Family — regardless of togetherness, blood relation, or how powerful it makes Dom Toretto, most of us have it one way or another.
In a basic family setting, the kids go to school while one or two of the parents do their jobs. Unless one of those kids is a baby, then one parent will focus on child-rearing. Being in a family isn’t sunshine and rainbows all the time. Each member of the family should aim to preserve the cleanliness and sanctity of their own home be it through chores or home improvement.
It’s these little things that should keep it together as there are many ways you can find time to have fun with them while pursuing your many goals in life no matter how big or small they are. As they say, art imitates life, and such is the case in Idle Family Sim.
Moondustries’ take on the idle gaming genre is something that hits a little bit closer to home. Idle Family Sim is a simple game with characters who have big dreams. Like an actual family, you have to help this one’s members shoot for the stars and hope they land there. Each of them have their own Life Goals that allow them to make their stay at home more restful and/or fulfilling. You’ll need jobs to pay the bills and a supportive family to get through life together.
As you play through the game, you will be faced with tougher challenges, some of them needing financial augmentation or even emotional support and motivation. Without these two, the family will most certainly fall apart. It’s time to shake some dust off and guide your very own idle family through a life of twists, turns, and everything in between.
Have you just started playing Idle Family Sim? Do you want to know how to make your in-game family live the most comfortable life possible? Then look no further! Read our Idle Family Sim guide below for some tips and tricks to keep your family happy and motivated!
1. Watch Ads For Extra Rewards
Ads are everywhere! In mobile games, especially, they play when you wish to open something, get more stuff, if your character happens to die, or simply just from tapping anywhere. They can be annoying to many a player but this is actually a way that devs earn their keep in a game. They’re usually inevitable in any game that’s free-to-play just like this very game.
Whenever an ad pops up (usually on the right side of the screen), don’t turn these offers down. Instead of being there to inconvenience or punish you like in some games, these ads give you great rewards that may help you progress the family’s Life Goals. For instance, one important ad offer is when one parent offers to do a side hustle to support their spouse financially. This will come plenty in handy when you’re in need of a quick buck. Its counterpart would be doubling the earnings of the working parent.
The other ad offers an instant amount of hearts from the child, with its counterpart being that you earn double the hearts. The latter is generated by the baby. Both of these work hand-in-hand because your family’s Life Goals will increase in heart cost greatly. You’ll be needing these more as you play the game, but if you’d like a permanent boost in all your earnings as well as independence from ads, you may send the developers some coin by making an in-game purchase. This prompt pops up occasionally after watching an ad.
Watching all these ads could be tedious at times, but it can’t be beat if you’re patient.
2. Patience Is A Virtue
As far as idle games go, long waiting times are among the many factors that make it work.
You wait for a lot of things — earnings, things to get accomplished, and mostly your progress. It’s this part of idle games that is either loved or hated by its players. Because Idle Family Sim is an idle game itself, this mechanic comes into play and it’s this very mechanic that should teach you a great virtue: patience.
Patience is something that not many of us have. For some, they’d just opt to buy what they need in the game’s cash store. But if you aren’t a part of this group of “some”, you may find yourself waiting a lot. Instead of seeing it negatively that the game is giving you too much of a hard time, think of this as something to look forward to.
For instance, after you’ve run out of cash and no matter how many times the stay-at-home parent does their side hustle, don’t look at this as a downer. See this as an opportunity for you to breathe and wait for the time you come back to the game. Surely, the working parent will have generated more cash by then and after you’ve watched the ad for it, you’ve doubled the amount! There is absolutely no shame in waiting this all out.
Another way you can enjoy this game and to pass time in it is to play this game while doing something else. Let’s say you’re reading your favorite book, you can check back on this game after every other chapter you finish. Otherwise, you can try this while you’re commuting to work or school, watching TV, or even waiting for something to dry. The possibilities are endless.
One thing that shouldn’t wait, however, are the furniture in each room. Trust us, buying them all in one go will make attaining Life Goals much quicker!
3. Complete Your Rooms Early
Seriously. The parents buy this house but it doesn’t come with a sink and/or toilet and it has a study desk? Who made this house? It even has an easel in the hobby room! Did the easel come with the house?
Let’s set all jokes (and reality) aside. As you start out, you will notice very quickly how barren your house is. Following the first item in this guide, you should have been earning heaps of cash by watching ads alone. Use this cash to buy out every single piece of furniture within the house. For one, give your house some dignity by buying a toilet and a bunch of other things. How your family survives in a house without a toilet is beyond us.
