Are you just getting started in the world of Dinkum? There’s a lot to learn! If you’re unsure where to start, we’ve developed this helpful Dinkum beginners guide that should get your town up and running in no time.
We have a ton of Dinkum guides and walkthroughs that are perfect for new players. Visit our Dinkum section to have a look and start learning everything there is to know about the game.
Dinkum Beginners Guide
Before getting started, we’ll assume that you’ve already created the gameworld on your island. First, you’ll need to speak to Fletch and set up John’s Goods general store. This will be your main point of contact to sell items and get Dinks.
When setting up your village, remember that more people will move in, and you will construct more buildings. Therefore, you should take care of how you’re setting up the initial buildings in your town. Moving structures after you place them costs 20,000 Dinks, so making a mistake when placing your Deeds is costly.
Think about your town layout, and imagine if there were 10 buildings. How would you want your town to be laid out? It will save you a lot of trouble in the future.
Health and Stamina
You have two bars in the screen’s top right that indicate your health and stamina. The red bar is your health, and the yellow bar is your stamina. Your health reduces whenever an animal hits you in Dinkum. Your stamina bar drains from doing physical things, like mining ore and cutting trees. Different kinds of food will replenish either bar.
If your stamina completely runs out, your character will move a lot slower and eventually pass out, so make sure you’re eating enough food to keep your stamina up.
Cooking Food
The first things you’ll want to build are the Visitor’s Site, your tent, and a Campfire.
The easiest food to find at first is the fruits found throughout the world. Right-click to pick the fruit from trees and right-click again to pick the fruit up from the ground. Hold right-click to suck up all the things on the ground around you.
You can eat raw fruit, but cooking it at the campfire provides more benefits. To see a list of all foods currently in the game, see our Dinkum foods list. You may also want to check out our list of Cooking Recipes in Dinkum when you eventually need something a bit more powerful.
- Related: How to Get Prime Meat in Dinkum
Craft the Campfire at the Crafting Table in Fletch’s Tent, then place it. Open your Inventory with I, then click and drag the fruit into your bottom toolbar. Finally, hit the corresponding number key and left-click near the campfire to place the fruit there.
Once you become stronger, you can start killing animals and cooking their meat. Eventually, you can gather different ingredients to make things at the Cooking Station, which will increase your health and stamina bars for the day.
Managing Your Town
Once you know how to stay alive a bit and now have some free time, it’s a great time to manage your town by getting different Licences, getting new residents, and paying off that pesky town debt. There’s a lot to do and to discover, so the more time you spend playing the game, the more options will open up to you.
Licences
Initially, you’ll want to get licences to complete side quests and build items and equipment. Each Licence will cost Permit Points, which can be gained by completing daily missions and leveling up your skills by performing tasks in the game world. You can check our guide for a full list of Dinkum licenses.
The most important licences in the Dinkum early game are:
- Fishing Licence: This enables you to purchase a Fishing Pole, which you can use to catch fish to sell to John for Dinks. Use these Dinks to buy more tools.
- Mining Licence Level 1: Enables purchase of a Pickaxe to mine metal ore, required materials in most equipment and buildings.
- Logging Licence Level 1: Enables you to purchase and construct axes to get logs and mangrove sticks.
You can opt for other starter licences, but these three will enable you to grow your Dinks and pay off the initial debt from building John’s Good’s general store. Even though the 75,000 Dinks seems like a lot at first, you’ll be able to make it back in no time.
Visitors and Improving Relationships
Eventually, you’ll want to invite more visitors to your town to stay as residents to open different items and skills in the game. To do this, you’ll need to improve relations with them.
To improve relationships in Dinkum:
- Visit the person when they visit your island.
- Chat with them, then select Got a job for me?
- Complete the mission.
You can also purchase goods at their stores to increase relationships. There are different thresholds for what it takes for each person to want to move onto your island. As an added bonus, you’ll get a reward each time you complete a quest.
Eventually, you’ll be able to build a Bulletin Board to complete high-level tasks that reward much more in Dinks.
Concentrate on One Thing At a Time
Our advice is early on in the game to just concentrate on a single thing. Do you want to farm fruits and veggies? Then you should try to get Rayne to move onto your island. If animal farming is your thing, try to improve your relationship with Irwin first.
Concentrating on one thing will let you save up your Dinks by selling your goods to John, which will help you attract residents faster.
Paying Off Town Debt
Read our guide on how to make Dinks quick for an in-depth guide on how to make more money in the early game. Selling fish, bugs, and animals are great ways to make a lot of money if you’re first starting out.
To sell animals, you can construct an animal dropoff point or right-click the cage on John’s scale, which will also pay you for it. Complete as many quests as possible, and take the quests from the Bulletin Board for the most Dinks possible.
If you have an animal farm, you can sell your animals for more than you bought them once their happiness increases. You can also sell goods that you grow if you enjoy gardening.
As you progress through the game, you’ll find more opportunities to earn your Dinks, like accruing interest at the Bank and selling Rubies.
And that’s our Dinkum beginners guide! We hope that this has helped get you started in Dinkum.
Dinkum is available on Steam.
For more guides and walkthroughs, visit our full Dinkum Section.
