you collect a hamster, you’ll be able to see their accompanying flavor text, which are often funny, quirky, or just heart-meltingly cute. Some hamsters even have costumes, different hairstyles, and might even reference some famous personalities. For instance, Bob (seen on the image below) is clearly an allusion to Bob Ross, an American painter and host of the late ‘80s to early ‘90s television show, The Joy of Painting.
Aside from hamsters, you can also collect “special friends,” which are other cute animals like raccoons, beavers, squirrels, etc. Special friends, like Raccoo from the image below, all have a 3-star rating.
All in all, you can collect 30 1-star hamsters, 30 2-star hamsters, and 45 3-star creatures, 6 of whom are special friends.
But more than just playing the puzzles and collecting animals, Hamster Town also incorporates a very simple home design mechanic where you can unlock and decorate different rooms of a house. Whenever you level up as a player, you’ll be able to unlock more rooms where you can place at least 1 hamster inside, as well as a variety of furniture.
On the side are also some quick mini games where you can interact with your hamsters and earn rewards after.
Though it can seem like there are a lot of things going on in this game, it’s actually rather relaxing and can be a great way to pass the time. The real challenge involves the puzzles—which we’ll be covering in this beginner’s guide for Hamster Town!
As you may have guessed, the puzzles in this game start out easy, but they can really pick your brains down the line. From time to time, you’ll inevitably find yourself in a bit of a pickle, so we’ve prepared this guide to help you solve puzzles and get candies to your hamsters, as well as earn stars, extra rewards, and collect all the hamsters you can without spontaneously combusting from the cuteness overload!
The Pen Is Mightier Than the Finger
We’ve previously mentioned that puzzles in Hamster Town are played by drawing lines to get candies to your hamster. Think of it as something like connecting the dots, but with a twist. Instead of connecting a figure, these lines serve as pathways upon which the candy ball can roll all the way to your hamster.
Often, there are other shapes, often colored light blue, present in the puzzle field that can either help you decide the best way to draw these paths or act as blockades to make the stage even more challenging.
Now there’s actually some physics involved as the candy often drops from a height and gravity would thereafter take its course, letting the candy roll on the pre-existing blue shapes and gaps. In other cases, a candy might remain immobile on top of a shape and the only way you can move it is by drawing a line or figure that will “push” it toward your intended direction. Other times, you might encounter some obstacles like spaces you can’t draw on, falling objects, and the like (more on this later).
Generally speaking, there are tons and tons of variations for the puzzles and there’s really no one-size-fits-all approach. Of course, there’s the “best” way to achieve your goals, but even this can be rather subjective. Basically, everyone can arrive at the same answer, but they can each have a different solution.
While we can’t give an exact formula to win every puzzle, what we do know for sure is that using a stylus for your screen is definitely going to give you a much easier time as opposed to drawing lines with a finger.
As we mentioned, most of the stages start rather easy but, as with every game, progression also means reaching a higher level of difficulty. When you do reach those higher levels, you might find that drawing lines, curves, and different shapes with your finger can be tricky since the result isn’t as accurate as when you use a stylus.
It’s even more challenging when you need to fit lines in a narrow space or make long winding paths. When using your finger to draw, paths have a tendency to get cut off if your gesture doesn’t register.
Then again, you can always just reset the stage if you’ve failed to solve the puzzle as the game doesn’t make you lose any lives or ask you to pay any of the in-game currencies available. But just the same, nobody wants to keep replaying a stage just because drawing lines with their finger can be inaccurate. In this case, we highly recommend getting a stylus so you can have more elbow room to draw as smoothly and accurately as you can.
Different Strokes for Different Folks
Since solving puzzles in Hamster Town basically incorporates a measure of freehand drawing, the phrase “different strokes for different folks” applies—and quite literally, too. Like we said, everyone can arrive at the same answer but have different solutions. In this case, you have the creative freedom to draw paths in what you think is the best way to solve the puzzle.
