The very first Harvest Moon game that started the franchise was released in 1996 by Pack-In-Video in Japan, by Natsume Inc. in North America a year after, and then by Nintendo in Europe a year after that. This started a franchise that dominated the role-playing farming sim game genre and inevitably inspired titles such as Rune Factory, Stardew Valley, and My Time at Portia to name a few. As years flew by and game trends came and went, the allure of leaving the city to start a new life in a farm still resonates with various players until today.
Harvest Moon: Home Sweet Home is the newest addition to the franchise’s long list of titles. Developed by Appci Inc. and Natsume Inc. then released by Natsume Inc. on August 23, 2024 for Android and iOS, the game has undergone many changes from its first title but still retains the sweet simplicity and relaxing vibe of the original. Many who may have played their previous title, Harvest Moon: The Winds of Anthos, may see similarities to it visually, but the stories it tells and the characters they introduce are completely different.
As a child, you grew up in the countryside in a small village called Alba. Like many other folks searching for greener pastures, your family decided to leave and start anew in the city, leaving behind many dear friends and neighbors. A little over a decade later, you write to your old childhood friend, Justin (if you’re playing as a girl) or Christina (if you’re playing as a guy) and learn about the current state of your hometown.
Your friend had stayed behind all those years, seeing people leaving the village one by one but still had hope that they could one day help restore it to its former glory as they work at the Village Hall with his parents. Whether it’s the desire for something different from the city or the desire to help revitalize a place dear to your heart, you decide to come back to Alba village to start a farm.
Learning about your intentions, your friend and their family enthusiastically helps you get settled in upon your return and even helps you with the necessary paperwork. Other villagers take notice and even went so far as to feature you in their local newspaper! New and familiar faces come into your life and each one of them plays a role in your success at your farm and in rebuilding the small, almost forgotten village of Alba.
However, not all villagers are as accepting and some will take some time to open up. But with the right amount of care, consistency, and effort, they may become your closest friends or maybe even more!
While the game is quite simple and easy to get into, players who are new to the genre or are unfamiliar with the franchise may find themselves confused with certain aspects of the game. And for that, we have created this guide to help fellow players progress without revealing too much so that they may still enjoy discovering secrets and learning different aspects of the game.
But even though this is generally a beginner’s guide for Harvest Moon: Home Sweet Home, we’ve also slipped in a few tips and tricks that can still help long-time players navigate through the challenges the game throws at you!
- Farming
- Raising Animals
- Foraging
- Fishing
- Mining
- Money-Saving
- Other Tips and Tricks
Farming
Focus Quantity Over Quality (At First)
In Harvest Moon: Home Sweet Home, the quality of a crop or flower can be determined by the star icon that appears when you select a planted seed on your field. For this guide, we’ll be referring to this as the Quality Meter. To the right of that icon is the Mutation Meter. This meter determines if a crop has the potential to mutate.
Upon planting a seed and watering it, the Quality Meter will start filling up. As for the Mutation Meter, this will only fill up if the crop planted can mutate during the season you planted it in. There are specific seasons in which a specific crop can or cannot mutate in and these are all discussed in the section: Plant Seeds of Profitable Crops with Mutations in Bulk For Big Returns.
Watering your plants everyday is mandatory and skipping will make it wither. But as you do, a little bit of progress can be observed in their growth, quality and mutation if applicable. The meters will fill up even more if Fertilizer is applied. Like watering, you can apply Fertilizer to your crops everyday.
The possible resulting quality of the crop will depend on how much of the Quality Meter is filled before it is ready to harvest. However, even with all your efforts, there is still a possibility that the crop you produce will not even have a star. Alternatively, a crop that was never Fertilized still has a chance of becoming a starred crop. Filling the Quality Meter simply increases your chances, but will not guarantee them.
So does that mean that you should fertilize all of your crops every single day until harvest to get the best crops? While that may be the most obvious answer to getting star quality crops, it is not something we can recommend because Fertilizer is expensive at 15 G a pop. Applying it to your planted crop may give it a chance to turn into a 1-Star or even 2-Star crop, but as we have said previously, it is not guaranteed. More often than not, you’ll need to apply at least 2 bags of fertilizer to it, and even then there’s still a small chance that the end product won’t have a star. If it does turn into a starred crop, it often does not justify the amount of money you have to spend on Fertilizer.
To explain in more detail, let’s look at Turnips. If sold through the Shipping Bin, a 0-Star Turnip sells for 35 G, a 1-Star sells for 52, a 2-Star sells for 62 G, and a 3 star sells for 97 G. Turnip Seeds cost 15 G and if you add Fertilizer once, which also costs 15 G, you’d have spent 30 G for that one crop. You’d have a profit of 22 G if it becomes a 1-Star Turnip.
However, if it doesn’t, you’ll only have a profit of 5 G. If you decide not to use Fertilizer, you get a profit of 20 G instead. It’s only 2 G lower and you won’t have to deal with the risk of losing profit if it doesn’t become a 1-Star Turnip. In fact, though it is a very small chance, you may actually end up getting a starred Turnip even without Fertilizer, and when that happens, your profit would be 37 G or more.
Because of this, we highly recommend ignoring the Fertilizer sold at the General Store. You won’t need it for a while. Besides, you can get them for free later on once you get the Fertilizer Maker which is discussed in the section: Turn Your Compost into Fertilizer.
However, the best way to really know if a field is in its tip-top form for growing crops and flowers is by using the Soil Conditioner, a machine you’ll only obtain after completing a quest in Chapter 5.
Since most of the features that contribute to better quality crops are either too expensive or unavailable right now, we recommend focusing on simply planting the crops that you need or are appropriate for the situation. Worry about quality later and focus on quantity!
Plant According to Your Goals
When you first start your life at the farm, you’ll find that the seed selection at the General Store is a bit lacking. You’ll be stuck planting Turnips, Onions, Cabbages, Daisies, and Marguerites until you get to Chapter 3. Progressing to that point actually doesn’t take that long (we got to Chapter 3 as early as Day 5 of Spring) but you still wouldn’t want to keep your fields empty until you get more seeds of course. But you may be wondering at this point which crops or flowers you should plant. Aside from planting crops that are needed for the quests and requests, our answer to that question depends on what your goals are.
