Here are some basic tips and tricks for getting the most out of the first few hours of Coral Island.

Coral Island is a farming sim adventure taking place on the briny shores of a remote tropical isle. With evil corporation Pufferfish breathing down the collective collar of this once-bustling community, it's up to you to uncover mysteries, restore the farm, and make the Island great again.

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With so many cutesy farming sims having been released lately, it can be tough to get to grips with the specific mechanics of each game. If you're struggling to make ends meet or find resources, here are some top tips to help you stay afloat in this vibrant village.

Coral Island is currently in early access, so this information is liable to change!

Coral Island works on a grid system, meaning that all the items and houses sit on their own respective tile. To interact with an item, such as to cut a tree down or mine a rock, click on the square that the item is sitting on - not the item itself.

This is because the fixed camera perspective means that clicking on the main body of something like a tree will actually cause you to interact with whatever is sitting on the tile behind where you are clicking, sapping your energy bar and getting nothing for all your hard work.

When you want to plant a crop, you would click the exact tile on your farm that you wish to plant a seed on. Nothing else can be planted here until you harvest that crop; think The Sims 4, but without Cowplants or WooHoo.

To interact with people or harvest things like flowers or shells, click the right mouse button. This can take some getting used to, but don't fret because you can always change it in your game settings if you'd prefer a good old-fashioned left click.

Your default walk speed is quite slow, so be sure to toggle your sprint by hitting the shift key. No need to hold it down - one tap should swap you between walking and running speeds.

Coral Island doesn't have controller support just yet, but this is something planned for a future update.

Your watering can begins ready-filled, but you can refill it at any pond or body of water after equipping it. This is useful to know, as your first task requires you to plant ten seeds. Don't panic! There are two spots on your farm for you to refill your watering can and, later in the game, go fishing at.

Once you get far enough into the game to go diving, you'll unlock the ability to take your tools to the blacksmith to get upgraded. This requires you to collect a lot of seaweed, scrap, and metal ores, as you need to build a Furnace and Extractor first. Try mining in the Cavern for these raw materials.

Eating harvestable items - such as flowers, goods planted, and underwater clams - provides you with more stamina and health, but they also grant you various buffs depending upon the type.

For example, eating some flowers like dandelions and violets gives you a catching skill buff, meaning you'll build bug-catching skills faster with this buff activated.

Eating clams and oysters during your diving sessions gives you a diving buff, something very much necessary if you want to move faster and collect more items whilst down below the waves.

Buffs do expire after a period of time, however, so you'll want to keep an on which ones are active by navigating to the Inventory menu.

Collected a bunch of flowers and trinkets whilst out and about? Or selling off some local produce as per Sam the store owner's quest? Use the shipping bin to offload some items from your inventory if you want to create more room!

If you find some cool unique artifacts during your diving expeditions, save these up to gift to people! There is a mission that requires you to gift five villagers, and these always come in handy when in a pinch.

You can also build some makeshift chests from the crafting menu that can be placed outside your house to store anything you don't need at the moment, such as outfits from the store, artifacts from your diving trips, and old tools you have no use for.

If you're getting bored with your look already, pay a visit to the Salon and Store in the village town centre.

You can update your hair, eyes, eyebrows, and even your body type at the salon, and the store has plenty of sweet threads if you're not digging your basic farmer garb.

To change into new clothes, navigate to your inventory and drag your new items to your equipped clothing boxes. As well as clothes, you can equip cool backpacks and even a dragon tail and wings!

Don't forget to sell any unwanted clothes using the Shipping Bin since they can take up valuable space in your inventory.

Your first mission on the island involves upgrading your house. This unlocks the TV, where you can check the weather report for the following day to see if you need to water your crops or let the rain do it for you.

To do this, you'll need to bring some Wood and Stone to the Carpenters. Their shop is located just to the right of your farmyard as you exit through the upper archway.

Once you upgrade the house, you'll be able to construct more items both inside and around your farm. Until then, the wood beams of your rotten old pad won't be able to hold much weight, so be sure to get this mission out of the way as soon as possible.

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As well as being a Senior Writer at TheGamer, Jasmine is an avid lover of metalcore, paranormal horror, and pretending to be good at playing the bass guitar.