9 Beginner Tips & Tricks for Moonstone Island 🎈

Moonstone Island releases today and I've been playing non-stop! I've actually played over 6 hours now in the past two days. So, I thought I'd put together this video, sharing some tips & tricks I wish I'd known when I first started playing and some things I've learned along the way!

Introduction

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 👇

#1 - Choosing your Spirit

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.

#2 - First Night Stamina

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!

#3 - Running out of Stamina

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

#4 - Quick Stamina Regen

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!

#5 - Mines & Dungeons

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.

#6 - The Warp Whistle

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.

#7 - The Spirit Barn

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.

#8 - Seed Propagation

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.

#9 - Moonstones

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.

Conclusion

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.

[ilyanatarasca]

Here are a couple I have -

Recommended Tamed Pets for Week 1:
Chimnea - Possibility of breaking rocks with one tap (saves stamina) so just go through and tap rocks one
Starsee - Bonus on Taming
Fluffox - Success bonus on social actions
Womr - cuts grass
Snorkle - Faster Fishing

None of these really go beyond week one; but are good starters until you find ones you want more.

Easy exit from mines - Manual Save, exit to menu, Continue - now you are out of the mine without time or stamina loss

Other note - when you enter and exit the mine the spirits in the mine change so if you are after a specific one... re-entering can help.

Take day 1 & 2 to fish until you unlock the moonstones from chests to build up moonstones faster. Fishing is the most efficient way of gaining foraging experience.


Mid game -
Once you have the spirit barn portal, whistle totem & Toxitoe you can use the whistle twice a day. Just add Toxitoe when using the whistle.

[DidiM713]

@milman you undo the patches of land with the hammer

[Damien]

I didn't know that you could pick up chests in dungeons but this is so so useful omg

[DraikoTDoggo]

One tip I want to add to the warp whistle point. Be sure to interact with the statue the whistle came from everyday for random loot the next day. Sometimes its just rubbish like a gem or stone, but other times you can get seeds from late game areas, once I even got bloodroot seeds on my third day in the game! You need a moonstone sickle to harvest that normally on dark islands! Along with that you can also get other goodies, so far I've seen wood/stone, gems, coins, crops, seeds, and even moonstones. Don't miss out, interact with the statue at least once daily for that extra loot.

[AlexGoneLoco]

I do have a question, is there something specific you're supposed to be feeding the spirits in the barn? I've been using flax because I have tons of it and they seem happy when I do, but I just want to make sure.

Thanks!

[AlexGoneLoco]

Just to add a tip about harvesting seeds

On wild plants that you want to harvest seeds from, if you keep holding down the button after getting the first two seeds you'll usually get another two. You have to be holding it down, not pressing. I've been getting tons of seeds this way!

[Epithet]

another tip is before leaving the tutorial area, you can use the scythe and cut all the grass around for an additional mini head-start for materials bc there's no stamina bar yet! :3

[toastypoopdog]

how in the heck do i make some sort of workbench? D:

[mothfaery <3]

@milman hit them with your hammer :3

[milman]

Thank you for the tips! I was wondering, is there any way to undo patches of land where you can plant seeds? I can't figure it out