Plant Seeds of Profitable Crops with Mutations in Bulk For Big Returns
If you are looking to earn big at the start, we highly recommend planting Cabbages. As you can see in the table below, not only are they on the cheaper side of the seed selection, but they also give you the most profit out of the five. Buying 30 Cabbage Seeds will only cost you 450 Coins and the profit you earn from it would be 1,200 Coins if sold through the Shipping Bin or 1,050 Coins if sold through Stores.
| Crop or Flower | Seed Cost | Shipping Bin Price | Shipping Bin Profit | Store Price | Store Profit | Growth Period (Days) |
| Turnip | 8 | 35 | 27 | 31 | 23 | 3 |
| Onion | 15 | 50 | 35 | 45 | 30 | 3 |
| Cabbage | 15 | 55 | 40 | 50 | 35 | 4 |
| Daisy | 20 | 40 | 20 | 36 | 16 | 4 |
| Marguerite | 25 | 50 | 25 | 45 | 20 | 4 |
Other than that, Cabbages can mutate into Pointed Cabbages during the Spring which sells for more than the regular type. What’s great about Mutations is that harvesting them gives you 1 regular crop and 1 mutated crop, giving you twice the amount of goods for 1 seed. That said, aim to grow crops that have Mutations on specific seasons to make the most out of your fields!
Most games in the farming sim category will require you to plant your crops or flowers in the correct season in order for them to grow. Not following this rule will result in a withered crop. In Harvest Moon: Home Sweet Home, the only way your crops will wither is if you don’t water them or don’t pick them up immediately after it is ready to be harvested. All crops or flowers have a signifier that tells you what season they belong to, but they can be planted in any season. However, each crop or flower has specific seasons where they are likely to grow Mutations which are variants of the regular type.
An example of this is how a Pink Daisy would turn into an Aqua Daisy if they are planted during the Summer. Harvesting a mutated crop will give you a regular version and the mutated version, making Mutations very profitable. Unless you look up the list of crops and flowers in the harvest moon fandom wiki for Harvest Moon: Home Sweet Home, there is no way to know which season can create the mutations other than trial-and-error.
The game does, however, clue you in on whether a crop or flower has the potential to mutate through the icon next to the Quality Meter which is the Mutation Meter. Each time a crop is watered or fertilized, this gets filled up just like the Quality Meter, but not as much. If you want a surefire mutation, you’ll need to craft special fertilizers using the Fertilizer Maker to use on those crops in the future.
As for the other seeds in the game, you may need to have a nice notebook or spreadsheet handy to jot down your profits for each crop as the Encyclopedia will only tell you the prices of the crops or items when sold to Stores and not through the Shipping Bin (which sells for more). You may also check this table from the Harvest Moon: Home Sweet Home Facebook Community for player-made tables:
You should also consider checking the Bulletin Board once you reach Chapter 5 as it will tell you what crops are hot in the market. Crops posted here will be sold at a higher price. Because of that, stocking up on a few crops instead of selling them immediately can be a very profitable strategy later down the line. If you don’t have any stock, we recommend planting the crops for next week’s specials instead of the current week’s.
Plant Crops for Your Animals (Until You Can Afford Animal Feed)
Once you’ve unlocked the Barn and start raising animals, you’ll need to set some money aside for their daily Animal Feed. However, 1 bag costs 30 G at Philip’s Animal Store which can be expensive and unprofitable if you compare how many times you need to feed your animals until they produce goods you can sell. Because of this, making your own is recommended at the start. You can do this by using your Feeder to turn Weeds, Grass or Fodder Corn into Animal Feed.
Weeds can grow randomly on unplanted sections of the fields and can be picked up. They can also be obtained by using your Sickle to cut the grass growing all over the village. These grass are not the same as the Grass that you see in the Feeder options. That one has to be planted on your fields using Grass Seeds that cost 8 G at Philip’s Animal Store. These only take 2 days to grow so your fields won’t be stuck growing them for too long. Fodder Corn on the other hand has to be grown on your fields using the seeds from the Victoria’s General Store at the end of Chapter 8 which costs 80 G each.
While it makes sense to continue making your own Animal Feed deep into the game, you also need to take into account the space in your fields and the amount of time it takes from you. Once your animals have high Affinity for you and can produce quality goods, you can simply buy Animal Feed in bulk and direct your energy into planting other crops. The 11th of Summer is the best time to do this since it is when Philip’s Animal Store goes on sale.
Plant Crops That Villagers Like
If profit is not your end goal and you want to instead focus on improving your Affinity with other villagers, you may want to consider planting Daisies and Marguerites. Given to most NPCs in Alba Village, you are likely to see their Affinity Meters progress the same way as when you give them random Mushrooms or Stones.
However, there are two NPCs who will greatly appreciate them and will increase their Affinity for you a lot faster: Victoria and Braden. Victoria loves her Daisies and Braden loves his Marguerites. While the game does have an Affinity Limit for each chapter, being able to max out a few in a short span of time will give you more time to focus on boosting the Affinity of other villagers as well as work on other tasks that need your attention.
This tip can also apply to future seeds that will become available to you as you progress through the game. Each villager has 3 crops, objects or food that they like which are revealed as your Affinity with them levels up. Once the seeds for the crops they like become available, snag them and plant them! This will also help you win the heart of your favorite bachelor or bachelorette!
Don’t forget that you’ll be able to buy recipes from Hugo at Chapter 5. At that point, you may also want to consider planting crops that are needed to cook these scrumptious meals to gain the favor of the villagers of Alba!
Plant Crops for Stamina
Let’s face it: 4 hearts isn’t enough Stamina to accomplish all of your tasks for the day. Thankfully, there are Mushrooms, Bamboo Shoots, Bananas and Coconuts that you can forage all over the village at the start of your game. Unfortunately, they aren’t particularly filling, only recovering a tiny portion of a heart for your Stamina.
Crops you plant on your farm on the other hand can recover half a heart. Comparing the prices of the initially available seeds at the General Store, Turnips would be the best crop to plant as it only cost 8 Gold each to buy. Take note that no matter how many stars it has, it will always only recover half a heart so you’re better off keeping the lowest quality crops and selling the higher quality ones.
