Harvest Town is a pixel-style farming simulation game that recently got a second version on Android. Brought to us by mobile game publisher Avid.ly, the 2.0 edition is now available for download in the Google Play Store and brings a plethora of new content.
For those who played games like Stardew Valley before, Harvest Town will look and feel very familiar, especially since the plots are extremely similar as well. As the main character in Harvest Town you find yourself regretting the decision to leave your home town and move to the big city. You long for the pure country lifestyle, and strangely it seems like the universe is listening and wants to give you a second chance.
Suddenly you find yourself back in your home town as if you’ve never really left. You’re excited but quickly realize that your old manor and adjoining farm are in ruins and in dire need of reparations. The main gameplay in Harvest Town consists in channeling efforts to restore the estate to its former glory. You get to put your personal spin on the renovations, so the results can vary greatly between different players.
There’s other stuff to be done too. To sustain life at the farm, players can plant a variety of different plants for each season, as well start raising animals. Users can also engage in fishing, cooking, mining, battle and other activities. As you progress in the game, you’ll encounter many other people in town, go to town events, and maybe even fall in love and start a family.
The choices you make will impact how the farm grows and develops, month after month and year after year, so players need to ensure they make sustainable decisions. The farm plot is initially in bad shape – overrun by rocks, trees, stumps and weeds and as your first task, you will need to work to clear them to start generating revenue.
That being said, Harvest Town is a really fun experience that tests your managing and building skills. You learn how to make your way in the game quite smoothly by following the tips that occasionally flash on the display. Even so, if you are having a bit of struggle going through grasping the game’s features and dynamics or perhaps you’re not making progress quickly enough, then you should definitely check out our Harvest Town beginner’s guide. It’s filled with tips, tricks and strategies that will help you jumpstart your adventure, so keep reading below.
1. Follow The Quest Line To Receive Various Rewards
The best way to get up to speed with how things work in Harvest Town is to pursue and complete the quests which are displayed in the upper right corner. Tap on the Quest bar to be given the full story surrounding the quest. For example, some will ask you to go and visit someone in town or visit a certain shop.
If you’ve just starting playing the game and don’t know your surroundings very well just yet, just tap on the Quest window underneath the bar to be taken directly to the destination specified by the quest description. This saves you precious time, while allowing you to get familiarized with the environment and the town without having to poke around randomly until you find the right location.
Quests are quite varied between them, which ensures players will not get bored easily and can range from what we described above to upgrading your manor or building a chicken coop where you can raise chicks to adulthood.
Like you’d expect, completing quests yields rewards, which are essential to moving the action along in the game. These mainly consists of gold coins and prosperity (stars) – which is basically the XP in Harvest Town, but other items might be offered as well. The quests also serve as a key to unlocking more features and structures for you to take advantage of.
Sometimes you won’t be able to complete a quest immediately. To give you an example, at some point mayor John will give you a task that consists of you going to the beach at night to fight and destroy a swarm of evil creatures. In order to do as he asks, you’ll have to wait until night falls.
Harvest Town relies on a day-night cycle, so certain things like shops being open are only available during daylight. Normally, you should go home, get into bed and go to sleep at night. This has the effect of restoring your HP and Vitality bars in full (check them out in the upper left corner of the display). Walking around in the dark is not really advised unless you have a good reason to (like having a quest to complete) because it’s hard to see much outside and everything is closed anyway.
Anyway, the idea to take home is this – when you’re not working on the main quest, or you’re waiting for the right time to do so, turn your attention to the side quests. These can yield consistent rewards as well, and in some cases unlock the option to get better tools that will help you exploit the landscape more efficiently. In this case, while you wait for night fall, you can gather and produce the materials needed to upgrade your Pickaxe.
2. Upgrade Your Tools Whenever Possible
In Harvest Town, you’ll constantly have to mine for resources. All constructions around the farm require raw materials like wood and stone. These can be acquired by logging or mining and in order to do that you’ll need good tools.
With a default Pickaxe, for instance, you’ll be able only to exploit small rocks. By upgrading to a Copper Pickaxe you’ll be able to go after bigger stones, and at the same time spend less Vitality and Pickaxe hits to grab the resource.
Vitality is important and you need to keep an eye out for it throughout the game. Whenever you chop down a tree or you go mining for rocks you spend Vitality. You can get your energy back by drinking Special Milk, but be careful not to run out them. A good night sleep and a break from the game might provide the necessary supplies you need to stay active in the game.
3. Fill Out Orders Constantly
Orders are a big part of the gameplay in Harvest Town, as well. Since you’re running a farm, people in town will turn to you to buy the various goods produced on your land. You’ll start off by planting crops, but soon you’ll add more buildings to your estate that can produce more refined products, like for instance Chili sauce. It’s important that you keep a constant production up, because crops tend to grow extremely slow. Fortunately, you can use items like Scale Powder to accelerate crop growth.
