Things I wish I'd known sooner - Tips and tricks to make the most of your time in Fairhaven (Spoiler free) - updated for v1.5.2

I love this game. I love finding my way in a new game, getting to grips with the mechanics and learning the ingame lore. But some things can be frustrating when they catch you off guard.

I'm keeping this guide free of story/character spoilers, and as little as possible in terms of new game mechanics/farm upgrades. Anything I feel that MIGHT stray into spoiler territory will be hidden behind spoiler tags.

That said, if you REALLY want to go in with no fore-knowledge, then this guide isn't for you.

TL:DR summary

A few quick tips:

• Grab all the weeds
  
• If an area/item isn't available, chances are it will become available as the story progresses
  
• Seasons won't change until you want them to, so unless you have a deadline for a quest, you don't need to rush.
  
• Do all quests (or risk missing out)
  
• You will unlock an increase in Tara's move speed, then later a fast travel option. You will not be stuck walking slowly forever!

Length of Game

Since people often freak out that they've 'finished' the game, but still have lots of locked items (crafting, cooking etc...), I wanted to quickly (and spoiler free) go over how much content the game actually has.

The main quest spans 4 seasons. However there is much more content left to see! At time of writing (up to version 1.5.2) the game has content well into Winter 2. So if you're missing a craft-able item or recipe, you may not have reached the point where it unlocks.

A note on missable items.

A LOT of items/recipes etc.. unlock via quests, including seemingly optional side quests. A few people have missed unlocking those items because they missed or intentionally skipped the quest that unlocked them. The devs are aware of this issue, and have hinted they may add a way to get missed items, but at time of writing this is not possible. So if you are a completionist, do all quests!

Foraging priorities

So without giving too much away, in Wylde Flowers, many crafting/cooking/magic ingredients are found via foraging. Some items can only be found during certain seasons. For example Pistachios and Walnuts can only be found in fall and winter, while almonds are only available in summer and fall. Certain dishes will require specific nuts, and they will not be available again until next year, so it's a good idea to collect lots of those nuts, and make sure you have a small stockpile of each until you've completed every dish (if getting that achievement is important to you).

It is not essential to forage daily, but certain items are needed frequently, but spawn irregularly, so grab them when you can. I recommend exploring foraging areas (the beach, the woods, the mountainside, the Gloaming , and even your own farm area) regularly (I find every other day works fine).

One minor problem I've encountered in the game is that an item may go from "I have loads of this but nothing to do with it." to "I need so much of this and I'm running out fast!" really quickly, and it can be impossible to guess which items will be most important. So here is my personal (spoiler/explanation free) list of high priority items :

1.Weeds
2. Conch shells
3. Wild nuts
4. Wild herbs/flowers
5. Wild berries

There are many more things you can forage, but these were the items I found I needed the most of.


Pro-tip:
(discusses a major game mechanic, but nothing story related)

You want all the weeds!!!!


Certain farm upgrades will require LARGE QUANTITIES of soil, and the only means to get soil is via compost. Each compost bin will be able to convert 1 weed into 1 piece of soil per 24 hours. There will be potions/spells that can speed that up or increase the yield (which I strongly recommend you make use of). I recommend building 2-4 compost bins ASAP, and putting weeds in them daily. There is speculation that clearing your farm area of trees and rocks, will increase spawn rates of weeds and other items, but this is unconfirmed. It will however make it much easier to spot weeds quickly.

Managing stamina/energy and magic

Tara starts out with a small stamina bar which is golden. Her purple magic bar will be unlocked via story progression.

Tara will not pass out if she runs out of either, but running out of stamina will prevent her from doing more activities, and running out of magic will prevent her crafting more spells.

Tara only passes out if she doesn't make it to bed in time. Do this twice and she will get sick (speak to Amira about that!)

Both stamina and magic bars start out small. Don't worry, as you progress through the story this will change.

Magic is easily replenished, once you've gotten far enough in the story that magic is unlocked for you, go to the coven meeting area at any time, and drop an offering into the cauldron . Most natural items (nuts, flowers, mushrooms etc...) can be used, however I've found that flowers/herbs [/spoilers] seem to replenish the most magic. Drinking alcoholic drinks can also replenish some magic, but at the cost of stamina. Sleeping does not replenish magic.

Stamina is replenished by sleeping, eating and drinking soft drinks, and certain potions. The most efficient option is to buy coffee from Sophia , but Hazel does teach you how to make some nice tea if you'd rather not spend money.

Early game it can be frustrating how quickly your stamina runs out, but don't worry the game mostly lets you go at your own pace. So don't feel you have to get everything done in a day.