However, once you’ve unlocked the Barn, obtained a Cow, and unlocked a wider selection of seeds, you’ll want to start planting crops that you can use as ingredients for cooking. Inside your house is a kitchenette or Cooking Space next to your Refrigerator. Here, you can cook a dish by following a recipe. Unlike other Harvest Moon games where experimentation can lead to new recipes, this title requires you to buy them from the Piémont restaurant once you complete the main quest in Chapter 4.
At the start, the only dish you can cook is a Stew. This dish requires 2 Carrots, 2 Potatoes, and 1 Milk. An adult Cow gives 1 Milk every 3 days as long as you feed it and take care of it. Carrot Seeds cost 24 Gold and take 3 days to grow before you can harvest. Potato Seeds on the other hand costs 20 Gold and takes 6 days to grow before you can harvest. But despite the long growth period, Potatoes can actually be harvested again after 2 days, giving you double the amount of crops. It becomes even more profitable if you manage to mutate your Potatoes.
While there are many benefits to planting Potatoes, we do recommend planting Broccoli Seeds first, and lots of them. All ingredients in a dish can be substituted for something else by tapping the button at the upper right part of the icon of the ingredient. Broccoli is one of the crops that you can substitute for Potatoes. While Broccoli is a little more expensive at 32 Gold per seed, it only takes 4 days to grow and is also an essential crop for a couple of the early requests and a main quest in the game.
If you want to know more about recipes that provide a good amount of stamina but don’t need too many complex ingredients, check the section: Buy The Simplest Recipes for Stamina.
Plant Crops you Haven’t Planted Yet
If you’re a completionist at heart, then perhaps you should take 6 of each seed! Getting at least one of each crop and flower from the first seed selection would allow you to immediately unlock information about your crops. Harvesting or obtaining a new crop, flower or object for the first time will add them to the game’s Encyclopedia where you can learn more information about them.
When it comes to crops and flowers, it can tell you how much Stamina you recover when eating raw, which seasons they belong to, how many days it takes to grow them, how much they can be sold for to shops, how many times you’ve harvested them, their mutations, and if they’ve become a local specialty.
While not all of this information may be useful for you at the start, it will be later down the line. Having a variety of crops and flowers at the start will also allow you to stock up on them so that you can quickly fulfill requests that villagers may have for you. Like the other tips, this can also be applied to seeds you’ll discover later in the game.
Don’t Plant Crops for Special Fertilizer Unless You Really Need to
Upon reaching Chapter 6, Andy will offer you a quest to upgrade your Fertilizer Maker. Once you’ve completed it, you’ll now be able to make your own special Fertilizer and Compost. Making 1 bag of either Spring or Summer Fertilizer requires 5 Fertilizer, and 5 of 2 types of flowers. While the idea of being able to boost the Mutation Meters of certain seasonal crops sound amazing, the cost for it is too high and is not really worth the effort. Only do this if there is an important quest, and not a request, that requires it.
Turn Your Compost into Fertilizer
Once you’ve unlocked the Barn and obtained your first animal, you’ll have access to Compost. Compost is basically your barn animals’ poop which they produce once a day. The more animals you have in your barn, the more Compost they produce. They can be collected with your Pitchfork and can be applied to your crops just like Fertilizer.
However, we do not recommend using them this way because once you’re able to get the quest for the Fertilizer Maker from Andy and have him install it on your farm, you can turn your Compost into Fertilizer. Fertilizers are much more effective in filling up the Quality Meter of a crop or flower. And as we have said in the previous section, the Fertilizer Maker can also create a Special Fertilizer for encouraging Mutations which also requires Fertilizer. However, we do not recommend using this too often as it is too costly to create.
In our opinion, it is actually much more beneficial to use the Fertilizer you create from Compost to make processed Compost for enriching the soil of your field with the Soil Conditioner which is unlocked at Chapter 5. This will be further discussed in the next section.
Apply Field Rotation to Improve Quality Even Without Fertilizer
Fertilizer can be a costly expense if you use it on your crops all the time, especially if you do it everyday. It may be more viable if you have a barn full of animals as a steady source of compost. However, Fertilizer isn’t the only thing that can improve your crops’ quality.
If you have the habit of talking to every NPC you meet, you may have talked to Willem at the Village Hall. He’ll talk about how important it is to let your fields rest after harvesting before you plant new seeds on them to keep your crops in good quality. This is an alternative method to improving the quality of your crops passively even when all you do is water them. We have tested this ourselves and have noticed that the starting progress of the Quality Meter is lower for crops that are planted immediately after harvest.
This method, which is called Field Rotation, can only be applied after you obtain the first farm field expansion after completing the Chapter 3 main quest. However, it’s the most effective at the second farm field expansion you can obtain at Chapter 5 since it also unlocks the Soil Conditioner.
So how does Field Rotation work and how can you apply it to your fields? The soil of your fields has its own quality metric but it is not shown as a meter like your crops. This can actually only be seen in the form of sad or happy faces that appear when using the Soil Conditioner. The red, excited face is the soil at its best quality. The blue, sad face is the soil at its worst quality. When left alone without planting anything on it for a significant amount of time, the soil will regain its nutrients and improve in quality. While Weeds or Rocks may grow or appear, the soil will continue to recover, even if you don’t make any effort to clear it up.
Since you can’t really tell what the quality of the soil would be at the start of your farming journey and at your first expansion, we’ve listed down the natural progression of soil regeneration in 15 days in the table below. Day 0 is the day of harvest and Day 15 is the day of its best quality.
| Icon | Quality | Day |
 | Terrible | 0-2 |
 | Poor | 9-Mar |
 | Good | 14-Oct |
 | Excellent | 15 |
10 to 15 days after a harvest is the ideal time to start planting seeds on your field again. But if you use processed Compost Lv. 1 or Lv. 2 on them using your Soil Conditioner, you can get to that quality in about 3 days.
There are different strategies you can apply in regards to Field Rotations depending on your farm field’s current expansion:
First Farm Field Expansion
With just 3 fields, you can realistically have 1 or 2 fields going at a time if you leave fields empty for 10-15 days at a time to follow the Field Rotation strategy. In our playthrough, what we found to be quite effective is to have one field be constantly active for planting Grass and crops that do not need to be high quality while I use the other two fields for my best quality crops.
