Hong Kong-based DroidHang, the company behind the refreshingly heartwarming and addictive restaurant management sim game, Animal Restaurant, is back with another casual idle business sim game, Resortopia. This game sets you on the role of Udon, a newly-hired resort manager in-charge of taking care of a rundown hotel resort along with all its customers. With a plethora of hotel and resort management sims available on mobile, it is rather easy to consider any new one the same as everything else. Resortopia, however, sets itself apart from the rest of them as well as all idle clicker business sim games at least as much as Animal Restaurant does.
The light and warm art style and overall ambiance that greets you once you dive into the world of Resortopia can leave the impression that it is an over-simplistic game potentially meant for gamers of young ages. As simple as the game’s core mechanics are, though, Resortopia offers plenty of activities and features that can keep gamers of all ages entertained for several hours over. From repairing and unlocking new areas in the resort, to attracting various clients and tending to their unique needs, down to customizing the appearance of each of the resort’s sections with furniture and other improvements.
Resortopia takes you through a very helpful tutorial session on your first dive, giving you a relaxing and informative tour, not just through the resort you will manage but through the general activities you will need to tend to on a regular basis moving forward. While there is an initial salvo of information and features that can appear overwhelming, Resortopia is a kind of game that where you will always move forward regardless of what you do. You can very much manage your resort any way you want.
However, if you want to maximize your profits and speed up your resort’s growth as fast and efficient as possible, read on as our Resortopia beginner’s guide has all the tips and strategies you need to become a top resort tycoon in no time!
1. Understand The Basics
Given that Resortopia is essentially a casual business sim game, the most basic objective is to generate income continuously by attracting, taking in, and tending to customers. Instead of cash, though, you are paid in cookies and every bit of it you earn can be spent to improve the resort.
Different customers have different effects on the income you generate most especially if you treat them well and improve your relationship with them. In addition to income earned over time, tips, cookies left within the establishment, and various other sources help you generate more profits.
Just like conventional idle clicker business sim games, there is hardly any benefit to gain from keeping idle cash (or cookies). What you would want to do is to continuously invest cookies earned into additional furniture and improvements in your shop. There may be a select few furnishings that appear primarily for aesthetics but, for the most part, every bit of improvement you invest in leads to an increase in popularity as well as more income generated over time.
Popularity in Resortopia is a quantifiable metric that you would want to keep increasing. Beyond milestones that can lead to extra rewards, popularity is an essential key to unlock added features that directly contribute to the growth and development of your resort. With both cookies and popularity being consistent focal points of your objectives, the basic cycle boils down to earning cookies, purchasing new furniture and other improvements, then finally increasing popularity to unlock more items to invest cookies in.
You certainly cannot expect the basic cycle of earning cookies and raising popularity ratings to result in a mundane gameplay. Resortopia offers plenty of activities to ensure that there are no dull moments for you. Plenty of mini games help you earn various materials and resources you need and customers as well as other NPCs ensure that every minute you spend tending to your virtual resort is brimming with unique experiences.
As clients are your main source of income, you will constantly need to attract them. Customers primarily appear as cookie people moving around outside the resort and you will need to click on them a few times to invite them in.
Naturally you consume energy with every person you invite but it replenishes over time as well. Invites will always be successful and once completed, the cookie person will reveal his or her true form. Some cookie people travel in groups as well as clicking on them repeatedly can lead to an invitation of multiple guests, all at the cost of 1 energy.
2. Grant Pineapple’s Wishes
With a host of clients to invite and tend to as well as various facilities to manage and develop on top of everything else, Resortopia hardly leaves any idle time for you to keep conscious tracking of your progress across your growing business.
Although there is gain and progress regardless of how you go about managing the resort, having a solid basis of guidance will naturally lead to a more orderly and efficient rate of progression. Fortunately, Resortopia holds a missions system of sorts that provides you with objectives to follow. Pineapple’s Wishes, which can be accessed by tapping on his icon at the lower right side of the screen.
Pineapple’s Wishes will always show 3 distinct objectives and you can choose from among them which one to take on first. Each mission cleared comes with instant rewards and a new objective will take the place of the former once rewards are claimed. What makes it important to focus on adhering to Pineapple’s Wishes is that it follows the basic natural flow of your progression and at the same time helps you earn more income and other valuable resources as well.