At the beginning of the game and in some other stages, you will be coached on how to solve certain puzzles. Consider this an informal tutorial mode. The game will ask you to trace a line or a shape that will help you solve the puzzle, thereby giving you a free pass. Pay attention to these lines and shapes because you will be using them repeatedly in succeeding stages. In short, these simple strokes are often the most effective solutions to what may seem like complicated puzzles. Below, we’ve outlined 3 of these basic strokes and included a bonus one that isn’t explicitly shown in the tutorials but is nevertheless often used in many stages. Let’s take a look at each of them:
Lines
Simple straight lines are, of course, the most basic figure you’ll draw in the game. Depending on the puzzle, you’ll likely be drawing a variety of or a combination of slanted lines, horizontal lines, vertical lines, etc. Naturally, straight lines are used to connect one pre-existing blue shape with another, allowing the candy to roll between gaps. Sometimes, straight lines can also block obstacles from interfering with your candy’s path.
Straight lines are quite versatile and you’ll find that for almost any puzzle, a straight line would work wonders in solving your predicament in the simplest yet most effective way, provided you know where to place them. Of course, you can always turn straight lines into a myriad of other figures like boxes and triangles, which you will also encounter quite frequently in the game.
Triangles
Among the many shapes that you can create with straight lines, triangles are perhaps the most common and the most effective for solving almost any puzzle. You don’t necessarily have to draw a complete triangle, just more of an inverted V-shape as this figure can often stand on its own without a base.
Usually, triangles are used as platforms that allow the candy ball to easily roll down to your hamster from a height. This figure is also quite useful when you don’t have pre-existing shapes to propel the candy ball forward. The triangle is basically an all-around figure that doesn’t just provide some needed inertia, but it also serves as a way to block the candy from rolling over a gap.
Curves
Think of curves as the figure representing your finger as this can push the candy ball toward your intended direction. Unlike triangles, curves can’t stand on their own and will simply fall on the ground after being scribbled. However, if you draw them next to a candy ball, the shape and falling motion of a curve can provide just enough force to cause the candy to move.
Of course, you may try drawing other figures to push the candy ball, but curves are by far one of the most effective, especially when there aren’t any other blue shapes present aside from that which the candy ball rests upon. On the other hand, if there are other blue shapes present, curves work best when combined with triangles, provided you’re allowed by the stage to draw multiple figures.
Hooks
Hooks aren’t something that you’d encounter in the tutorial stages, but you’ll find yourself using them more frequently than you’d expect. As its name suggests, a hook is often anchored on one pre-existing blue shape and can serve 2 purposes: one is to provide the candy with a path if there’s a wide gap between the pre-existing shape and the location of your hamster; another is to use it as an alternative to curves, wherein a hook can push the candy ball as it swings forward and uses the end of the figure as a pin.
We recommend using this method as opposed to just drawing curves when the candy ball is situated between a narrow passage created by pre-existing shapes, as seen in the image below.
You can use hooks anytime, provided there’s a shape that you can anchor it on. The anchor doesn’t have to be a circle—it can be any blue shape just as long as you can “hook” the figure onto it.
Again, these are just some of the basic figures you’ll encounter when playing puzzles. Some stages may need more complex figures that don’t fall into any of these basic categories. Don’t feel boxed in by the figures outlined above—you can simply use them as guideposts when attempting to discover the most effective solution to a puzzle.
Size Matters
You might not notice it right away, but there’s actually a green bar and pencils at the top of the screen when you enter a puzzle stage. The number of pencils indicate the number of figures you’re allowed to draw in that particular stage. Sometimes, you might get 1 pencil or have as many as 3 or 4. Any figure will consume 1 pencil once you lift your pen or finger from drawing.
On the other hand, the green bar displays a percentage that determines how well you’re doing to solve the puzzle. The more you draw and the longer your strokes, the bigger the percentage of the bar that gets lost.
The way you affect the green bar changes per stage. For instance, some stages will allow you to draw multiple figures and longer strokes without significantly affecting the green bar.
Other times, just a little scribble shaves off a big chunk. You’ll see that the green bar is divided into 3 segments, which are equivalent to the number of stars you’ll get upon clearing the stage. If you clear a stage and stay within the range of the first segment of the green bar, you get 3 stars.
This rating system can be somewhat arbitrary, but it does give you an idea of the “best” solution to solve the puzzle. Basically, if you notice that small strokes affect the green bar by a lot, you can surmise that the solution to the puzzle is likely a simple one.
If long strokes or multiple strokes don’t affect the green bar as much, then the solution can be a bit more complex. Here, the size of your strokes and figures will matter if you want to complete the stage with 3 stars. Sometimes, it can take one small curve to solve the puzzle or a combination of curves, triangles, and hooks.