Second Farm Field Expansion
With 8 fields available to you, you have a lot more freedom to plant many crops while still keeping a few fields empty. At this point of the game, getting Sprinklers or the Master Watering Can is a must to keep you from spending too much time on the fields. Having a plot of land for just Grass or low quality crops can still be something you can do but no longer necessary since you have plenty of fields now and it’s probably better to just buy Animal Feed at this point to save on time and Stamina.
Take Advantage of Repeated Actions
Whenever you plant seeds or apply Fertilizer, you lose a bit of Stamina. With the Repeated Actions feature introduced by the end of Chapter 3, you can now tap and drag up to 3 squares to make your character plant seeds or apply Fertilizer consecutively. Doing this decreases your Stamina only once while you apply those 2-3 actions. In future chapters, you’ll be able to do even more than that. This is especially useful when using your Hoe or Watering Can.
However, you’ll only unlock repeating actions for those two tools once you obtain the Expert Hoe and Expert Watering Can which was discussed in the previous section. While squares that are selected are usually adjacent to each other for repeated actions, you can also have squares in between that aren’t selected (eg. when using a Hoe over a field where some squares are already tilled.)
You can also do repeated actions with an Expert Hammer, to make it easier for you to find the correct spot in the mine without losing too much stamina. However, this can be a bit risky as you might find yourself stepping on top of a cracked tile which can not only bring you to a lower level in the mines but also lowers your Stamina.
Raising Animals
Don’t Starve Your Animals
Animals you own need to be fed once a day to keep them healthy, happy, and capable of producing goods. If you miss one or two days of feeding, they may lower their Affinity towards you or even affect the goods they produce. However, if you forget or refuse to feed them for more than 4 days, they will start getting sick and you’ll need to give them Animal Medicine to cure their illness. They can be bought from Philip’s Animal Store for 700 G. However, if you continue to not feed them or cure their illness, your animal can pass away around 9 days later.
Do Extra Actions to Increase Animal Affinity
Aside from feeding your animals, petting them and brushing them, there are other extra actions you can take to make them feel well loved and increase their Affinity for you:
Feed Them Their Favorite Treats
If you look at the animal journal by the barn door, you’ll see that they have a list of liked items just like villagers. Giving these to your animals will satisfy their hunger and will be considered a substitute for Animal Feed. However, if you feed them first then give them their treat, they will still accept it and it will boost their Affinity. Take note that you can only give them treats once a day.
Pick Up Chickens
After petting Chickens, you can tap them again to carry them to boost their Affinity for you one more time. You can put them down right after you get the boost.
Ride Horses
After brushing your Horse, bring them out to graze then ride them. Riding them for a few seconds will immediately boost their Affinity.
Let Out Your Animals to Graze
The game advises players to let animals out to graze but we haven’t fully confirmed what this does. However, we have heard players say that they could obtain 3 Star products even without brushing their animals just by letting them graze.
Don’t Buy the Horse for Traveling Purposes
In many farming sim games, horses are raised for the purpose of getting from one place to another all over the village. However, in Harvest Moon: Home Sweet Home, horses can only run around within your Barn’s grazing area. If you try to leave through the gate, your character will dismount.
If you can’t ride your horse in the village, what are they for? They are a requirement for taking part in the Equestrian Challenge, a festival you can unlock as early as Chapter 4 after obtaining the quest for it from Willis. If you are not at all interested in this festival, you can simply ignore the quest and not buy a horse. Horses are an additional mouth to feed and won’t really produce anything that you can sell.
Foraging
Only Chop the Trunk of Fruitless Trees
When chopping trees, make sure to only chop the top part of the tree and not the stump. Chopping the stump does give you some extra wood, but it’s not worth the energy you expend when you do. It gives you less wood for the same amount of Stamina and it takes a lot longer for the tree to regrow.
A tree that had its trunk chopped down will take 4 days to regrow while a tree that also had its stump chopped down will take 6 days to regrow. You’re better off chopping the trunks of other trees and coming back a few days later to get more. And as much as possible, do not chop down fruit-bearing trees! They can grow back and produce fruits again, but it will take a while before you can get their fruits again.
Harvest Fruit-Bearing Trees Every 7 Days
Fruit-bearing trees are considered foraged goods and have the unique quality of holding up to 3 fruits at a time. After harvesting its fruits, it will start bearing them again after 2 days. 2 more days after that, another fruit will sprout from it. 2 more days and it will have another one, maxing it out at 3 fruits. It cannot produce more fruit until you harvest it.
The ideal way to harvest them is by picking its fruits only after they’ve accumulated 3 of them in order to save on time and Stamina. Visit the Banana and Coconut Trees at the beach as well as the Orange, Peach and Apple Trees at the orchard every 7 days for efficient fruit-picking!
Learn the Foraging Spots Per Season
For each season, the foraging spots do not change. What does change are the goods that spring from it. Below we have provided maps for some spots we’ve found and what you can obtain from them per season.
Spring
| Forage | Growth Period (Days) |
| Bamboo Shoot | 2 |
| Mushroom | 2 |
| Morel Mushroom | 3 |
| Jumbo Mushroom | 6 |
| Clam | 2 |
| Geoduck | 2 |
| Egg Cockle | 2 |
| Coconut | 7 (3 fruits) |
| Banana | 7 (3 fruits) |
| Apple | 7 (3 fruits) |
| Peach | 7 (3 fruits) |
| Orange | 7 (3 fruits) |
Summer
| Forage | Growth Period (Days) |
| Timber Bamboo Shoot | 2 |
| Mushroom | 2 |
| Morel Mushroom | 3 |
| Porcini Mushroom | 3 |
| Razor Clam | 2 |
| Yesso Scallop | 4 |
| Egg Cockle | 2 |
| Coconut | 7 (3 fruits) |
| Banana | 7 (3 fruits) |
| Apple | 7 (3 fruits) |
| Peach | 7 (3 fruits) |
| Orange | 7 (3 fruits) |
Fall
| Forage | Growth Period (Days) |
| Matsutake Mushroom | 4 |
| Porcini Mushroom | 3 |
| Shiitake Mushroom | 2 |
| Timber Bamboo Shoot | 2 |
| Clam | 2 |
| Ark Clam | 2 |
| Surf Clam | 4 |
| Coconut | 7 (3 fruits) |
| Banana | 7 (3 fruits) |
| Apple | 7 (3 fruits) |
| Peach | 7 (3 fruits) |
| Orange | 7 (3 fruits) |
Winter
| Forage | Growth Period (Days) |
| Bamboo Shoot | 2 |
| Curved Bamboo Shoot | 3 |
| White Mushroom | 4 |
| Razor Clam | 2 |
| Geoduck | 2 |
| Surf Clam | 4 |
| Coconut | 7 (3 fruits) |
| Banana | 7 (3 fruits) |
| Apple | 7 (3 fruits) |
| Peach | 7 (3 fruits) |
| Orange | 7 (3 fruits) |
Fishing
You Don’t Need Bait to Fish
Once you get your Fishing Pole, you’re all set to start fishing! There is no need to buy bait from the store. You can fish any time in any of the fishing spots with no bait and just your trusty Fishing Pole on hand. As long as you throw your bobber in front of the fish silhouettes, one of them is sure to bite. Fishing Bait will make all of the fish in the spot pay attention to your bobber, but sometimes it will attract fish that you don’t want to attract. If you want to up your fishing game, it’s better to just invest in getting an upgraded Fishing Pole. However, when it comes to participating in fishing contests, Fishing Bait may be a great aid to secure that win!
