Build an Island is an addictive game where you have to gather resources, hire help and work to expand your island. While the premise sounds simple, there are a lot of things in the game that will help you if you know them from the start. That is why our Build an Island beginner's guide will show you what you should prioritize and how to get the most out of your time.
How to Get Resources Effectively
Once you start the game, you'll play through the tutorial that teaches you how to gather resources. While the process seems easy, getting them becomes a hassle the more you progress (especially after unlock so many of them). At the start, you will be chopping up wood and mining stone yourself. However, if you expand to the north, you'll unlock a workers cabin. This building allows you to hire three types of employees:
- Lumberjacks
- Miners
- Craftsmen
This saves you a lot of time, especially if you log out of the game, as they will continuously gather resources. Getting a lumberjack and a miner will help you at the start, since those resources are needed for everything. While you might be tempted to get the crafter, hold off on him. Even if you unlock the Furniture shop, just make them items yourself. If you waste more than a thousand gold on the Crafter, he will keep taking all the wood your Lumberjack and you gather to craft chairs and you won't be able to expand further.
Getting one lumberjack and two miners is the way to go since mining stones is a slower task, and you'll need them. Once you discover Iron Ore, you can configure one miner to mine ore instead of stone.
After expanding to the left and discovering bamboo (or going to the right side and discovering cactus), you should hire one more lumberjack to gather one of those resources. We suggest going for the bamboo in the early game, as you will need bamboo planks before you'll need cactus loom.
How to Get Gold
Getting gold is crucial in Build an Island as it allows you to buy the merchant's stock and is even used for expanding your island. In the earlier stages of the game, you can get gold by hitting gold-colored trees and stones. While this doesn't grant a lot of gold, it is enough to buy seeds.
Once you have your garden, you can earn gold by harvesting and selling crops. Corn seeds can be useful right at the start of the game to earn some money, but you should focus on purchasing seeds that you can harvest multiple times like Strawberries.
You can also collect and sell Honey from your honeybees for a decent profit. You can unlock a Beehive right next to the workers' cabin, but there's another spot further to the right near the cactus loom. You can purchase Bees for Gold from the Merchant whenever he restocks. The more bees there are in a beehive, the quicker they will be in making Honey.
If you're looking to make a quick buck, you can also always craft furniture using wood and wood planks. You'll be able to unlock other furniture stores too (not just chairs) later on, but I suggest building furniture only if you're in a pinch. It's better to focus on farming and honey while expanding.
Another method of getting quick gold is to buy coal from the merchant for 30g and use it in the gold mines. Every time you use coal, you'll earn 50g, which will yield you a profit.
How to Upgrade Tools
Your trusty axe and pickaxe are the most useful tools since they allow you to gather all the resources. You'll be able to unlock a shovel shed as well that allows you to remove unwanted crops, but that one doesn't need b upgraded. At first, you will only get +1 material from whatever you harvest. However, once upgraded, your tools will start giving more and more resources. This makes it to save up, expand and keep uncovering new sections of the island.
To upgrade your tools, you need to find two different stands. First, expand your island to the north (facing forward from the Merchant) until you unlock workers. Then, expand to the left a bit, and you'll see the axe upgrade station. Here, you can upgrade your axe by spending resources. Higher levels require more rare resources (or at least ones that will take you a while to uncover on the island).
For your pickaxe, keep heading north until you reach the quarry area. Here, you'll find the pickaxe station along with stone bricks and iron ingot machines. Your pickaxe is upgraded the same way as your axe, with various resources which you can collect around the island.
How to Expand Your Island
Expanding your island is a simple task; you must gather enough resources and use them to expand different blocks. As you progress, you'll require more resources to develop. Some of these can be easily obtained, while others require you to craft.
Since the expansion part is easy, you should focus more on where to expand. Here's where to go for the most optimal output and gain.
- Head north on the island and expand. Your goal is to quickly unlock your workers
- Expand to the right on the same level to unlock the Upgradesman. You can use Gold here to get better multipliers, like faster crop growth, faster crafting, offline earnings, etc.
- After that, keep expanding on the left side of the island to get the bamboo.
- With bamboo unlocked, going past the Upgradesman is suggested, as you'll get to the cacti.
- Once you've done that, head up past the iron and stone ore to get Magma Crystals and Magmite.
What to Purchase From the Merchant
The merchant is an NPC that stands on the dock of your island. You can even press the "Merchant" button to teleport to him if you are further away on the island (I only noticed the button hours into my running back and forth from the crops and honeybees to the Merchant). Interact with him to access his stock, which often consists of honeybees, seeds, and automated tools.
As soon as you have enough gold, get the crops - namely, strawberries and tomatoes - and plant them in the gardens right next to the pier. Since these crops can grow again after you harvest them, they are a good value for money.
Apart from the seeds, get a few honeybees and place them in the beehives so that they produce honey. You can collect and sell honey for 30g, which is a good source of income. Keep in mind that the merchant needs to restock his items, which he does after about 5 minutes.
While you might want to buy the automation machines to automatically chop or mine materials, they have a timer on them that can only be increased via Robux or upgrading. Doing so isn't recommended as it uses money that can be used on other useful buffs like the crafting speed or crop growth.
What to Upgrade at the Upgradesman
After expanding to the right side of the island, you will unlock the Upgradesman. Here, you can upgrade various stats like your movement speed, crafting speed, resource regrowth speed, and many more. The best part is that you can click on the "Upgrade" button on the right side of your screen and simply bring up the menu.
When you are in the early stages of the game, upgrading your Crafting speed and Regrowth speed is suggested. This will allow you to get a bigger output on two of the most important aspects of the game, crafting and farming.
You can also put a few points in offline earnings so that you gain more materials when you log back in after a while. The more you level up, the more expensive upgrades will be. Before closing out of the game, make sure you've configured all of your workers on collecting the exact materials you need. This way you'll have an abundance of resource once you log back on and can earn more gold for upgrades.
That's everything you need to know about Build an Island beginner's guide. If you want to earn quick gold, check out the codes for Build an Island here on Pro Game Guides to make your progress quicker.
By day, Umer loves writing about games and talking about them; by night, he is an avid gamer that loves playing League of Legends and RTS games. Being a massive fan of Metal Gear Solid, you'll find Umer always praising the legendary Hideo Kojima.