A lot of the objectives to take on are as basic as it comes, with most being one-time targets. For the most part, the only recurring objectives involve attracting more clients, which is easy to accomplish as well. There will be instances when you have to skip some of the objectives as you may not be able to readily accomplish them.
Examples are new items of the menu that you lack ingredients for or upgrades that require a certain level of popularity higher than what you currently have. It may take quite some time before you reach this bit of impediment and you can expect it to take longer for all 3 of Pineapple’s Wishes to be unattainable. In any case, this will be solid indicators for you to revel more in the rest of what Resortopia has to offer.
3. Strategize Around Upgrading The Resort
There are plenty of facilities to unlock in Resortopia and each one comes with a rich set of furniture that you should continuously upgrade. While a lot of the initial ones you will place are free, you can expect additional ones to cost cookies with prices going higher and higher as each facility becomes more and more glamorous.
A lot of these upgrades are covered by Pineapple’s Wishes that we discussed earlier. Having an abundance of extra cookies laying idle, however, warrants an early purchase, so to speak as Resortopia, much like conventional idle clicker games, lets you earn more profits with every bit of investment you make.
Accomplishing an objective before it actually appears in Pineapple’s Wishes is okay as when it does, it will simply appear as already cleared with your reward ready for the taking. The advantage, of course, when you choose to purchase an upgrade sooner is that you get to enjoy the benefits that come with it, like increased earnings over time and higher popularity, above all else.
Within each facility, you can simply click on the hard hat icon at the lower right side of the screen to view new furniture available for purchase or higher tier ones that replace previously placed objects.
Beyond improvements within each facility of the resort, you should also check the “Resort” button at the lower left side of the screen for improvements that can be purchased for the resort as a whole. This is basically divided between resort attributes and resort maintenance. Resort attributes all relate to higher income generation but costs candies, which is a premium currency.
Resort maintenance, on the other hand, are needed upgrades and are basic indicators of your progression as well. These upgrades only cost cookies but require you to reach a certain amount of popularity to become available.
Although we prefer balancing out Resort attributes in terms of leveling them up, you can always make adjustments based on your gameplay style. Part of your idle source of income comes from tips that continuously accumulate in a piggy bank just at the resort’s entrance. Naturally it has a cap or limit, preventing its increase once reached. Increasing the tips cap will extend the amount it can accumulate over time.
Whenever you are offline and away from your virtual resort, you also earn idle income much like tips. This also comes with a limit and investing in offline income will increase the cap. Finally, there is resort publicity, which is an automated system that attracts customers every once in a while. You will notice customers with megaphones atop them and these are the ones that the resort publicity attracts. Investing more in this attribute will result in customers coming in more often.
With resort maintenance upgrades being a core necessity to move forward in your campaign, you should definitely go for it once available. The upgrades go from the top of the list down to the bottom and you will have to unlock an item one at a time. Some will automatically give you bonus popularity points, some will help you yield higher income, while some will enable you to unlock more features and facilities that open up plenty more opportunities to gain more profits.
4. Don’t Forget About Routine Actions
We mentioned a couple of times how Resortopia can easily keep you busy and entertained for hours without noticing. The overabundance of things to do certainly ensures little to no idle moments yet at the same time makes the overall experience a relaxing one. Adhering to Pineapple’s Wishes is sure to keep you busy in the early part of your immersion. At a point where you are stuck and waiting to earn more cookies or popularity to accomplish the tasks at hand, your focus should shift to some of the routine tasks you should perform on a regular basis.
For starters, there are means by which customers will be attracted to visit your resort but inviting additional guests yourself is also necessary. Udon, who is always at the reception has a cap on the energy he can spare for inviting customers and what you would want to avoid is having his energy maxed out.
Once online, make it a point to manually click on the cookie people walking about. More guests means more income at the very least. You can also claim extra energy for Udon once daily by playing a short ad.
When people walk into your resort, the y could do a whole lot of things. One that is fairly easy to notice is that they drop cookies in certain areas of every facility. As a means of extra income, you should occasionally visit each facility to grab those free cookies. You can do this intermittently as cookies pile up to a point. Some customers will also need random stuff.