Try Changing Positions When Fishing
Once a fish gets hooked by your line, it sometimes takes a bit of time for you to reel them in. During that period, there’s a chance for your fish to force its way off of your line. To avoid that, you’ll want to try fishing at different positions around the fishing spot. Some spots have lesser reel time depending on the position of the fish silhouettes. In our playthrough, we actually discovered spots in Calabash Pond, which is shown in the image above, that made reeling in a fish a walk in the park. Upon getting a bite, it would only take a second to reel in, and sometimes even instantly.
Fish in Different Seasons
Sometimes, even when you fish as much as you can, in every fishing spot available, it’s just not possible to get the type of fish you really need. But that’s simply because some fish that appear in those fishing spots are seasonal and will only appear in specific seasons.
Explore the Mine for More Fishing Spots
When you open up your map, you’ll immediately see all of the fishing spots Alba Village has to offer. But these aren’t all of the fishing spots available in the game. Once you unlock the mines at Chapter 5, you’ll find more fishing spots on every 5th level. If there are certain fishes that you can’t find in Alba Village, they are most likely in the mine!
Mining
Make Preparations Before Going to the Mines
Unlike other activities in the game, going to the mines can be a bit of a trek. You’ll spend a good chunk of time just walking there, and another chunk looking for the ores you need. So before you go hammering the ground in that cave, you should take a few minutes to prepare a couple of things:
Meet Looming Deadlines
This one isn’t as important as the others, but if you have an active request that you are determined to accomplish, make sure that your mining day isn’t on the same day as the deadline. If it is, finish that request first, ideally the day before!
Prepare or Cook Food the day Before
Having food on hand as you descend into the mines is important as you will be using up a lot of Stamina whacking some rocks and ores. You may also encounter falling rocks or cracked tiles which can cause your character to fall to the ground beneath, lowering your Stamina. You’ll want to make sure that your Stamina stays above 1 Heart to avoid getting knocked out. Once you’ve been knocked out, the day automatically ends and you’ll wake up the next day in your home.
Buy Hammer Upgrades
If there is an available Hammer upgrade from Andy’s Carpentry Shop, we urge players to purchase it first before entering the mines. This will make mining a lot more efficient and help you break rocks and ore clusters with less difficulty and less Stamina spent.
Feed Your Animals
Your animals need to be fed everyday to stay healthy and be able to produce the best goods possible. If you can’t be bothered to give them brushing or pats, at least make sure they have food in their feed boxes. If you have pregnant or sick animals, remember that you’ll need to manually give them their food!
Water Your Crops
Watering crops cannot be skipped. Skipping can cause it to wither and die. Make sure that you’ve watered them before leaving for some ore-mining. If you want to make the most out of your mining days, mine during a rainy day so you won’t have to water them!
Empty Your Bags of What You Don’t Need
If you have any seeds, fertilizer, flowers or other items, make sure to leave them in your storage to make space for the ores and stones you’ll dig up!
Aim to Reach the 5th Floor Intervals Before Leaving the Mines
For every 5th floor you reach down in the mines, the game will record it and give you the option to start on the level after that. For example, if you left the mines at the 10th floor, you now have the option to start mining at the 11th floor.
Money-Saving
Save Money and Buy in Bulk During Sales
Every now and then, stores in Alba Village will hold a sale. Before they do, they will send you a notice for it 3 days before the sale happens. Make sure to harvest those crops, forage some goods, collect your animal products and send them to the Shipping Bin so you’ll have enough money to buy what you need. Make the most out of these sales for they don’t happen very often. Below are a few sales dates we managed to get in our playthrough:
| Date | Sale | Store |
| Spring 11 | 30% off | Victoria’s General Store |
| Summer 11 | 30% off | Philip’s Animal Store |
| Fall 12 | 15% off | Victoria’s General Store |
| Fall 17 | 30% off | Hugo’s Restaurant / Piemont |
Don’t Buy Too Many Animals
When it comes to your barn animals, we recommend buying at least one of each. If you can handle the workload, get two of each. However, we cannot recommend getting more than this because taking care of animals is extremely tedious and time consuming. You need to brush or pet them, feed them, and clean their poop. You also need to take them out to graze and make sure they always have food. If this is your favorite activity in the game, by all means, get as many as you can. But if you prefer to focus on other aspects of your farm life, then only get the amount you can realistically take care of.
In older Harvest Moon titles, you can sell any animals you don’t need anymore. For some people, this was a strategy to earn extra cash. However, for this title, this is not possible. If you want to get rid of an animal, you can only let them go through the Animal Journal at the right side of the Barn’s door. So think before you add another furry friend to your family!
However, if you really are dead set on getting more animals than one of each type, then you may be stuck with the decision between buying a baby animal from Philip’s Animal Store and buying a Miracle Potion to make your animal pregnant. With Chickens, as long as you have the second Barn expansion, you’ll be able to get more of them by incubating their eggs. But with Cows, Jersey Cows, Sheep, and Black Nose Sheep, it all comes down to the matter of cost and convenience.
