Fruitbus came out today and if you're going to be checking it out, I’ve put together some beginner tips & tricks to help you get started.

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

When I first started playing I would place all my ingredients on the counter and then try and chop them up there. It was so bad when I had only one countertop for them and all my bowls and I would often send them flying all across my food truck.

Well then I realised that you can dice food while you are holding them! So if your bowl is out ready, you can pick something up, slice it, drop it in the bowl and then repeat for as many fruits and veggies you actually need.

Most of the time when customers visit your Fruitbus they’ll have some idea of what they want to eat. Sometimes when people come to order though, they’ll display a series of blank circles above their heads.

At first I thought this meant they wanted an ingredient that I hadn’t unlocked yet, so I was rejecting all our orders because I thought that I couldn’t make them.

But it turns out that what this really means is that they’re not picky about which ingredients you use. So grab whichever fruit or veggie you have the most stock of and chuck it into that salad bowl, blender or whatever they want!

Although if you already know some recipes, it is better to create those if you can as they give a much better reward than random ingredients thrown together.

Speaking of salad bowls, something else I didn’t realise in this game is that in addition to your fruit and vegetables your Tupperware is also a consumable.

Every time you make a recipe, you grab a bowl from the pile or a glass from the stack and create a dish for your customer inside of them. But you have a specific amount of each type and if you don’t keep track of them, you may find yourself running out in the middle of service.

The good news is that your customers are incredibly patient.

So just leave them in the good care of your fruit bus as you run to the store to buy more bowls or glasses. Not every store has stock of each one though, so you may need to be a little more organised as you travel from island to island.

Something that makes this a little easier is that this game does have a sprint option, although I admit it took me almost an entire of playing before I realised this!

I’m not sure what it is when you’re using keyboard and mouse, but if you’re playing with a controller, you just need to press in your left stick, you can toggle on sprint whenever you want to go fast.

One of the first things that I recommend you buy is the small backpack from the store you come across after leaving the ferry.

This is life changing when it comes to collecting ingredients and will save you so much time!

When it comes to buying items at the shop you need to place your item on the counter and then load up your machine with the money, but you may find yourself leaving only to have your newly bought item vanish in a puff of smoke!

That’s because you haven’t bought it!

You need to talk to the shopkeeper to confirm the purchase before you can leave with your shiny new toy.

The good news is that cooking in your food truck isn’t the only way to make more money. I would really recommend that you go out exploring whenever you park up your food truck.

While there are a variety of different foods to find growing across the islands, there are also pink shells hidden and finding one of them can net you a tasty profit! Some even give you up to 40 gold pieces if they’re in a particularly hard to find location!

When you’re adventuring, make sure to listen out for the telltale tinkling noise that indicates one is nearby.

There are also shrines hidden away in this world!

In these locations you’ll usually find a pedestal and on that pedestal will be a recipe that the shrine wants you to complete.

In return for cooking them the meal they want, they’ll give you a reward like growing a new variety of ingredient you’d not been able to access before or unlocking a new pathway to help you travel to another area.

But do not make the same mistake I did!

The first shrine I came across, I looked at the recipe and then sprinted all the way back to my food truck to make it and came back with my freshly-cooked dish in hand, happy as larry.

Which is when I saw that right behind the shrine with the recipe on was a table with knives and bowls for me to make the dish and I was already surrounded by all the ingredients I needed.

Also this is probably sacrilege, but if you’re running a little low on money, you can just take the utensils from the shrine cooking table back to your Fruitbus and serve with them.

I stole all of the bowls and they seem to respawn too!

Sometimes when you cook food they'll emit a bright blue sparkly cloud and I thought that meant it was a special dish for the shrine.

What I didn’t realise is that these magical glowing dishes also have another use.

In fact I didn’t realise it until much later when I was cooking up a meal in my Fruitbus and I saw a taste button at the bottom of my screen.

I do not know how I missed this but these dishes unlock special memories from grandma and give you hints on how to progress the story!

Whenever you bring fruit into your Fruitbus, make sure to put them into your storage containers. If you don’t put them in your storage and leave them out on the floor they’ll actually start to go off and you’ll see flies flitting around them.

The first time I saw this, I chucked my fruit out the back door thinking they were already ruined. But actually just picking them up removes any flies from the fruit and you can just pop it back into your storage box.

But what happens when you leave them to the mercy of the flies?

Well then they turn to trash, which at first may seem useless, but later down the line you may meet some customers who want some trash in their diet…

I think it takes a full day for food to turn into trash, but actually if you drop it outside right before nightfall, by the time the next morning has come around it will have changed to rubbish.

I would really recommend picking up a fuel can from one of the petrol stations and filling it with petrol.

Some of the roads between the different petrol stations can be really long and your character is super slow. Trust me you do not want to run out of fuel and need to run all the way there and back again.

Get your emergency fuel supply!

My final tip is something you may encounter early on in the game, or later on depending on what you decide to do first.

But if you’re searching up and down for chillies like I was, just wait for the volcano to erupt then they will rain down around you in a spicy shower.

Those are all of my tips that I think will help you get started with the game, but if you have any suggestions that I missed, make sure to drop them down in the comments to help other players!