However, not all the items requested in the orders can be found or produced on your farm. For some, such as wood, stone, berries, teeth etc you’ll be required to travel to other places in order to collect them. While there are a few trees and rocks around your farm, which you could exploit, you’ll soon run out of them. This is why following the main quest line as closely as possible is essential, as this will allow you get to know the environment thoroughly and so know where to go looking for the resources you need. If ever in doubt, simply tap on the resource you are missing from within the Order or Quest and the game will show you where you can find some.
Finished orders bring gold coins, as well as prosperity points plus a secret bonus. We mentioned above that prosperity acts as XP in this game, and so once you’ve collected enough you’ll unlock the next level in the game. This provides you with new decorations, buildings, crop seeds and items, so you can expand your farmstead and broaden your product range.
Completing quests and orders aren’t the only methods to increase your prosperity. There are a few other ways you can acquire more. For example, you can work on decorating your farm. At the start of the game, your home is pretty rough shape inside and out.
By leveling up, players get access to new items that will ultimately allow them to turn the manor into a real cozy home. Buying decorations (in exchange for gold coins), not only transforms the manor visually, but also provides you with extra prosperity points. In addition, repairing or upgrading any building on your farm will expand your XP, so that you can get to the next level sooner rather than later.
4. Claim All The Daily Freebies
Like it’s the case with the majority of mobile games, it’s very important that you make time to log in into Harvest Town every day. Many free goodies are waiting to be redeemed each time you do so, although some are a bit hidden from view.
Make sure you check the Menu option that sits underneath your vitality and HP bars. From the menu that pops up select Sign In (towards the bottom) and claim the reward that usually consists of diamonds or coins. From the same window, also tap on 7-Day Login to grab various items including decoration options and other precious resources.
Next, try spinning the Lucky Wheel for a little something extra. A free spin is made available from time to time, but you can get more if you’re willing to watch a few quick ads. You can win anything from coins and diamonds to items like Special Milk (Vitality) or Scale Powder (Crop Acceleration).
Don’t forget to redeem the Daily Gift, as well. This little gift shows up when you tap the Store icon in the top right. Here you can find the Daily Gift tab – a gold coin bundle you can claim for free on a daily basis.
Last but not least, check the Daily Quest. Every day, you’ll be able to redeem consistent rewards by playing the game and hitting certain milestones, like for example, cutting down 10 trees. Visit the Daily Quest tab in Quests to see what needs to be doing, and follow the instructions. Whenever you notice a red dot on it, it means there are new rewards available to grab.
5. Sell Items In Exchange For Coins
Gold coins are another important resource you need to worry about in Harvest Town. Mainly, you can use them to purchase decorations, but also to buy new buildings for your farm. Not enough gold, means you won’t be able to expand your ranch as quickly as you’d like. The main methods for collecting cash is through the main quest line and by delivering orders. Even so, you might find you’re still in need of more dough.
If you’ve been eying a certain decoration for some time now, saving up for it, but you still require a few more pennies to unlock it, here’s a way you can make quick money. At your farm, check out the Goods stall.
This is located right next to the exit, in the upper side of the display. Here you can sell products and items you’ve collected throughout your adventures. You can get a pretty nice sum for certain items, so by all means, use the stall whenever you notice your cash reserve is running low. Just make sure you don’t sell any essentials, stuff you might need to complete objectives further on.
If you can’t seem to part with anything in your bag, then the alternative would be to plant some crops quickly, harvest them and then sell them for coin. If you don’t have the seeds already, that might be a problem, since you’ll have to spend gold to get gold, but the investment will yield a return. Try and pick those seeds that produce results faster like for example onion. If you’re really impatient, use some of that growth potion (Scale Powder) on them and you’ll be able to harvest them immediately.
6. Spend Diamonds To Increase The Size Of Your Bag
In the previous section we brought up diamonds. This a highly important resource that can be used to buy additional items for the farm (for example, a higher tier bed, but also sprinklers etc) and to expand the size of your item bag.
Players carry an item bag, and throughout the game you’re going to gather lots and lots of them. Went to the forest to chop up some trees? The resulting wood will be carried in your bag, which has limited slots. It’s very important that you start work towards expanding your bag’s capacity early on in the game, or else you risk not being able to complete certain tasks or miss out on certain items just because you don’t have where to put them.
Unlocking a new row of slots in your bag costs 60 diamonds, which is a hefty amount if you’ve barely started playing the game. It might take a few in-game days before you can come up with that. In the meanwhile, if you’re struggling to find a way to empty a slot or two, go to the Goods Stall on your farm and sell some of the items you have in your bag.
We suggest you sell stuff you can get more of later on, for example, berries for which you can forage around town and surrounding forests. In return you’ll receive a sum of gold coins and you’ll also have an empty slot at your disposal to take advantage of.
How do you get more diamonds? Well, the easiest route is to unlock achievements. You do that, simply by playing the game and following the main quest. For example, killing 100 monsters gets you 20 Diamonds, while killing 100 monsters rewards you 100 Diamonds.