Making Money

Now Blutwurst has a very helpful guide on steam HERE, which will give you one excellent option for making infinite in game money really early on in the game. You may or may not want to take advantage of that. Some might find it super helpful, others might feel it's exploiting game mechanics too far (there is actually an option under settings to embargo the item in question in case you can't trust yourself not to use this trick).

But assuming you don't want Tara to become an instant millionaire, how can she make money?

I'll warn you upfront that Fairport's economy is a little... wonky. That's normal for game economies of course, but it's worth being aware that crafted/cooked items may not fetch a higher price than their ingredients.

You can sell foraged items but I'd personally recommend saving most of them for craft/cooking/magic as their availability is irregular (you're relying on spawn rates and some items are only available at certain seasons).

You can sell food you've cooked and items you've crafted, but as I mentioned above, not all items make a profit. A little trial and error may be required to get a feel for what is most profitable.

You can sell the fish you catch. I would recommend holding onto squid until you unlock the mine . But most other fish can be safely sold. While some are rarer than others, none are dependant on time of day or season, so if you discover you need a specific one, it can usually be acquired quickly by fishing or in some cases simply buying them.

You can sell your produce. It will usually fetch a decent price, but produce is frequently requested for quests so I tend to save it for them, or for cooking new dishes.

You can do quests, which will reward you with a variety of items/money/friendship.

You can do message board requests. (Though they may ask for a lot of items that are quite rare at the start).

Options that become available later:


You can sell gems from the mine, but there will be crafting/magical/quest related uses for them too, so keeping a few is a good idea.

You can sell animal products. This includes eggs, milk and wool. All of these can be crafted/cooked with too. Though by the time you unlock animals, you're probably doing ok for money

You can sell your animals to Kim. It's decent money, but not great as you've spent money feeding them until adulthood.

Shopping Advice

Every shop has 'levels' which you unlock by selling items to the shop. The higher the level the greater the range of items available (and it may increase the stock).

I recommend unlocking all shop tiers as quickly as is practical for you, but Kai's shop should be a priority. He only accepts some quite tricky items so it will take time (at least at first) to unlock higher tiers of his shop, and his stock is so sporadic you'll want to maximise your chances of getting certain rare items. I found pineapples, followed by avocados were the rarest and it's a good idea to buy them when you see them .

Fishing tips

Fishing unlocks really early in the game, but some fishing areas are unavailable till much later.

Fishing areas are:

The Beach
The Farm
The Lake (in the woods)
The Mountain
The Mine (fishing spot is in very final level)
The Gloaming (fishing spot is in second Gloaming area)

Once fishing unlocks, go to an area with potential fishing spots, then look for the fish. When you get close to the little group of fish, you should get a prompt to start fishing.

Fishing does not involve a mini game. You wait until a fish bites, then decide if you want to reel it in. If you don't, just wait and that fish will get away, and the next fish will bite.

You can't tell the species in advance, but there are 4 silhouettes of fish that might appear: Small fish, large long fish, large round fish, and lobster. (You can also get 'message in a bottle', I recommend taking that as a priority).

For example if you are fishing in the sea and catch a fish with a 'lobster' silhouette, then you might catch a lobster, a shrimp, a clam etc... (there are several other 'lobster' fish).

For a full list of fish and where they can be found, you can check the wiki or the steam guide.

I recommend fishing regularly whenever you have some time spare (but try to avoid fishing too late in the evening, you might not get to bed in time). There is an achievement for catching all fish, and that is a lot more doable if you're fishing regularly while you play the game. There are also quests or cooking dishes that will want specific fish, and of course you can sell fish.

Cooking and Crafting tips

Cooking and crafting unlock early, but naturally most recipes will be unavailable at the start. Most new crafting buildings and items will be introduced via quests and story events.

Useful tip:

Many recipes (for both cooking, crafting and magic) will allow ingredient substitutions. So if you have no red mushrooms you might be able to use poppies instead. Just click on the ingredient on the recipe screen and see if it gives you options!


You can use food to replenish your stamina, though I would only do that with dishes that you can make an infinite supply of (so the ingredients can be purchased/grown on your farm). The best food for replenishing stamina however is coffee and can be bought from Sophia . You can give food to villagers to improve their relationship with you (and everyone has a few favourite dishes for an added bonus). You can sell food. And there is an achievement for cooking every recipe in the game.

