FarmVille: Tropic Escape tips, tricks, and hints

Maybe farming is passé in mobile games now. Ah, but farming -- and doing a lot of a other things too -- in an island paradise might be a little different. At least you can work on your tan and sip some pina coladas while tending to your crops.

Actually, you can do a lot more than that in FarmVille: Tropic Escape, the latest game to carry on the FarmVille name. If your only memory is from the Facebook era and its ubiquitous requests, you might want to check back in on where the series has gone on mobile.

The premise of the new game is simple enough. Your friend has convinced you to go halfsies with her on an old inn located on an unnamed but very nice tropical island. After fixing the place up, the goal is to turn it into a top notch resort.

Doing so requires farming, naturally, but also cooking, diving, and ... heck, let's just get right into our FarmVille: Tropic Escape tips, tricks, and hints and we'll explain everything.

The basics of island living

If you're a FarmVille veteran, you'll feel right at home with the first mechanic the game shows you, which is growing and harvesting crops. Simply tap on a plot of land (you begin the game with eight and can buy more as you level up), then drag the plant you wish to grow onto the square. One crop planted will yield two when harvested, and you don't need to worry about watering them or anything like that.

Farming gives you some of the raw materials you'll need to create other items, like turning pineapples into pineapple smoothies at the Tiki Bar. Other ways to get items you'll need for recipes include tapping on the coconut tree (for coconuts, though you probably figured that), or getting a friendly dolphin to fish for you.

Sometimes you'll need to use an item to get others, but the trade-off is always worth it. For instance, giving the dolphin one pineapple will yield you two fish.

Every harvesting or crafting action takes a certain amount of time to finish, though you can speed up any timer with the use of Gems, the game's premium currency.

Managing the message board

The most efficient way to level up faster and get more coins is to fulfill guest orders on the message board located on your resort's dock. If you have the proper items, you can tap the 'Deliver' button and your partner will drop off the order to one of the bungalows in her boat, returning shortly with the rewards.

While filling orders should be one of your priorities, you do want to be wary that doing so doesn't leave you with a shortage of one key ingredient. For example, if you deliver 18 pineapples and you only have 19 on hand, you won't be able to make any pineapple smoothies until you harvest more.

And that can be important because ...

You've got quests to complete

Yes, it wouldn't really be a FarmVille game if someone wasn't offering you quests. In Tropic Escape, just about anyone you meet might have a job for you, sometimes in multiple parts and occasionally good for only a limited time.

You can find your current quests by tapping on the clipboard icon on the left side of the screen. Then just swipe back and forth between the quest-givers to find one you want to tackle. Note that you can finish objectives for more than one quest at a time, so if two people want you to cook three crab rolls, you only need to make three, not six.

Quests might not seem like a great use of your time and resources compared to filling guest orders, but they do offer some handy items as rewards and help to advance the narrative of the game. So they definitely serve their purposes.

Always be doing something

Since literally any task you perform in FarmVille: Tropic Escape gives you XP, you should always have as many different things going on as possible when you're actively playing. The only real limit is storage, but spending some gems to expand your silo and boathouse will get them to a point where they can hold plenty.

In the early stages of the game, one of the tasks you definitely want to often is snorkeling at the Coral Reef. Not only is it the lone place to acquire crabs, but the XP payoff is pretty nice as well. It costs you one pineapple smoothie for each diver and takes 15 minutes, but it's well worth it.

There's much more to get into as you get deeper into the latest FarmVille, but these tips should help you get your resort into decent shape right off the bat. Enjoy the island life, and don't forget to write. People still do that, right?