Walkthroughs

Ants, bees, and ladybirds: Bug Village tips and hints

A bug's life is a hard life

Ants, bees, and ladybirds: Bug Village tips and hints
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iOS
| Bug Village

Bug Village is a new freemium title from Glu.

Set in a colourful 3D world, the game tasks you with rearing a colony of ants and bees, rescuing imperilled ladybirds, fending off creepy crawlies, and completing numerous resource gathering tasks.

With a variety of huts, hives, piles, flowers, and upgrades to choose from, Bug Village can become overwhelming.

This guide aims to teach you the games's basics, get you off to a good start, and set you up nicely for continued success.

Off we go.

Building your dream home

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The world of Bug Village is divided into two areas – your village and 'the garden' - connected by a wooden bridge.

Each basic hut or hive placed in your village attracts a single bug, which can be put to work gathering resources from the garden.

Ants collect resources from piles, with bees – unlocked at level five – collecting from flowers. After a collection, you are rewarded with acorns – the games's main currency – and experience (XP).

Reaching a pre-determined number of XP results in you leveling-up, unlocking new huts, hives, piles, and flowers along the way.

The number of huts and hives you're allowed to own is based on your current level - for example, at level three you can own only two huts.

You can upgrade a hut to attract extra bugs, or purchase additional huts with the game's premium currency – gold coins - which don't count towards your current level cap.

More on the premium currency later.

It's a hard knock life

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To the right of your village is the garden, which you fill with an assortment of piles and flowers.

Every pile/flower has three tasks of varying length to undertake, ranging from a couple of minutes to a couple of days – each providing acorns and XP upon completion.

Unfortunately, it's not possible to view this information until you've purchased each pile/flower.

But fear not: check out the graphic below for a full run-down, including the number of bugs required for each.

bug-village-pile-flower-chart

Once a task is completed, piles must be refilled and flowers watered, which costs a small number of acorns.

Choosing the correct task to undertake is essential if you want to progress through Bug Village at a steady rate.

Naturally, the longer a task takes to complete, the greater the reward, but multiple short tasks add up to a greater value.

For instance, completing eight 15 minute tasks will reward you with more acorns and XP than one two-hour task.

Tailor your task choice to your lifestyle. If you can pop back into the game every 15 minutes it's wise to choose short tasks. If you can't, longer ones are the way to go.

Like huts and hives, the number of piles and flowers you can own is dependent on your level. When you gain access to better piles/flowers, remove earlier ones from your garden to free-up cap space.

An army can't march on an empty stomach

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Your bugs must be fed at regular intervals with sugar cubes, cookies, and cupcakes - each providing a different level of replenishment.

The meter displayed in the top-left corner of the screen indicates how many hours of energy your bugs have left. If the bar is in the 'green zone' you'll be rewarded with extra materials when you complete a task.

Allowing this meter to fully deplete will not only cause all current tasks to be halted, but it'll force you to restart them again from scratch – unless you pay premium currency to continue.

Be sure to stock up on energy if you plan to be away from Bug Village for an extended period of time.

There's more than one way to earn in this town bug-village-iphone-guide-5

Aside from resource gathering, there are plenty of other opportunities to earn both acorns and XP in Bug Village.

Ladybugs, Stinky Bugs, and Ant Lions will occasionally appear in your village and garden, providing you with rewards for simply tapping them.

You also get various missions throughout, which reward acorns and XP if completed. These include building a set number of huts, placing a number of decorations, and shooing-away unwanted crawlies.

All decorations purchasable with acorns reward 5 XP upon placement.

Although it's beneficial to avoid decorations in the earlier stages of Bug Village, they can provide a welcome boost if you know you're not far from leveling-up.

The 'small fence' is the decoration of choice for this method.

Buy your way to glory bug-village-iphone-guide-1

Bug Village's premium currency is gold coins, which can be used to purchase additional houses, piles, and flowers, or speed up the building and gathering process.

As in most freemium titles, gold coins are available through in-app purchase - for real money - or by downloading a number of free and paid apps suggested by Bug Village (though this might not be possible for long).

Simply download and open a suggested app to receive your reward. You can then either keep, or delete it.

If you don't plan on spending real money within the game, focus all of your premium currency on unlocking otherwise unobtainable houses, resources, and upgrades.

In-app purchases in Bug Village range from £1.19/$1.99 for five gold coins to £11.99/$19.99 for 65.

If you plan on buying the premium currency – and you've used up all of your free app suggestions - keep in mind that it's often cheaper to download a paid app from the recommendations.

You can get upwards of 18 coins for a 59p/99c app and around 59 coins for £2.99/$4.99.

Not only is this method much cheaper, but you also get a new app out of the deal.

If you have any hints or tips of your own for Bug Village, post them in the comments section, or head-on over to our forum and leave them there.
Anthony Usher
Anthony Usher
Anthony is a Liverpool, UK-based writer who fell in love with gaming while playing Super Mario World on his SNES back in the early '90s. When he isn't busy grooming his beard, you can find him replaying Resident Evil or Final Fantasy VII for the umpteenth time. Aside from gaming, Anthony likes hiking, MMA, and pretending he’s a Viking.