Recipes are unlocked in a number of ways:

Buying cookbooks
Completing quests
Finding 'message in a bottle' while fishing
From digging up patches of dirt on the mountain. (Funny story, but I actually didn't realise this at first as when I dug those patches I only found money, so I didn't bother doing it anymore...)
From chests in the mine, the means to unlock them becomes available as the story progresses
From breaking large rocks on your farm

Relationships/Friendships

This is fairly straightforward, but some of the mechanics can catch newer players out.

Naturally you make friends with people by talking to them regularly, giving them their favourite food (or non favourite food, it just gives less friendship boost) and doing quests for them.

There is NO friendship decay. You can safely ignore villagers for days or weeks (or even forever...) without losing friendship with them.

Once a 'heart' of friendship is completed, you'll need to trigger the character's event to progress to the next level of relationship. However you'll still gain friendship points even if you haven't 'levelled up' their friendship yet, so they won't be wasted. Character events may be hard to find as they might only occur on one specific day of the week during very specific hours, maybe in a place you don't go very often. There's a steam guide to finding them if you're struggling though.

Dating is special in that once you've raised character's relationship with you high enough, you'll get a special 'dating' conversation option. You will have the option to refuse. Be aware you can only date one person at a time in this game, though you can break up with someone if you really want to. Just ignore them for a week and the 'break up' conversation option will become available. There is an achievement for completing (marrying) every romance option.

Please note: Due to story reasons, it is advised that you complete all desired romances before the end of the first year. Both Kim and Amira will become unavailable for romance from some time in early year 2.

Dates

I only unlocked the 'going on dates' option after I had completed the game and gotten married, so I don't know the precise trigger for them to start. I'd guess either after you become romantically connected to someone, or after you marry (will update when I learn either way!). It took me a while to figure out how to trigger a date with my spouse. The way it works is: their final 'spouse' heart fills with every interaction (talking, hugging, giving gifts etc...) once that heart is full, you get the option to ask them on a date. You will only have one date location at first, but each date location unlocks the next one. When you've gone on that date, your spouse's final heart will reset to 0 and you can begin to refill it. I find that with doing all interactions and giving favourite gifts every day, this takes around a week, maybe a little longer.

Note: Dates will last all day and you'll arrive home at 11pm. So if there's anything you need to do that day, do it first!

Please note that not all dates are available for all spouses! One date is at Damon's bar so naturally neither Cameron nor Giva will go there. It is also only available at certain times of day and on certain days unlike Sophia, Damon won't open early/late just so you can go on a date. The last date is at Ravenwood Hollow , and thus only the magical characters: Amira, Damon, and Westly can go there. If a date area is not available for your specific spouse, the next date area should unlock instead.

Break-ups and Reunions

As mentioned above, you break-up with or divorce with someone by ignoring them for a week, and this will trigger a 'break-up' conversation option. (Which you can also ignore if you want, but it will go away once you talk to your spouse again). Late game you will also unlock a potion that speeds this up. If you've rejected someone or broken up with them, but want to get with them later, there is still hope! Once you have the bouquet making station, you can craft them a beautiful bouquet of flowers, give it to them and BAM you can date them!

Animal tips

It's probably no spoiler that you'll eventually unlock the ability to keep animals. You can see the old chicken coop and barn on the farmland from the start. They're unlocked later in the game though, so just progress through the story till it becomes an option.

First tip:

Only buy one of each animal. There will be quality of life improvements as you progress, but they take a while to unlock. And trust me, petting, feeding and collecting eggs/milk/wool from 6 chickens, 3 cows and 3 sheep every day becomes... a little repetitive. I had to use magic to freeze time DAILY so I could look after the animals and still have time to do other stuff.

Second tip:

Stock up on the appropriate animal food. The animal food seller has some really odd work days, so you may go several days without being able to buy more feed. So stock up and keep an eye on how much you have.

If you don't feed them for too long they can get sick. I'm unclear on precisely how long you can leave them before they get ill, but I've left them at least a day without issue. I've not heard of them dying from starvation though I have not tested this. If they become sick there is a way to cure them. Marty will have a questline that ends in you learning how to brew a cure potion for sick animals


Beyond that, just have fun. The animals are cute. Petting them increases their affection for you, which means they may produce extra.

Late game tips:

It will be possible to upgrade the barn and coop, increasing the number of animals that can be kept there, and allowing them to breed. When these building upgrades become available, Marty should also have some new animals for you (once you've done the quest for them!).

Breeding animals

To do this you need to have completed Marty's Menagerie quest to unlock new animals, and you should receive a letter from Aryel. He will give you a quest, that unlocks a 'fertility potion'. Give this to an animal, and it will become pregnant (assuming you have the upgraded barn). Chickens and ducks do not need the potion, just the upgraded coop. It will have an incubator you can place an egg in.