Work Around Obstacles
What’s a puzzle without a little bit of spice? In Hamster Town, puzzles in themselves can be challenges, but occasionally, the game will take it up a notch by placing some obstacles you need to work around. For instance, you will encounter stages that won’t allow you to draw figures within the space indicated by a striped orange area.
In the scenario shown above, any figure or path you draw will not register within the space of the striped orange area. Thus, to push the candy ball toward the hamster, you can draw a hook anchored on the small blue circle at the top. Even if the tip of the hook stops at the striped orange box, the hook will swing forward, thus pushing the candy ball.
Another example of an obstacle are falling objects. As you can see from the image below, a falling object may be represented by a big pink circle.
Therefore, your objective in this stage is to keep the pink circle from falling and blocking the candy ball’s path downward. The same goes for the image below, wherein smaller pink circles must be obstructed to keep them from blocking the funnel shape upon which your hamster friend is located.
Just as you can draw a combination of figures to solve the puzzle, you may also encounter a combination of obstacles meant to pick your brains. In the image below, you will see that there’s a falling object in the form of a pink rectangle and a huge strip of space you can’t draw on.
In this case, you don’t just have to work around the obstacle but you can use it to your advantage. By preventing the rectangle from completely falling off screen, you can use it as a blockade that will redirect the candy ball after pushing it from the right side using a small curve.
Obstacles will, of course, test your creativity and resourcefulness. Again, each stage is unique so obstacles and conditions for completion will vary. Generally speaking, work around obstacles and find ways that they can be used to favor your situation.
Think Out of the Box
Since we mentioned being creative and resourceful in tackling puzzles, it’s always a good idea to think out of the box when it comes to finding ways to solve them. Fortunately, there isn’t any time limit in completing stages, so you can consider all your options without being pressured into making hasty decisions. Take as much time as you want planning your moves and analyzing the best way to clear stages. In addition, you can apply the tips we’ve outlined below:
Start from the End
One important thing to remember about solving puzzles is that the stage will become “active” once you finish drawing your first figure. Simply put, gravity will take place, causing the candy ball to roll or obstacles to fall. If you’re given more than 1 pencil, you can continue drawing figures even while candies and obstacles are in motion, but it will be difficult to do so.
That said, it’s best to start from the end and draw figures that will not directly set anything in motion. Let’s take the image below for example:
Instead of drawing the hook first, you can draw a triangle first as this figure won’t push the candy ball forward. This way, when you do draw the hook and move the candy ball, the triangle platform that will keep the candy ball from rolling off the gap is already in place. Similarly, if you have falling objects present, you can start by drawing a figure that will block these obstacles first and set the candy ball into motion later.
Imagine how the ball will move when pushed forward and draw figures based on this movement, keeping in mind the spots and gaps you need to block off first.
Don’t Get Distracted by Other Shapes
Sometimes, you’re going to come across a puzzle field that has a lot of pre-existing blue shapes. However, keep in mind that not all these blue shapes must be taken into account when drawing figures. Some are just there to distract and confuse. In many cases, you only need to take into account the blue shapes that the candy ball can come directly in contact with in its path. Let’s take the image below for example:
As you can see, there are blue triangles scattered all over the puzzle field, but you only have 2 pencils available, meaning you can only draw 2 figures. What about blocking the gaps created by the other triangles?
The thing is, depending on the candy ball’s path of movement, you only really need to pay attention to 3 or 4 blue shapes. Thus, in the solution we’ve presented, we only drew a curved hook to push the candy ball forward and a slanted line hooked on a triangle to keep it from falling off the gap between the last triangle and the flat area upon which your hamster is standing. The rest of the blue triangles are immaterial to the solution so you don’t need to draw anything on them.
Again, imagine the candy ball’s potential path, taking into account gravity and inertia. From there, you can better gauge which figures you need to draw.
Trial and Error
Since there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to puzzles, you’ll inevitably undergo a lot of trial and error. Occasionally, you might solve the puzzle in one go, but more often than not, you’re going to make mistakes no matter how many times you’ve tried to imagine how the candy ball will move.
Going through trial and error isn’t a bad thing entirely since the game doesn’t punish you for replaying a stage you’ve failed to complete. In fact, you even get rewards in the Achievements tab when you fail to clear a number of stages. One example of a puzzle that may necessitate some trial and error is shown on the image below:
Here, it’s obvious that you need to block the 2 small pink circles from falling and impeding your candy ball. However, these small, pink circles are located in different spots and while this can be easily solved by drawing two simple lines to block the gaps they can fall from, you only have 1 pencil available.