With regards to buying things for all the rooms in your house, you might think that buying decor is practical too, right? This isn’t always the case since decorating a room should be done as a means to fulfill a Life Goal. While the same can be done for furniture, these are more important since they can be upgraded while decor can’t.
Additionally, having all your furniture around the house will allow you to get started on your Life Goals more easily. Imagine starting a life goal but you are needing some money to buy a kitchen counter and this money was spent upgrading the refrigerator. This will come into play, too if two of your family members have Life Goals that share a similar piece of furniture.
Once you have all your furniture in place, figuring out which furniture to upgrade may take some skill in deciding on…
4. Find What Can Be Upgraded
With all the furniture in place, wouldn’t it be a great idea to keep them all at the same level?
It’d be difficult to pull this off. The reason behind it is that each fixture in the house has different costs in upgrades. When you look around and tap different rooms, you’ll be able to gauge which of these you’ll want upgraded. The really difficult part about this is keeping track of which is more expensive, but even then the tiny upgrades will help in the long run.
If you’re lacking funds for the next level of your TV, try upgrading your PC instead. The desk is one of the very first items in the house, and thus upgrading it shouldn’t cost too much. Along with the PC are the sink and the refrigerator. If you haven’t upgraded these yet, try bringing these up a few levels. When one of your family members requires one of these newly-upgraded things, you’ll be sure that they’re ready.
We’re sure you’ve noticed: we talk a lot about Life Goals in this guide and how important they seem. That’s because they are! Let’s tackle them next.
5. Let Life Goals Be Your Guide
In every other game out there in the PlayStore or App Store today, there may be a quest system. While extremely popular in RPGs, quest systems are widely popular among other games like shooters, management sims, and even idle games like this one. It’s not as blatant as it looks, but the quest system here are the Life Goals of every family member.
Haven’t you ever had a dream? No matter how big or small, we all have our own goals in life to fulfill. Be it to fix a leaky sink, to get good grades, to invest in a garden, or even to get yourself a new pet, our Life Goals are what keep us wanting more in life. They’re what make us do better as people and they’re what keep us from stagnating. Here in Idle Family Sim, Life Goals are just as important as the ones we have in real life.
Completing Life Goals moves the progress of your home’s improvement every time. Along the way, you’ll be leveling up various pieces of furniture or decorating rooms. There will be a point in time (around Life Goal Lv12 for all family members) where the garden will be needed, and this is where even more things will be done. The more Life Goals you complete, the more income the working parent will earn. Additionally, you’ll get gems as you go! These will be discussed soon.
You’ll be focusing on at least three Life Goal paths as you play this game, but who should you really prioritize here?
6. Prioritize The Working Parent
In every family, there is usually a breadwinner. Of course, in a modern setting, both parents can be breadwinners, but here, it’s just one of them.
While it’s nice to improve the Life Goals of the other two family members (three if the baby grows old enough), they merely give a small increase, a percentage, to the working parent. It becomes a big increase if their efforts are combined, but really think about this: you’ll be spending double, if not triple the costs.
More expensive upgrades, more hearts consumed, more of everything. It’s powerful but it takes a while to recover from that. This is why we discourage trying to fully chase the Life Goals of the other family members. Instead, try going the more cost-effective route if you can: by focusing on the working parent. This doesn’t mean that you should leave the other family members out of this, as we will explain why soon.
The working parent’s Life Goals are what keep the house earning every in-game hour. With every Life Goal achieved by the working parent, their salary will gain a flat increase. That doesn’t sound like much, we know, but after reaching the cap of their current Life Goals (only stopped by an un-upgraded piece of furniture), this is where the magic happens. You will now follow the Life Goals of the other family members.
This will help you create a system to increase the working parent’s salary and motivation to earn more at their job. You’ll even earn more gems than usual! Just imagine how this mirrors real life: you’re busting your butt doing your job and your family members just go out of their way to pour their support onto you whenever you come home. Your home just keeps getting better because of all of your efforts combined. Doesn’t that warm your heart?
With the main sources of income thoroughly explained, let’s talk about other ways to save money
7. Go For The Cheapest Decor
Decoration — everyone has these. They could be gifts from friends, family, co-workers, and other people you may know. Aside from keeping the room together, they also just serve the purpose of being pretty.
So what’s the deal with decor in Idle Family Sim? Do they do anything at all? Well, other than livening up a room, they don’t really do much. Just like decor in real life, some of them are really expensive, but they only exist to make the room look pretty. This is why it’s important to settle for the cheapest decor.
