Beastie Bay: What I Wish I Knew Before I Started Playing

So I just recently got a smartphone, and like most people who first get a new toy, I looked for games. I've sifted through a ton, only played a few for longer than 15 minutes.

Then I came across Beastie Bay, developed by Kairosoft (apparently it's like, their millionth game they've released).

Beastie Bay is a mix of like..Pokemon/Dragon Quest/Sim City. You start off on a deserted island, explore unknown territories, befriend random animals (and robots?) by throwing bait at them, build a self-sufficient economy of food and wood, then build an attractive town to lure tourists from other islands to generate funds.

Dragon Quest-esque Battling System

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So. Here are a few things that I wish I knew before I started playing. This sure isn't everything, but I hope this can help someone. 

Tourists can't make it past the first part of my island because I blocked off EVERYTHING. Smart city layouts..

 1. Build Close to the dock: You might not start near it, so you don't know what I'm talking about. But when you make your way to the dock, you want to build closer to there. Why? So tourists can visit your shops and buildings for you to get money, and you don't have to invest so much on roads.

2. Efficient with House/Pasture/Building Placement: When someone inhabits a house, they're able to harvest from the 8 squares surrounding them. With that said, you can (and should) space out your homes a bit to maximize efficiency of what your islanders can gather. The bottom picture is a terrible example of what you should do. 

3. Wood is more Important than Food: When I first started the game, I got scared that when my food count went low, I'd die. Or something. Like normal humans. And creatures. But in this game, there's no penalty for hitting 0 food. With that said, go ahead and research Forestry as much as you can once your food kinda stabilizes. You need tons of wood for research. Which brings me to...

Wood. Research. Huzzah

4. RESEARCH. RESEARCH. RESEARCH: You should always be researching something. If anything, you should be researching as much as you can at one time (you can research multiples). This will make the the game much smoother and more fast pace once you get certain upgrades. Researching takes a heckload of wood though, so make sure you have enough trees to chop down.

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Clearly, I'm not super far into the game, but already I have some hindsight regret, wishing I had done certain things differently. I'm sure there's more to expand on this post later!

But for now, if you're a fan of RPGs and building sims, I highly recommend this free game.