Viva Pinata - The First Few Levels

The first few levels are pretty easy. This should be the only time you really HAVE to talk to Leafos. Just follow Leafos' instructions and she'll give you a shovel that you can use to hammer the dry dirt to expose nice, moist soil. After the first time you use the shovel, you should be able to access it by simply pushing pushing up on the directional-pad. Later you'll be able to do the same for grass packets (right) and the watering can (left) but in both cases you will need to use them once from the X menu first.

Speaking of the grass packet, you should get that right about now. Use it to coat the garden in grass. There really isn't any benefit to having moist soil instead of grass. By the time you have the garden covered in grass you should have atleast one and probably two Whirlm residents.

Once you have two whirlms, Willy builder should offer to build you a whirlm house for free. You'll have to place the building shed on your land somewhere and soon Willy will show up to start building. Once he enters, a timer should show up on the door to tell you when he'll be down. When he finishes, he'll exit the scafolding and replace the timer with a ribbon. When you see the ribbon, it should take one good whack with the shovel to reveal the whirlm house. DO NOT OPEN IT BEFORE YOU SEE THE RIBBON! If you do then it will cancel construction.

Now that you have this house and a couple of Whirlms, you can get them to romance and make more. The nice thing about Whirlms is that they require no more than a house to romance and if you ever end up with less than two they should return in less than a day for free. Abuse this. Romance the whirlms as much as you can. Whirlms are worth 100 coins when sold and are a requirement for romancing Sparrowmints.

So romance until you have atleast seven of them to get the Master Romancer award for them. Once you have seven, feed a couple to the Sparrowmints (which should already reside in your garden) and romance more.

You probably have your experience meter by now and, if you haven't already, will get a seed from Leafos shortly that you should plant in your garden. This is where you learn about the watering can. If the leaf in the water meter turns blue then it's over watered and if it turns brown then it's underwatered. Try to keep it in the middle somewhere though some simple seeds like this really don't require much, if any watering to survive.

By now you should be able to talk to Willy Builder and have a few different pinatas running around just outside if not inside your garden. Have Willy build a Sparrowmint house. From now on, if I say Romance, I'm not going to tell you to build a house and just assume you know you need one that matches the species. Romance the Sparrowmints, each time feeding them Whirlms (they are free after all) until you have seven of those. Now you can sell all or any extra whirlms that you have laying around for some quick cash. Don't worry, they'll be back very soon and it won't cost you any to bring them back. Save the Sparrowmints for now.

Right around now you should be level three which opens up Costalot's. Generally as a rule of thumb you should always buy any new seeds and grow them as much as you can. This will provide you with pretty good experience as well as a way to make some money. You can also use these seeds for a variety of pinata requirements. You will frequent this place often, redundancy intended.

Things to know about Costalot's - Don't buy the first watering can but if you feel compelled, you can buy the next one. Eventually a "Packet" option will be added. Buy this so you can plant long grass. Fencing should be used very sparingly until you get to level 35 or so. You shouldn't really have many problems with fighting pinatas until later and right now your garden is so small in size that fences can be far too much of a hinderance. Decorations only take up space right now but some are used for romancing later. Paving LOOKS nice and that's about it.

You should also meet Seedos. He will give you two free seeds every time he visits (talk to him twice) for free which you can plant and then sell or use as you wish. Right now this is exceptionally helpful though later you'll more than likely just go to Costalot's for your quick and easy seed fix.

In fact, plant a few simple flowers in your garden to attract Tafflies to your garden. If they haven't appeared, they should soon. Daisies or buttercups should work nicely. Grow at least four of your. You may also want to plant a turnip which will be used for a variant later. If you are feeling particularly far sighted and have reached level four, you can also plant a large number (like ten) poppies for romancing your tafflies later. You also want to plant seven buttercups.

Now if you'd like you can do a few quick variants. Right now you can only do three variants provided you have a taffly (which you should). Odds are you won't keep these, they are likely to get eaten at some point, and so don't get too attached.

These three are pretty simple, feed a turnip you planted earlier to a whirlm for one variant and then feed a thistle flower (should flower quickly) head to a Sparrowmint. Beware with the Thistle though, it is a weed and if you don't get rid of all parts of it when you are done with it then it will find a way to spring back up. The last one should come with feeding a buttercup seed to the Taffly. If you can buy some poppies it is recommended that you go for the Taffly Romance Master award at this point.

If you want to go for an evolution at this point and you can afford to buy a Firebrand from Costa's (should be under Garden Items). To get this variant you need to fly a Taffly over the Firebrand in a way that would catch him on fire and then quickly douse him with the wateringcan. Once the fire is out, it should transform into a Reddhot.

The great thing about Reddhots is that they are worth quite a bit of coin. They are worth 2100 coins when sold, as opposed to the Taffly which is only 300 coins. Remember that it costs you 4 coins for daisy seeds to get a taffly and then 2 coins per each taffly after (because they have to eat one of them to become a resident). Since you should have seven tafflies right now you can turn those seven tafflies into 14,700 coins and after that you should be able to make 4,194 a day (6 coins for seed costs). You're suddenly very rich and if you had seven tafflies you should have had seven Reddhots which gives you the Master Romancer Award. Don't forget to feed one a bluebell seed for a variant and romance the last two before you sell them so you can get the regular Romancer award.

Here's another quick evolution you can do and get a pretty easy Master Romancer in the process. Remember those Sparrowmints that you were saving. Have them all eat the buttercups you planted. This will give you an evolution and your Master Romancer award for having seven of them. They don't sell for as much as the Reddhots but they are still twice the value of Sparrowmints. Feed one of them a bluebell flower for a variant. Same as the Reddhots though, you might as well mate two Candaries before you sell them so that you can get the regular Romancer award.