Cozy creature-collector and life sim Moonstone Island released today!

If you’re going to be flying in on day 1, I’ve put together some beginner tips & tricks from my first few hours in the game that I think could really help you.

If you don't want to read this guide and want to watch it instead, there's also a video version 👇

At the start of the game, you may be asked if you’d like to skip the tutorial. I did this on my second playthrough, as I thought I knew everything that I needed to know.

However, if you skip the tutorial you don’t get to choose your starting Spirit. Instead, you’ll be given a random one by the game out of the 3 starters, which may not be the one that you want.

After your broom breaks and you crash land on the island, the game will suggest that you walk around to find your tools and seeds.

But your stamina will actually be full during this time, and you’re surrounded by trees and stones. So instead of wandering around aimlessly, I recommend picking up your hammer and start smashing things.

Your first quest is going to be to sell 10 stones for Ossono, so why not collect all of those now to save your stamina tomorrow?

If you’re lucky you may even find a Moonstone on your first night!

In a lot of farming games when you run out of stamina, you just can’t continue doing whatever you are doing be that mining, woodcutting or fishing.

In Moonstone Island, when you run out of stamina, you will collapse, go to sleep, and wake up the next morning.

The good news is that if you do faint, there is no punishment other than waking up a little bit later the next day. Or at least that’s the only punishment I’ve noticed.

This is the same for if you die by running out of health as well

Hidden away in the north-east area of your island, there’s a hot spring! Any time you are low on stamina, you can hop across here, and refill it at a rate of 7 stamina per 10 in game minutes.

This is great if you spend the morning mining or chopping down trees, but still want to do more work in the afternoon.

A couple of the islands also have hot springs that can quickly regenerate your stamina, so keep an eye out for them!

Both mines & dungeons have treasure chests within for you to discover, containing loot and recipes for crafting items! But every dungeon also has a hidden chest for you to discover.

Once you have looted chests of all their riches, you can actually pick them up and take them home with you to be used as storage at home. As crafting a chest costs 10 wood and 1 iron, this is a really great alternative!

You can even sell the ones you don’t want and they sell for a tidy profit of 50 gold pieces each - not bad for something you were just going to leave behind!

Edit: Mines can be found by smashing large rocks, one of which will reveal a hole in the ground with a ladder going down into the darkness. There is usually one per island.

At the start of your very first full day on the island, you’ll be given the recipe for a balloon after your mum has a bad dream about you breaking your broom.

It’s really easy to craft as well as it only needs three cloth, which is nine fibre. But if you don’t explore your island first, it’s very easy to leave without the whistle.

The whistle is a tool of sorts that you can pick up from the statue in town. It serves as a teleportation device and means that if you’re stranded on an island you can quickly teleport home, even if you’re in a mine or a dungeon. But beware because it can only be used once a day.

At the start of the game, you really want to prioritise the spirit barn. That’s because you can only have three active Spirits, so if you want all the cute Spirits you unlock the spirit barn to store them in.

But you can actually get yourself in a bit of a pickle if you collect three spirits before completing Zed’s first quest. That’s because Zed asks you to bring him at least a level five Spirit before he gives you the blueprints for a Spirit Barn.

EDIT: You just need to tame a level 5 Spirit for Zed. You do not need to bring it to him.

When you discover a new crop you should cut it with your scythe first, because this will give you two seeds.

One of which you can plant to grow more of the crop, and the other you should sell to Gaiana or Ofelia at the really pretty greenhouse-looking building.

If you do this, the seeds will be added to the stock at Rowan’s general store the next day so that you can buy and grow as many as you want.

Moonstones are a key part of the game as you’ll use them for crafting a lot of magical items like your broom and the Spirit barn.

You can find them by exploring and there’s usually one per island that you travel to. My best advice is to look for them at night as they’ll glow which makes them easier to spot than during the day.

They also respawn every season so you should have quite a lot over time, especially once you start exploring more regularly.

There’s so much more I could talk about regarding this game, but these are the tricks that I wish I'd known when I got started!

If you have any questions, drop them below in the comments and I'll do my best to help.