If you want to save money, buying the Miracle Potion at 1,000 G may be the more suitable option. The downside to this is the fact that your pregnant animal will not be able to produce any Milk or Wool while they are expecting and you’ll have to manually give them Animal Feed since they cannot get up and go to their Feeder Boxes. Once they give birth though, they will immediately start producing goods once more. You’ll have to wait a bit more before the baby animal grows up and starts producing its own product though.
If you want the more convenient option, you can just buy the baby animal from Philip’s Animal Store. It’s a lot more expensive, but the waiting period for turning the baby animal into a milk-producing or wool-producing adult is much shorter.
Overall, we believe that the best option is to buy the Cows, Jersey Cows, Sheep, and Black Nose Sheep from the Animal Store and incubate the eggs for more Chickens and Araucana Chickens.
Prioritize Buying Tools and Their Upgrades
Tools and their upgrades are the most important purchases you’ll ever make in the game. The first tools you’ll have in your arsenal are the Hoe and the Watering Can. In Chapter 3, the Axe and the Hammer will be sold for 300 Gold each, and the Fishing Rod for 800 Gold at the General Store.
The Axe and the Hammer is a must buy as soon as it’s available while the Fishing Rod is best bought during a sale in Spring 11. This is because gathering Wood and Stone is essential for most quests in Chapter 3 and it’s better to start gathering them early. On the other hand, the Fishing Rod is not really essential to the story yet and while fishing will give you some extra cash, villagers won’t really request for fish just yet.
Once the expert versions of your tools become available at the Craft Store, prepare the necessary materials (Square Lumber and Material Stone) along with the Gold Cost to buy them. You may think that you’ll save a lot of money if you hold off on buying them, but investing in these upgrades can actually make you more money since it reduces the amount of Stamina you spend in doing tasks. The table below shows you what you need to know about the first upgrades for your tools and we’ve arranged them according to priority:
| Tool Upgrade | Required Materials | Cost | Effects | Chapter Introduced |
| Expert Hoe | 1 Hand-Made Hoe | 1,000 Gold | Use with up to 3 Repeated Actions | Chapter 3 |
| 5 Square Lumber | ||||
| 5 Material Stone | ||||
| Expert Watering Can | 1 Hand-Made Watering Can | 1,000 Gold | Use with up to 3 Repeated Actions | Chapter 3 |
| 5 Square Lumber | ||||
| 5 Material Stone | ||||
| Expert Axe | 1 Old Axe | 1,500 Gold | Able to chop trees at half the amount of swings and able to chop Palm Trees | Chapter 4 |
| 10 Square Lumber | ||||
| 5 Material Stone | ||||
| Expert Hammer | 1 Old Hammer | 1,500 Gold | Able to hammer rocks at half the amount of swings and able to hammer bigger rocks and ores | Chapter 4 |
| 10 Square Lumber | ||||
| 5 Material Stone | ||||
| Expert Fishing Rod | 1 Old Fishing Rod | 2,000 Gold | Lose less strength when fishing and better chance to fish out large fish because of increased durability | Chapter 4 |
| 10 Square Lumber | ||||
| 5 Material Stone |
Buy The Simplest Recipes for Stamina
Once you complete Chapter 4, Hugo’s Restaurant will start selling food and recipes. Food tends to be really expensive to buy so making it yourself is the most cost efficient way to obtain them. The recipes themselves can be a bit pricey, ranging from 800 G to 1,500 G but at least you’ll have them forever. The ingredients can also be a bit tricky to obtain, especially if some of them require Milk that your Cows can only produce every few days. So below we have listed down our must-have recipes that can be obtained from Chapter 4 to 6 that do not require too much to make but can recover a good amount of Stamina:
| Dish | Ingredients | Recipe Cost | Stamina Recovered (0 Stars) |
| Fried Egg | 1 Egg | 1,000 G | 1 Heart |
| Tomato Juice | 1 Tomato | 1,500 G | 1 Heart |
| Veggies au Gratin | 1 Broccoli | 800 G | 2.5 Hearts |
| 1 Potato | |||
| 1 Wheat | |||
| Baguette | 2 Wheat | 1,000 G | 2.5 Hearts |
| Gazpacho | 1 Tomato | 1,000 G | 3.5 Hearts |
| 1 Onion | |||
| 1 Baguette | |||
| Small Grilled Fish | 1 Crucian Carp | 1,000 G | 2.5 Hearts |
| Grilled fish | 1 Walleye | 1,200 G | 2.5 Hearts |
| Jumbo Grilled Fish | 1 Dorado | 1,500 G | 4 Hearts |
| Stargazy Pie | 2 Sardine | 1,000 G | 8 Hearts |
| 2 Sardine | |||
| 1 Wheat |
For a few of these recipes, ingredients like vegetables and fish can be swapped for a different vegetable or fish. Wheat and Eggs on the other hand cannot be exchanged for something else.
Store Extras in Your Refrigerator and Storage
Every player feels excited after every harvest day, fishing activity, foraging trip or mining expedition since a good payday is to be expected the next day after depositing their spoils in the Shipping Bin. However, before you send all of those off, we recommend storing a few of your goods for later use, ideally at least 10 of each type. This also counts for Wood, Stone, and Ore, though having more than 10 of these materials are better. If you’re faced with a choice between which quality to keep, we personally prefer keeping the ones at 0 stars or 3 stars. There are many benefits to this:
Quickly Accomplishes Quests and Requests
Most of the Quests or Requests call for materials, foraged items, crops, or dishes so having them stocked will quickly take care of those. Materials and Foraged items are the easiest to collect except for certain ones that are scarce or take a while to grow like Palm Wood or Jumbo Mushrooms. Crops on the other hand can always be grown in bulk, but it will take time for a few of them to grow and be ready for harvest. Dishes on the other hand can be easy to make as long as you have a stock of crops and foraged goods.
Opportunities for Higher Sales
Selling through the Shipping Bin and directly to Stores isn’t the only way to make money, and having a stock of goods handy is essential to make the most out of the Unmanned Store and the Bulletin Board.