Not only will you get your Life Goal requirements out of the way, the cheapest decor, in its very essence, helps you save money. Your money is better spent in other areas of the house; places that need improvement (like in item no. 4 of this guide), house expansions, necessary upgrades, etc. You’ll thank us later when you’ve saved by buying cheap decor. Of course, if you really want those really expensive heavy metal posters for the hobby room, that’s on you. Buy it when you’ve got extra!
We’ve talked a lot about the money you gain overall in this guide, but what about the other currency?
8. Mostly Spend Your Gems On Clothes Or Hairstyles
Most mobile games these days have a premium currency. These currencies can be spent on a lot of things that help improve the player’s gaming experience. In idle games, for example, they help reduce wait times, boost your earnings temporarily, or even help you with the gacha, if the game has that.
In Idle Family Sim, the premium currency used are gems. You earn these gems solely by completing Life Goals. These gems can be spent on a variety of things, from unlocking decor to getting instant cash or hearts. While the latter seems quite useful, it’s better for you to be patient playing this. You’re better off spending your gems on clothes.
That’s right, clothes. For the small, small price of 50 gems, rivaling that of any of the fancy decor, this can get you some clothes or a hairstyle for any member of the family. The reason behind this recommendation is because clothes boost your money and heart earnings permanently.
Different clothes or hairstyles give different bonuses. That’s not all; for this cheap price, you’ll also give your family members some personality. Doing this could even attach you to this family you take care of, so watch out!
We’re not putting away the option of spending gems for instant rewards, however, as we will explain in the next bullet.
9. Buy Instant Rewards If You Have Extra Gems
In doing your Life Goals, you may seem to notice that gems are a little bit difficult to come by.
While it’s true that you’ll be frugal about these every now and then (saving them for clothes and hairstyles), it also pays to indulge in them once in a while, especially if you have extra gems. Once you’ve earned a lot, say in the hundreds, buying some instant cash or heart rewards may help you boost the improvement of your house even faster. These are large sums of money we’re talking about, so they’re a luxury.
To find these, simply tap the shopping cart icon on the lower left and scroll all the way down. You should be able to find these at the bottom. Buying these rewards may help you in big projects like expanding the living room or building the garage. You’ll need extra funds every step of the way, but that’s because your house just keeps getting better and better. Higher-tier upgrades means more cash spent, just like in real life. Think of the time you upgraded your phone from something without color to something with a colored screen… or a camera… or an mp3 player, so on and so forth.
While this point in the article may contradict the previous one, let us be clear that spending gems is the player’s prerogative. To some, spending gems for clothes is more fulfilling, others may find more practicality in spending them on instant rewards. How you use these gems is entirely up to you!
We’ve covered a lot of the mechanics in the game thus far, but for the last item, we will talk about one of the most important features of this game.
10. Grab The Idle Rewards
You’ve upgraded everything. You’re now out of hearts, out of cash, and it’s time for the family to rest. There isn’t anything left to do but leave the game alone. What you can do now is come back after 2 hours.
The game rewards you with idle progress. This means that when you leave your game offline, your family will continue to work. Over time, they will accumulate cash, the maximum capacity of which is only up to 2 hours worth of it. When you come back after 2 hours, you’ll be greeted with a large sum of money with the option to double it by watching an ad. Squandering this opportunity isn’t the wisest choice since you’ll be needing more money for your upgrades.
Idle Family Sim is a game of patience and hard work. Ads, while annoying at times, are quite necessary if you want to earn more cash and hearts on the side or double the gains of each. Despite large and quick earnings from the ads, your family and house improvement aren’t an instant thing, they happen gradually and it’s through your diligence that they can be realized. To boost this progress, you may complete all the furniture in the room you most recently unlocked and, when you can, upgrade the cheaper bits.
As you’re doing this, make sure that you follow the Life Goals of each family member but prioritize the working parent first and foremost. To save money, buy only the cheapest decor since you’ll be needing most of your cash for furniture upgrades here and there.
When it comes to gems, your gems are your own but they’re best spent on clothes and hair which give your family permanent upgrades. Instant rewards should only be bought using gems when you have an abundance of them. Lastly, if you’ve run out of things to do, leave the game for 2 hours and then come back to a large sum of money you need for more improvements to the house.
And there you have it, folks, a guide to Idle Family Sim. While this game mirrors real life a lot, it’s a really fun way to pass the time. It may even teach you some life lessons along the way, so watch out for those Life Goals!
Did we miss anything? Got your own tips you’d like to share about Idle Family Sim? Leave them in the comments below!