Magical animals

When breeding animals, it is possible to get a 'magic' animal. They have a special appearance (and possibly other effects, I haven't played with them long enough to know). To get magical animals, Aryel hints that the mother needs to be happy. It is unclear if having full hearts is necessary, what is necessary is feeding the animal their favourite food daily during pregnancy (or just daily in the case of chickens/ducks, until they drop a special egg). How do you find out their favourite food? Either by trail and error (SLOW!) or by using that handy crystal ball in your basement you stopped using when you learned every villager's favourite dish. The colour of the baby depends on the season it is born in, for details see: https://www.reddit.com/r/wyldeflowers/comments/13eeglj/wylde_flowers_magical_animal_guide_with_pictures/

Bees!

Beehives are so useful. Some quests will require honey/beeswax, either directly or as part of a cooking/crafting recipe. Certain spells will use them, and depending on your play-style, you may find you want LOTS of these.

But beehives aren't 100% intuitive. You will need at least one beehive. Each beehive needs at least 1 patch of flowers, and will receive a boost if you're growing multiple species of flowers. So a beehive with a patch of snow drops and a patch of tulips, will 'fill' twice as fast as if it just had one patch. If you build more beehives, you'll need to build more flower patches. The more flowers you grow, the faster the beehive will produce. So you'll need to balance your need for produce with your need for honey/beeswax.

Bees can reach flowers anywhere on your farm. Including inside the greenhouse , so don't worry about the placement of beehives and flower patches.

Tricky Achievement tips

Some of the game's achievements take a LONG time to complete, so having a rough idea what to do to make progress as you go along, can be useful.

Do notice board quests from time to time. Focus on ones that ask for items you have loads of or can easily get more of. There are two achievements for doing notice board quests, but it can take a while to do enough.

Fish regularly. The 'catch every fish' achievement is much easier if you do it as you go along.

There is an achievement for crafting all items (this includes potions and spells, as well as farm crafts), and an achievement for cooking all dishes (see the 'cooking' section for how to unlock all recipes).

You will need precisely 3 pieces of animal fat (at time of writing). One piece is required for crafting and two pieces for cooking. At time of writing there is only one way to get animal fat: sell your animals to Kim. When I did it, I didn't get fat from a chicken, this may or may not be a bug, so I recommend selling cows/sheep. If you are like me and cannot bare to betray the trust of your animals, there is a (really convoluted) solution:

So first complete all other crafting/cooking recipes.
Then find your save-game folder (see 'save game location' in this guide for details).
Create a back-up of your save (put it somewhere safe).
Turn off steam cloud saves. To do this go to your steam library, right click on the game, and select 'properties' from the drop down menu. Go to 'General' then scroll down to 'steam cloud', then uncheck the box marked 'keep game saves in steam cloud'.
Launch the game, go to Kim, sell a sheep (if their hearts are maxed at 6 this SHOULD give you 3 pieces of animal fat, while a cow with 6 hearts gives 2. I'm not sure of how much fat animals with lower hearts give). Go to bed. The next day Kim will be outside your house, they will tell you they sold your animals, and here's your cut of the money. They will also give you some meat, bones and animal fat. Take this animal fat and immediately cook the two recipes that require it which are Black Pudding and Skirlie (other recipes allow you to substitute in other fat types so you don't need animal fat). Go to your shed and make a tallow candle. Remember to collect the candle once it's done.
Your two achievements should drop (if they don't then either it's a bug or you didn't complete ALL other crafts/dishes yet).
Now go back to your save game location and restore the backup.
Start game and pretend you never killed your animals. It happened in a different timeline!

Marriage achievements
So there 7 potential love interests in the game. And you get an achievement for marrying each one. Yes that's 7 play-throughs to get all those achievements! But there are a few ways you can speed things up.
First you can usually marry someone before the end of spring if you work fast. So marry them, then divorce them, then date the next person etc...
I don't like that option as I hate breaking up with characters in game. It should also be noted that there will be some story related dialogue from your sweetheart/spouse, which you'll miss if you take this route.
Another option is to get every love interest's relationship with you high enough that the 'date' option becomes available. Do not take that option yet through. Once you have everyone up that high, make a back-up of your save. Do the first romance (this should take no more than 2 weeks, should be a lot less assuming you can do the romance cut scenes and quests fast enough, but either way it will take a week to organise a wedding). Marry them. Get that achievement. Cheer. Then restore your back-up and start again with the next love interest. (You could even make a back-up of every romance so you can play from that point onward if you really want to...) This option is fastest (though still takes some time), avoids break-ups (since that other relationship happened in a different timeline, doesn't count!), but does mean you might miss out on story/quest related dialogue/quests from your spouse.