A notification will appear on the left side of your screen whenever someone needs something in addition to other vital information. The message board is among the tools you need to help you manage clients better.
The kitchen in your resort is actually a challenging enough facility to tend to on its own. Beyond the furniture purchases and upgrades, varying customer needs, and cookies to pick up occasionally, the kitchen offers more in store for you.
Titan, your trusty chef, has his own energy and min game that you should play from time to time. It is a simple guessing game as you search for ingredients to unlock more dishes. Once you have gathered enough ingredients, click on the menu at the restaurant’s entrance to unlock new dishes for your kitchen to serve.
Just like Udon, you would not want Titan to have full energy all the time. It is best to empty it out with every chance. You can also refill 15 energy for free once a day by watching a short video ad. As you develop your restaurant further, you will have different food stalls around.
These food stalls have limited inventory and would have to be replenished from time to time. Seeing a “+” sign on top of them means they can already be replenished. If any of them runs out and a customer wants what they should have, they would storm out of your resort.
Yet another companion you need to occasionally look after is the mysterious Curry. The third icon at the bottom of your screen is all about Curry’s adventures and has a fun and exciting min game you can revel in for some extra rewards. The adventure board is pretty basic and you help Curry move about through a dice-like dial at the bottom of the screen.
Board spaces can earn you rewards, be empty, set him off on an adventure, or even be traps that disable him for a short period of time. Having Curry go on adventures help earn you items idly. You may want to take not of his return so you can play the min game and send him on another adventure.
5. Accomplish Tasks For Extra Rewards
Pineapple’s Wishes in combination with the routine activities you need to engage in, as well as the plethora of upgrades you can invest in, are surely more than enough to keep you occupied every moment you are online and tending to your resort.
With each set of tasks directly or indirectly earning you cookies as well as other valuable items, the rate at which you can grow and develop your resort should be sufficiently noticeable and motivating. Beyond all that, however, Resortopia offers plenty more of perks and bonuses for most of these activities as there are a list of tasks you can accomplish for that each earn you extra rewards.
The tasks can be accessed through its icon at the lower left side of the screen. Tasks are divided into 3 distinct types in their respective tabs. The first tab consists of achievements, which are essentially milestones you reach as you progress across various aspects of your adventure. You can earn cookies and candies from each accomplishment you clear as well as other resources.
Next are the daily tasks, which are the easiest set of tasks you can achieve. These all relate to the usual activities you should engage in while online and, chances are that you will accomplish each one without even knowing the targets specifically.
Once more and more customers visit or stay in your resort, some of them will offer you unique requests. Some will either ask for reservations while others will request unique sets of items. Accomplishing the task for these customers will earn you great rewards, which includes improved relationships with them that yield its own set of bonuses.
6. Remember To Visit The Shop And Gacha Market
While rewards abound in Resortopia, seemingly obviating the need for more items, the shop and gacha market are your extra means of obtaining even more free items. Windmills serve as the top premium currency in Resortopia that you can use to purchase almost anything. This currency, however, cannot be obtained normally in the game outside of the shop. Each day, though, you can grab 10 free windmills from the shop for free.
With you being busy tending to your resort, one of the features in Resortopia you might miss out on is the Gacha Market. You can spend gacha tickets that you earn from various rewards to take a spin for a random reward. You can click on the prize preview to see possible rewards in store for you.
In addition to bulks of candies in the top rewards, there are also flashy furniture that you can only exclusively earn from the gacha market. Each attempt costs 25 gacha tickets but you can spin for free 5x by playing a short video ad each time.
Another opportunity to obtain extra items is Wow’s Stock. Wow is a unique NPC merchant that visits your resort from time to time selling different items you can purchase using cookies. What he offers are items customers would randomly ask for. Since you will always have plenty of means to earn large chunks of cookies, we recommend buying everything that Wow is selling each time he visits.
7. Get To Know Characters In The Gallery
People are only cookie people in Resortopia before you invite them to visit your resort. Once you click on them, the random cookie person will reveal themselves to be one of the many customers you can meet and befriend in the game. Unlocking them earns you a reward and taking the relationship to the next level milestone also comes with its own rewards. Additionally, a better relationship with any customer means more profits earned from them as well as bigger tips.