As we explained above, checking into the game daily unlocks the possibility of redeeming more diamonds. Additionally, you should keep an eye on the mail box outside your house. From to time, mail will arrive in your inbox which might also contain a nifty reward package. Such opportunities aren’t available all the time, so don’t rely on them to increase your diamond reserve. Instead keep completing quests and fulfilling orders on a daily basis to unlock achievements and thus get more diamonds.
7. Grab The Offline Rewards
Harvest Town is quite addictive, so you might be tempted to spend as much time in the game as possible. But taking breaks now and then is not a bad idea. Actually the game rewards the time you spend offline with a few goodies.
Once you return to the game, they will pop up as soon as you log in. Claim them immediately, or watch an advertisement and you can get more. Mostly, without the ad watching, you’ll get Special Milk which is very useful, as it allows you to sustain extended logging or mining activities whenever you find yourself in need of resources.
Speaking of ads, make sure you take advantage of them whenever you can. As opposed to other mobile games out there, Harvest Town is not saturated by ads. You’ll encounter some now and again, but they aren’t intrusive. So when you do stumble upon them, we encourage you to give them a go. For example, you can increase your walking speed in exchange for watching an ad, so when that offer is available, we suggest that you take it.
Moreover, remember to check your in-game phone you can use to see orders on the go. At the bottom you’ll notice an advertisement (below Headline Today). Tap on it to watch a quick ad in return for various goodies including diamonds and various packs.
You can also get additional Lucky Wheel spins, but only if there are ads available for watching. Sometimes, you’ll have to wait for more to be made available, but doing so it’s worth it because you can win consistent prizes. For example, we recently won 1000 gold coins in one spin.
8. Take Part In Various Events
Events take place in Harvest Town from time to time and when they do make sure you check to see if there are any rewards available you can grab. For example, right now an event called Harvest Cup is going on. Tap on its icon that is located in the upper left side of the display to see if there’s anything available for you every day.
The event compensates you for making in-game progress and presents its own set of Daily Quests, Weekly Tasks and Challenge Tasks. Complete them and you’ll get to grab goodies such as diamonds, gold coins and other items. You don’t have to do anything to join the various events, as you will be included in them automatically just by playing the game.
9. Some Tips For Going Into Battle
While playing Harvest Town, you’ll come upon numerous monsters you’ll have to battle against in order to protect the town. Some beasts even shed certain items once destroyed, which might be to complete certain quests. The idea is that you’ll be heading into battle quite frequently in the game and in this section we’re going to give a few tips on how you can improve your waring skills.
Upgrade Your Weapons
Your first weapon is a wooden sword which you can acquire from the smith David. Naturally, you’ll be able to upgrade your weapon as you progress in the game and whenever you’re given the opportunity to do so, you should take it up immediately.
Attract Small Batches of Enemies Away from the Swarm During Battles
Enemies tend to appear in swarms, and so it might be a bit risky to go in and confront them head on. Instead, try to attract a handful of them away from the group, in order to avoid getting overwhelmed by the pack. Continue using this tactic until you get every each and one of them.
Drink Potions If Your HP is Low
HP Potions can come in various forms and players collect them by completing quests and interacting with people and creatures across the environment. Whenever you notice the HP bar going down, quickly distance yourself from the creatures you’re fighting and consume one of these potions to get you HP up again. Always keep an eye on the HP bar, and you should be fine.
10. Visit Other People’s Farms
Harvest Town has a social component where you can send friend requests to other players in the game. It’s a good idea to do so, but keep in mind that you can visit other farms without being friends with the owners.
Tap on the Menu option (in the upper left corner) and select the Friends option. From there, you can take a look at the top users in Rank and pay them a visit. If you don’t have a large social circle yet, we recommend that you go browsing through this list and go check out their farms. You can even try and add some of these users to your own friend list. If you’re intimidated by the players in the Rank tab, we suggest you visit the Search one and check out users with a similar level to yours. Try reaching out to them instead.
Visiting other farms is important because during these trips you might get lucky enough to stumble upon certain items that you might be in need of for quest solving. Additionally, friends can send each other gifts, so you can grab extra gold, diamonds or other items just by popping in and out of their estate. Our advice is that you try to do so, at least a couple of times a day. Don’t forget!
11. Collect Seeds And Plant Them
Most quests in Harvest Town have you chopping wood left and right. For this reason, sometimes you might find it a bit difficult to find more trees to cut down. Which is why it’s extremely important to replant trees whenever possible.
Keep an eye for the seeds scattered on the ground and collect them using the Shovel. Then go back to areas where you’ve cut down the vegetation (or even on your farm for easier access) and plant them there. When planting a tree, make sure you place it on any earth within a 3-grid range of another tree or other piece of vegetation. Each tree has a different growth pattern, so it might take a few days before you actually see the results.
This concludes our Harvest Town beginner’s guide. We hope you’ve picked up a lot of useful information from the list of strategies we’ve shared. If you’ve been playing Harvest Town for a while now and have stumbled upon a tip that we haven’t included in our guide, feel free to drop us a note in the comment section below!