The Unmanned Store
In Chapter 4, you’ll unlock a quest to make an Unmanned Store from Olivia which requires 10 Board Lumber, 10 Material Stone and 10 Tulips. This stall features a specific theme or category for goods that villagers are looking for. You can submit up to 3 types of crops, foraged goods or materials of any quantity to display at the stall from 6:00 AM to 3:00 PM. If you place items that fit the theme, those items will be sold at a much higher price than selling to Stores or through the Shipping Bin. However, if you place items that don’t fit the theme, those items will not be returned to you and instead will be sold for 1 G each.
The theme for the Unmanned Store changes every week and every time you use it to display goods to sell. A good strategy is to display 1 Weed during days where the store has a theme or category that’s difficult to meet. This way, the Weed is sold for 1 G, which is its regular price anyway, and the store’s theme is changed the next day. You can also place Stone or Wood instead since they don’t cost as much either.
The Bulletin Board
In Chapter 5, Willis will tell you about how they started tracking the global popularity of goods and will now display products that are in high demand on the Bulletin Board in front of the Village Hall. Products featured here will be sold at a higher price when sold through the Shipping Bin or the Store. Between the two though, selling through the Shipping Bin is much more profitable.
Ease in Cooking
Cooking is made more simpler when all the necessary ingredients are ready for you to use. And if they’re not, if you have a nice variety of goods stocked, you’ll most likely have something that you can substitute for your missing ingredient. While dishes are generally less profitable to sell than raw goods, they are sometimes requested by villagers in exchange for seeds or other goods, some of which are not even available at the store.
Only Accept Possible or Beneficial Requests
Every now and then while interacting with villagers, they’ll ask you to provide them with certain goods in exchange for other goods or seeds. Taking requests is a great way to obtain items and seeds that aren’t available anywhere else. It also helps boost Happiness which is essential to progressing the story. However, some requests can also seem a little bit unfair (eg. Fletcher asking for Wheat that you have to plant in exchange for Apples that don’t sell for much).
In those cases, it’s usually better to turn down a request, especially since the main benefit you can obtain from requests is Happiness and access to hard-to-get items. If your Happiness Bottle is close to getting filled and the object they offer isn’t something you’re interested in or can sell for a good profit, you won’t benefit from the exchange.
We also warn against accepting a request that you cannot fulfill (eg. Jonathan asking for Sheep Wool when you don’t have Sheep). Most requests also have time limits so you’ll need to pay attention to their deadlines, otherwise the request will disappear from your list without warning.
But before you start stressing about which requests you should accept or not, never worry about upsetting a villager. Whether you refuse a request or miss the deadline for it, those villagers will never lose their Affinity towards you. There are no negative repercussions over a refused or an unsuccessful request aside from the quest repeating only after a certain amount of time has passed.
Other Tips and Tricks
Don’t Delete Your Game to Keep Your Save
The most important thing we think each player should know is the fact that Harvest Moon: Home Sweet Home saves your game locally. This means that your progress isn’t saved online and will be deleted if you remove your game from your device.
Change Your Movement to Relative Pad Mode
The default movement mode for the game is “Follow Movement Mode” where your character will move according to the spot you tap. In the settings, this can be changed to “Relative Pad Mode.” In this mode, you can drag your finger on the screen to direct your character to where you want them to go the way you use a joystick.
What’s great about this mode is you can move them in that way and still be able to direct them by tapping a spot on the screen. This movement mode is basically the best of both worlds and has actually made it easier for us to navigate. You won’t have to deal with the annoying moments where you automatically dig a spot in the middle of your field when you only wanted to walk there, and you’ll have an easier time avoiding falling rocks in the mines.
Use Auto-Run to Travel
When you open up your map, you can tap an NPC, a building, or a spot on the map then tap the green button with an arrow pointing towards a circle at the lower right part of the screen. This will command your character to run towards that location by themselves. This way, you won’t have to keep tapping or dragging to a certain direction until you get to your destination. Take note that this only works if you’re outdoors!
Be Mindful of Store Schedules
Each store at Alba Village has their own schedule and knowing them will save you the trouble of walking all the way from home just to be told to come back another day.
| Store | Hours | Closed |
| Andy’s Carpenter / Penelope’s Tailor Shop | 8:00 AM - 6:00 PM | Thursdays |
| Hugo’s Restaurant | 12:00 PM - 7:00 PM | Wednesdays |
| Philips’s Animal Store | 8:00 AM - 3:00 PM | Sundays |
| Traveling Merchant / Vendor | ??? | Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays |
| Victoria’s General Store | 8:00 AM - 5:00 PM | Fridays |
| Unnamed Shop | 6:00 AM - 3:00 PM | Everyday |
Improve Your Relationship With Villagers
Your relationship with the villagers of Alba play a big part in the progression of the main story quests. Oftentimes your childhood friend from the Village Hall will tell you to investigate a specific problem but in actuality, the game is also telling you to boost your Affinity with them. Your Affinity or relationship with a villager, and even with animals, are measured by yellow musical notes. For villagers, you’ll see them to the right of their name whenever you talk to them.
Increasing Affinity can be done by talking to the villager or giving them gifts. The increase only occurs once after the first time you talk to them and once after giving them a gift. While you can continue to talk to them after the Affinity boost, you cannot continue to give them additional gifts. Greetings and giving them gifts on their birthdays don’t seem to have a big difference in our experience but it’s still a nice thing to do.
Not all of them will acknowledge that it’s their birthday but some still do. If you want a bigger Affinity Boost, make sure to check the Friends tab in the menu to see what kind of gifts they like. Villagers in this game will never turn down or be mad at any gift you give them, whether it is a Mushroom or Weed, they’ll still gladly accept it and get a small boost. But giving them the items they like will greatly improve their Affinity for you!