Initially, we drew a V-shaped figure to keep the small circles from falling, but the figure ended up falling as well since it wasn’t hooked to anything. You can see the result on the image below:
With the figure itself blocking the candy ball’s path, this is considered a failed attempt. We replayed the level and rectified our solution by drawing a figure hooked on both ends so it won’t fall like the last attempt. The image below shows how our solution looked like:
Notice how we’ve also kept the dipping curve of the figure as far away from the candy ball as possible so it wouldn’t hinder its path. With the small circles successfully blocked, the candy ball was free to roll down to your hamster, and we’re still within the first segment of the green bar. A successful attempt with 3 stars!
That said, treat mistakes and failed attempts as learning experiences that can help you refine solutions. After all, you’ll have a deeper sense of accomplishment when you’ve finally cleared a stage after multiple tries.
Hints Help
We’re not going to lie and say it isn’t frustrating to keep failing or getting stuck in one stage. When you feel like you’ve exhausted all your options but still can’t solve the puzzle, you can always opt to click the Free Hint button symbolized by the lightbulb at the lower right-hand side of the screen.
You can only access this feature when the words “Free Hint” appear on a dialogue box above the light bulb. You’ll be asked to watch an ad and when the ad is over, you’ll be able to see a faint figure on the puzzle field that you can trace. The image below shows you just how the Free Hint feature works:
The Free hint option will appear when the game detects that you’ve been idling for a while, or when you’ve replayed the stage a couple of times. You can ignore or take advantage of the Free Hint button as you please since it won’t really affect any of your resources or your star rating.
Stars Spruce Up Your Home
We’ve mentioned earning 3 stars a couple of times now, but is it really that important? If you want to have a nice house with lots of nice furniture, then it sure is!
Apart from just solving puzzles, you’ll also be given a house for your hamster friends. The more you play puzzles, the more stars you earn and the more rooms you can unlock for the hamster house. Each room or floor has a set number of furniture, which you can buy with the stars you’ve gained. The cost of furniture items vary so more stars mean more furniture.
You don’t have to completely decorate one room with all its available furniture to start sprucing up another. You can choose and place any type of furniture in any available room, provided you have enough stars to purchase them.
While decorating rooms can be fun, keep in mind that this is purely for aesthetic purposes and having a fully furnished room doesn’t give any kind of bonus. However, you will gain a small reward for every fully furnished room as this is part of the achievements you can complete.
You’ll also notice that you can place any hamster you’ve collected in any available room. Again, this will not gain you any bonuses, though it’s fun to place hamsters in rooms that seem to align with their personality and interests. Let’s take cute little Pecan here for example:
As you can see in the description, Pecan loves to take baths, and he even wears a robe and shower cap. When you’ve unlocked the bathroom, you can place Pecan on that specific floor to really match the aesthetic.
Gotta Gacha ‘Em All
Bob and Pecan aren’t the only hamsters you’ll be able to collect—it’s a whole Hamster Town after all!
Getting more hamster friends requires you to play either a premium gacha or a normal gacha. The premium gacha will give you 2-star and 3-star hamsters, while the normal gacha will give you 1-star and 2-star hamsters.
Every day, you will be able to play the premium gacha thrice without spending any gems. Each time you select the free premium gacha, you will have to wait 15 minutes to play it again until you’ve spent all your 3 free passes that day. After 24 hours, you’ll get another 3 free passes.
If you don’t want to wait for 24 hours to play more premium gacha, you can spend 30 gems for 1 try and 300 gems for 10 tries, the latter yielding only 3-star hamsters.
Similarly, you can play the normal gacha for free by watching an ad. You can watch another ad after a 10-minute interval. On the other hand, you can spend 1,500 coins to play another round of normal gacha if you don’t like waiting or watching ads.
Sometimes, the game would be generous enough to offer you a gift box that will yield a 1-star or 2-star hamster.
This can happen at random so checking back into the game from time to time will let you catch this freebie. To claim the hamster in the gift box, you need to watch an ad.
The premium counterpart of this feature can be accessed in the Events tab, which you can find in the upper left-hand corner of the screen. The Events tab is symbolized by a purple gift box and you’ll know there’s a hamster waiting for you if you see a red notification icon on the Events tab.