Honestly at present the relationships aren't super well developed, so you aren't missing that much. However the devs are aware that relationships are an area fans would love to see expanded, so there may be lots more content in the future.

Save Game Location

If you need to find and back-up the save game folder, it can be found here:
C:/user/"username"/appdata/locallow/studio drydock/wylde flowers


The appdata folder is hidden by default. If you don't know how to make it visible, do a quick internet search for 'how to unhide appdata folder' for instructions.

[♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥]

thanks ily

[Merc249]

One tip for raising shopping levels: Most of the shops have inventory you can buy and sell right back infinitely, trivializing raising the tier level as long as a player can handle the money loss (since items generally sell for half of what they can be bought for). Sophia's, Angus', Francis', Lina's, and Bruno's shops can all be leveled in this manner. If the player is fine with the fish stick money method, these shops can all be maxed out early in Spring!

Another tip: If you have the funds, you can purchase gold ingots from Francis to upgrade your tools to Gold tier while skipping the other tiers, before the mine opens up to the gold ore levels.

[dataVi]

Money making tip: Never sell fish to Bruno! Instead, you should make fish fingers out of them (one wheat + any fish). Wheat costs 15g and fish fingers sell for 100g. That's much better than selling a herring for 3g!

Note that some recipes call for specific fish, so you should save your shrimp, lobster, flounder, and shiner until you've made the recipes that require them.

Later on, Zephyr will sell Whirligigs that can help with farm chores. Load up your fishing whirligig with bait, give them a powered gem, and they can catch over 100 fish per day! Spend 1500g on wheat and then you can easily turn 8500g profit per day!

[Meep]

Update: buy coconuts from Shelby whenever possible. You need them for a year 2 activity and if you don't start hoarding them early and often: you will perpetually be scrambling for more.

For similar reasons you want to hoard cotton, cloth, etc. Cotton is only available in summer, but come winter there's a greenhouse, stockpile glass whenever you happen to have sand to spare. For Autumn you'll be forced to rely solely on whatever wool you can muster up.

Similar to cotton: the tulips of spring can be used for blue dye (so can blue berries, but they aren't year round & not in the shops).
Likewise Sunflowers can be used for yellow dye, as can the rarer-than-you'd-probably-like forageable, the banana. Both can be later grown in the greenhouse.
Seriously though, you need so much glass to finish the greenhouse & especially the bigger greenhouse!

[Errapel]

@Romaki, I think I can add a little warning that gives people a heads-up to do their romancing before the end of Winter 1.

[Romaki]

Not really spoilerfree, but it might be good to hint that two bachelors start dating each other in year 2 and become unavailable in that save file. I'm so annoyed having to start over just because of one bachelor, it's gonna take so long to get to that point again.

[Blutwurst]

nice guide and thank you for the credit.
im playing for the first time again since release becouse i never comtleted the 4th season.
i noticed some questional changes they did and was kinda lost^^
early on i was able to craft some ez potions to replanish stamina and magica. i have this items still in my inventory but their recipes arent craftable anymore more. now i have to use coffee and alcoholica instead. i really have to question this changes becouse im a witch in the end and they deleted my beloved potions from the game.

but the funniest thing i saw: the option to dissable fishfingers ^^
looks like i really spoiled their economies. i wrote the very first guide for this game just a few days after release and this new option really made my day... xD

[Errapel]

@Allisten, ok, so as far as I know the only folder you definitely need is that 'save' folder, but personally I like to copy the entire 'Wylde Flowers' folder, and paste it somewhere safe.

To restore from this backed up folder, I would take the folder within that has a LONG number in it, copy it, and then replace the version of it in the C:/user/"username"/appdata/locallow/studio drydock/wylde flowers folder.

You will probably need to disable Steam's cloud storage if you do this, or it may try to over-write it. From your steam library, right click on Wylde Flowers, click the 'settings' (or options, can't remember off the top of my head). From there, there will be a tab that controls steam cloud saves, just turn that off for a bit, restore your back-up save, open game, open that save, play, resave. Then you can turn steam cloud back on.

[Allisten]

How do you back up your save file? In the save game location you listed, I see a folder called "save" - do I copy the whole folder? Do I rename it? When I want to restore, how do I load it? Thank you, I've never had to do this in Steam before.

[thebluewolves]

love this game so much. its relaxing, love the farming, animals,plants and of course witchcraft.. hope they keep continuing the storyline.