Get high: Cloud Village hints, tips and tricks

If you're having a few spots of bother with Cloud Village then... well... well then my word you're very new to this whole freemium malarkey aren't you? As we noted in our review, the game's very straightforward.

But we welcome players of all skill levels here at Pocket Gamer, so if you're struggling with Sneaky Games's latest effort then you've come to exactly the right place for some indispensable hints and tips.

Moving in

Since we can assume you're a village-building novice, we'll start with the basics.

There are two types of currency in Cloud Village: Coins and Gems. Coins are freely obtained, and you should have no problem getting a lot of these by creating lumber in the Lumber Mill, mixing up potions in the Potion Shop, growing crops and so on.

However, a Gem system is placed into the game to encourage you to cough up some real life cash, for added benefits. If you don't want to pay money for these then you'll have to put some serious effort in as you are only rewarded with them when you advance a level.

Gems are very useful though, because they speed up any activity performed by one of your Cloudlings, and you can buy some seriously fancy items that bestow bonuses.

Building your levels is all done through an RPG-lite experience system, whereby you're bestowed XP for completing tasks set out by the Cloud Mother. These include sending out a Cloudling on a quest (which they'll complete automatically), growing a specific type of crop, making a certain potion and more.

Moving on

Most items require you to hit a specific level in order to gain access to them, so building up your XP by regularly completing tasks is an important factor of Cloud Village. One word of caution though, if you're going to do this by raising crops, make sure you check back on them after their allotted growth time, or else they'll spoil and your efforts will be in vain.

Keep in mind that you can only perform actions if you have enough Cloudlings at your disposal. To make sure you're always at the population limit for the level you're at, build more houses for your workers to live in. It may mean you don't have access to one of your population for a while (as they build a house), but afterwards you'll have an extra Cloudling to do your bidding.

After a while you'll be given more buildings to maximise your XP, Coin and Gem producing capabilities. They each have a cool down period – in which you must wait to use them again – but they offer higher yield rates for players starting out.

The Greenhouse is the first that you'll get, and success here is determined by a small minigame. Given a 3×3 square of areas in which you can rapidly grow crops, the idea is to tap them once to sow seeds, let them grow, then harvest them at the right time.

Be patient and let the vegetation mature before harvesting – they'll start as seeds, then sprout into young plants, but it's their fully grown form you want to tap on for a Perfect rating. If you can, start at a specific plot, and systematically move from the top row of plots, to the bottom one. This will help you with timings when you're ready to pluck the fruits of your labour from the soil.

Moving up

A few hours of playtime in (this will probably be after several days of actual time, unless you're forking out a lot of cash), you'll be looking to expand the area you have access to build upon, as well as beautify your land. One pre-requisite mission you're provided is to construct a bridge across a lake, and once done, you'll have plenty more space to toy with.

As to making your village more pleasing to the eye, try to find a good balance between things you like the look of, and things that will give you rewards. Placing the Baby Gryphon, for example, will give you an XP bonus once per day, as well as looking just absolutely adorable.

This should help guide you into the game as a newbie player, but if you're ever stuck for anything to do, just tap on the Cloud Mother and she'll more than likely have a task for you to be working on.

Of course, if you've thought of any advanced tips yourself, do let us know in the comments below and share them with the Pocket Gamer community.