Relationship levels are indicated by hearts and there are a couple of ways to increase them. Customers tend to need random stuff while they are at your resort. This is always indicated at the notifications on the left side of your screen. Customers will only want something for a limited period of time and if you are able to deliver, you earn a heart for them.
Failing, however, is only a missed opportunity and will not cause a reduction in the relationship level between you and the customer. The commission tasks that you accomplish involving specific customers will tremendously increase your relationship level with them. Work your way to the heart of each customer from being strangers, to acquaintances, to friends, and finally being close friends.
Friends are not the only NPCs to get to know well in Resortopia as there are plenty of supporting characters you will meet as you make progress. All other characters that are not customers fall within the second tab of the gallery.
With the exception of your support group and the cookie men who have yet to become your customers, be sure to take note of everyone else you have identified. Not all of them actually bring good fortune as there are characters you would want to click on too just to get rid of them faster.
The God of Fortune, for example, being the embodiment of wealth and generosity, is always a welcomed guest anywhere within the resort. You would want to click as rapidly as you can on him when he is around as each tap earns you cookies. The Lucky Sprite will want to play hide and seek with you. Finding him twice after the first click earns you a random surprise.
On the other hand, the appropriately-named Cookie Monster is someone to really watch out for. Once he appears, he will start to gobble up every cookie person he sees. No cookie person means no potential customers so be sure to click away once you hear his gibberish lingo. There is also Squeaky who is a cute little mouse.
As adorable as you think he might look like, Squeaky will gradually eat cookies laying around. It can be a little challenging to find him in crowded spaces so be sure to look diligently when the notification of his presence appears.
8. Take Advantage Of Ad Boosts
Ads, in video or any other format, should always be expected to form part of free mobile games, most especially ones that do not heavily or absolutely rely on micro transactions for profits. While ads exist as a means for the developers to earn something for their hard work, there are still players who feel annoyed by the existence of video ads.
While ads that play automatically, interrupt gameplay, and give players nothing for it can be understandably frustrating especially if they appear too often; it is important to keep in mind that ads exist so that the game can continuously be available for everyone to enjoy for free.
Resortopia actually does not have video ads that pop up randomly as each one will only play following an initiating action from the player. While there are currencies and resources you can purchase using real money, Resortopia makes sure as well that every player, regardless of activity, can do very well without any need to spend real money. There are a plethora of ad boosts in Resortopia in that players, especially those who do not mind playing ads every so often, will easily gain what they need and a little more as well.
For starters, cookies are the basic currency in the game and as much as it is easy to earn it, no player can actually have enough of it given the number of purchases you need to make one after another. Idle rewards and tips are among the biggest sources of cookies especially if considered in bulk. Claiming these rewards always come with an opportunity to earn extra cookies at the cheap cost of playing a 15 to 30-second video ad.
Udon and Titan’s energy can be replenished once each day by playing a video ad as well. The Gacha Market grants 5 attempts for free rolls at the cost of one ad played each time. Most of the rewards you can earn for completing tasks like cookies and candies, can also be doubled if you choose to play an ad before claiming them. You would want to also pay attention to special ad boosts that appear at the right side of your screen.
There are opportunities for you to earn instant bulks of cookies or even tremendously boost the rate at which customers will be automatically invited to go to your resort. While there are no losses for you in instances where you choose to skip the ad, the rate of your progression will certainly be a lot faster the more you patronize the ad boosts.
Relative to freebies, do not forget to check in on the online event rewards you can claim from time to time. You can access it via the events icon at the right side of the screen and new rewards are available from time to time so long as you stay online.
As final tips, be sure to check your backpack for items you may want to use sooner than later and click on Pineapple’s portrait in the resort if you need additional information about anything. There are unique room furnishings you may have in your inventory that will increase your popularity once placed and items to consume to boost your earnings.
There are also leaderboards you may want to peak into, in case you are competitive and would want to see how you fare against other resort tycoons in the world of Resortopia.
And that wraps up our Resortopia beginner’s guide and we hope that you picked up a lot of useful tips and tricks within it you can readily apply to your virtual resort tycoon career moving forward and we likewise hope you enjoyed reading its entirety. If you have spent quite some time tending to your resort and exploring across the game’s many features, we hope you can also share some of your nifty discoveries with us and your fellow readers!