Accessing an Event will give you 3-star hamsters and while these are still randomly selected, you’ll be able to preview which hamster you’ll be getting. To claim an Event hamster, you need to watch a number of ads, as seen on the image below:
Aside from satisfying completionists, trying to get all the hamsters of Hamster Town will get you bonus rewards. For instance, if you manage to collect all members of Mochi’s family, you’ll be given 1,500 coins and mark them as completed in the Collection tab.
If you want to keep track of the hamsters you’ve already collected, as well as check out their descriptions and stats, you may visit either the Album tab or the Character tab.
Hamsters Work Hard and Play Hard
Speaking of stats, each hamster has a set of stats that you can level up in exchange for coins. However, these stats don’t directly affect your probability of success in solving puzzles. Instead, hamster stats simply help you gain more rewards when you interact with your furry little friends.
After playing a few puzzles or if you let the game idle for a bit, you will notice that yellow speech bubbles will appear on top of the hamsters you’ve placed in the rooms of the house. Each bubble may show a different symbol.
The appearance of these yellow speech bubbles indicate that your hamster wants to interact with you. They may ask you to chat with them, pet them, feed them, or play a minigame with them. Clicking on the yellow speech bubble will allow you to interact with that specific hamster.
With the exception of the chat interaction (symbolized by an ellipsis), you’ll be asked to briefly participate by sliding your finger on the screen to pet the hamster or feed them, or play a quick rock-paper-scissors game with them. Whatever method of interaction a hamster chooses, you will gain a small reward after.
The amount of rewards you get will depend on a hamster’s stats. Leveling up your hamster will naturally increase these rewards. Keep in mind that the more you level up hamsters, the greater the cost. Their star-level also figures into the amount of rewards you can earn from each interaction, as well as the cost of leveling them up.
To get the most rewards, you may want to place 3-star hamsters in each room and continuously level them up. But this is entirely optional since the difference between rewards can be rather small anyway so placing any hamster in any room boils down to your personal preference. The same also applies to special friends if you want to place them in a room as they, too, have stats of their own.
As an aside, you may appoint any hamster or special friend as a “leader.” You can do this anytime by clicking the “leader” button when you view a hamster’s stats from the Character tab.
What this simply does is pick the hamster or special friend that would appear in puzzles. Appointing different leaders does not give any bonuses.
Indulge Your Inner Completionist and Overachiever
Similar to other games, Hamster Town also has daily bonuses, daily missions, and achievements that will also give you some extra cha-ching. Logging into the game every day will let you earn gems, coins, or acorns.
Here’s a quick summary of what these in-game currencies are used for:
- Gems: For playing the premium gacha and for buying coins in the Coin Shop.
- Coins: For playing the normal gacha and leveling up hamster stats.
- Acorns: For buying special friends.
You’ll also be able to get any of these in-game currencies by completing a set of 5 daily missions.
Achievements, on the other hand, are more long-term missions you need to complete to earn these rewards.
We’ve mentioned it before but the good news is that even failing levels can be considered an achievement. In fact, pretty much everything you do in the game can earn you a reward or achievement so keep playing and solving puzzles, interacting with hamsters, collecting more friends, and furnishing the hamster house!
Take a Break with Ads
If you haven’t already guessed, ads in this game can be a bit frequent if you want to gain more rewards, collect hamsters, and the like. Apart from all those we’ve previously discussed throughout the guide, one other advantage of watching ads is that if you clear a stage with just 2 stars, you can actually bring it up to 3 stars if you watch an ad.
Of course, ads are entirely optional and players who would rather replay a stage to get 3 stars can forgo watching ads. Still, the option is available for those who would like to move on to the next stage without having to replay it just to finish it with a max star rating. It’s a win-win scenario if you really think about it.
The same applies to those who would rather spend in-game currencies to play the gacha to obtain more hamster friends. The choice is ultimately yours and the ads are just there if you want to save time and effort in playing the game.
With that, we conclude our beginner’s guide for Hamster Town! Hopefully, we’ve given you enough tips and tricks that can help you solve puzzles, acquire as many rewards as you can, and enjoy your relaxing playtime with tons of adorable furballs! Are there other tips you’d like to share with your fellow hamster enthusiasts? Share them in our comment section below! Now it’s time to brace yourself for a cute little game that will turn your heart into a marshmallow!