Walkthroughs

How to save the animals: Ice Age Village hints and tips for iOS and Android

Thawing out

How to save the animals: Ice Age Village hints and tips for iOS and Android
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| Ice Age Village

Gameloft's latest attempt at a free-to-play build-em'-up is set in Blue Sky Studios's increasingly popular Ice Age universe.

In Ice Age Village for Android and iOS, you assist Sid, Manny, Diego, and Ellie in their attempt to construct a village for some refugee animals, who have been left homeless following an unexpected cataclysmic rift.

It's your job to - among other things - pack your village with a variety of habitats, help your camp's inhabitants breed, and keep everyone entertained with recreational activities.

Anyway, this village isn't going to build itself, so let's get going.

The basics

As always in this type of game, there are two forms of currency available in Ice Age Village: Coins, which you'll earn in huge quantities; and Acorns, which are rather hard to come by.

You'll earn some Acorns as you level-up your village, but you can also nab the tasty treats by completing in-game special offers, such as watching videos. Just tap the currency bar at the top of your device's screen to get started.

You can spend Acorns to speed up a variety of processes and to unlock village expansions, but we suggest you save them to buy rare animals with. Expansions can be bought for coins, too.

Ice Age Village's in-game shop features four categories of items: animal, fun stuff, decorations, and special - all of which have different uses and unique benefits. For example, the game's special items allow you to play mini-games or watch short videos.

As you tend to your village, feed your range of stranded animals, and complete goals, you'll earn experience points that help you to level-up. Levelling-up gives you access to new animals and decorations.

Happy habitats

Habitats are probably the most important item in Ice Age Village. These produce income at set intervals, which you can collect by clicking on the icon that appears on-screen.

Once you've collected this revenue, you then have to feed the animals in said habitat, or they won't produce any more coins. Again, simply tap on the habitat to feed the animals. You'll be suitably rewarded with experience points.

You can build new habitats by navigating to the 'animals' tab in the in-game store and selecting a cuddly creature. Once a habitat is built, add a second creature of the same species to it by tapping on the habitat and the 'find companion' option. This boosts the habitat's payout.

Once you've added two of the same creature to a habitat, it's time to breed. Again, just tap on a habitat and then the 'baby' tab to begin the process of creating a newborn. Adding two babies to a habitat significantly increases the amount of coins you earn from it.

Remember: a hatched egg must be placed in a habitat in a timely fashion. The baby will run away if you don't return quickly enough.

Have fun, decorate, and take in a movie

Although you should always focus on installing new habitats first, fun stuff and special items are another great source of income.

The former produces coins at set intervals, which you can collect - once again - by tapping on the on-screen icon that appears. Unfortunately, these don't offer experience points.

The first special item you'll come across is a Fruit Ninja-esque mini-game entitled Kung Fu Scrat, which gives you the chance to win special prizes.

Once this item is placed in your village, you can play the mini-game for prizes once a day for free, or as many times as you want if you're willing to spend five Acorns a pop. We recommend you don't, by the way.

Lastly, keep decorations in mind - they provide coin bonuses to all nearby constructions. Just don't go overboard on them, for they can be rather expensive.

Other things to think about

You'll probably have noticed you have very little space to build your village in when you start out - Gameloft has been incredibly stingy. Your first land expansion should be free of charge, but you should also enlarge your land once or twice more early-ish in the game.

There are plenty of opportunities to earn small amounts of coins as you play. Mounds of icy moolah appear at random stages around your village, for instance - unearth them with a few taps.

You can also head on over to one of your buddies' villages and find Scrat the squirrel for a healthy reward. This can be done once per day.

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.