Upon meeting them at the start, you can only see 1 liked item in their profile. But as your Affinity with them grows, so will the list of items. Each new liked item revealed seems to boost a villager’s Affinity more than the previous one. At 3 notes, you’ll have all liked items revealed to you. But if you want a head start, we’re listed them all down in the table below:
Marriage Candidates
| Marriage Candidate | 1st Like | 2nd Like | 3rd Like |
| Christina / Justin | Strawberry Pansy | Edelweiss | Mushroom Stew |
| Harriet | Hibiscus | Aquamarine | Red Fish Sushi |
| Jeanne | Clam | Agate | Milk |
| Malika | Chamomile | Opal | Ahi Poke |
| Braden | Marguerite | Hot Milk | Fruitcake |
| Hugo | Lobster | Diamond | Truffles Meunière |
| Jacques | Goldfish | Tanzanite | Vichyssoise |
Villagers
| Villager | 1st Like | 2nd Like | 3rd Like |
| Abraham | Pineapple Juice | Koi | Stargazy Pie |
| Aestas | Perch | Sunflower | Watermelon Juice |
| Andy | Iron Ore | Gold Ore | Margherita |
| Autumnus | Shiitake Mushroom | Sweet Potato | Mushrooms au Gratin |
| Fletcher | Viola | Fresh Cheese | Creamed Spinach Pasta |
| Frederick | Pumpkin Potage Soup | Alexandrite | Splendid Sprinkler |
| Harvest Goddess | Strawberry | Strawberry Jam | Strawberry Pie |
| Jonathan | Red Crayfish | Orange Juice | Baguette |
| Olivia | Asparagus | Tomato Juice | Green Salad |
| Penelope | Sheep Wool | Emerald | Tomato Pasta |
| Peter | Ruby | Alba-style Pot-au-feau | Queen of the Night |
| Philip | Carrot | Animal Feed | Milk Gelato |
| Tessa | Lotus | Jade | Fruit Punch |
| Ver | Turnip | Pink Rose | Stew |
| Victoria | Daisy | Soy Milk | Bean Chowder |
| Willis | Tulip | Marmalade | Corn Potage Soup |
Take note that not all NPCs have these notes because some are either just visitors or villagers that don’t play a huge part in the main story of the game. That said, you should only talk to these NPCs to potentially learn tips from them and never give them gifts. Items you present to them will disappear and they will treat this interaction as if you just talked to them without holding anything.
Once you reach Chapter 6, a traveling merchant or vendor will start selling seeds by the bridge to the left of Jeanne’s house. This NPC is an oddity in the game where he has these Affinity notes but cannot receive gifts and does not appear on the friend’s list. The seeds he sells are ones that are usually only obtained through villager requests and cannot be bought from the general store. He’ll only be around on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays.
Like other villagers, Vendor has an Affinity Meter that increases each time you talk to him. However, he doesn’t have a page in the Friends tab. After looking into it some more, he also won’t have an Affinity Boost after being given a gift. He won’t even acknowledge it. And after maxing his Affinity, nothing really changes so it’s not anything you’ll need to worry about. If you want more than the four seed selections he offers you, you’ll need to progress through the story first.
We also want to warn players of giving gifts to villagers when their notes are already filled. Giving more gifts will not increase it until you move onto a new chapter where another empty note may be added to a character. For some characters, these empty notes will only be added after you’ve moved onto a specific chapter where the story revolves around them in particular or if it makes sense in the story for them to be more open to our character.
While waiting for the chance to further increase your relationship with your favorites, consider taking the time to get to know the others you haven’t interacted much yet. In some Chapters, the game will only move forward and reveal more information once certain villagers have all their notes filled. Talking to bachelors and bachelorettes even after maxing their Affinity is still recommended though since it can lead to a special cutscene for.
Prep Before Going to Bed
Before capping off the day, there are a few things you should consider forming into a habit:
Expend All Your Stamina
Stamina is a valuable resource in the game as it is used for most of your daily tasks. If you still have a bit of Stamina and time to spare, using it up to break rocks or chop trees is ideal. But if your Stamina is too low to finish breaking or chopping them, settle for cutting nearby grass to get Weed that you can turn into Animal Feed.
Put Your Machines and Cooking Space to Work
Your Feeder, Fertilizer Maker and Cooking Space takes up time to process goods. Putting them to work before bed is a great way to get all the Animal Feed, Fertilizer, and food ready the next day.
Deposit Your Items in the Shipping Bin or Storage
One thing you should never forget is to deposit goods you want to sell into the Shipping Bin. If you do, you’ll have to wait a whole day until you get your next paycheck unless you decide to sell your goods to villager stores or the Unmanned Store. You should also put items you won’t need the next day in your storage to avoid those awkward moments where you couldn’t pocket an item because your bag is full.
Unlock Festivals Through Quests
If you’re a long time player of Harvest Moon games or farming games in general, you may be wondering if this game does not have any special seasonal festivals. It actually does but unlike the other games, you’ll have to unlock it through quests that pop up on certain chapters of the game. Willis will be the villager that will give these quests. Below are a list of festivals and the information we gathered for unlocking it:
| Festival | Date | Time | Requirements |
| Flower Festival | Spring 16 | 10:00 PM - 4:00 PMA | 10 Strawberry Pansy 10 Goldband Lily 10 Marguerite *Chapter 5 |
| Fireworks Festival | Summer 15 | 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM | 10 Bronze 10 Iron 10 Square Lumber *Must unlock Flower Festival first |
| Snow Festival | Winter 15 | 10:00 AM - 4:00 PM | 10 Gold 5 Titanium 10 Board Lumber *Must unlock Fireworks Festival First |
| Equestrian Challenge | Summer 23 | 10:00 AM - 5:00 PM | 10 Palm Board Lumber 10 Palm Square Lumber 10 Sunflower *Chapter 4 |
| Fish Faceoff Contest | Summer 6 | 10:00 AM - 6:00 PM | 10 Palm Board Lumber 10 Palm Square Lumber 5 Agate |
| Expo Festival | Spring 10 | 10:00 AM - 3:00 PM | 10 Palm Board Lumber 10 Fabric 5 Glass |
| Harvest Festival | Varies per player | 10:00 AM - 4:00 PM | ??? |
And this marks the end of our Beginner’s Guide to Harvest Moon: Home Sweet Home. We hope that this article aided you in your quest to start a successful farm to revitalize Alba Village and gain the favor of its villagers!
Our game guide only covers the tip of the iceberg. If you need more information on certain parts of the game that we did not cover, consider checking out these two sites which were very helpful in our research:
Harvest Moon: Home Sweet Home Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/harvestmoonhomesweethome
Harvest Moon: Home Sweet Home Fansite:
https://fogu.com/hm/home_sweet_home/index.php
What did you think of the newest game from the Harvest Moon Franchise? Was our guide helpful in your playthrough? How can we improve? Are there other games you’d like for us to cover? Let us know in the comment section!