Getting Started

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| Getting Started                                                             |
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| /
|/Welcome to the game! And welcome to the village, the island, and the world
| of Harvest Moon. If you're new to Harvest Moon, this section will help to
| to get you up-to-speed on some of the mechanics of the game as a whole. If
| you consider yourself a seasoned vet, though, skip down to the next section
| (Home Sweet Home: Your Ranch, search for HSH), as this section will mostly
| re-hash what you likely already know (or could easily figure out). If
| you'd rather go it on your own without step-by-step help (which you really
| won't need for this part of the game), just remember this one thing: take
| your time and don't be afraid to try things out. After all, this is the
| tutorial part of the game - you're not going to screw anything up, and your
| decisions here won't echo throughout the game.
|
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| In The Beginning...
|
| As the game opens up, you'll quickly receive a short back story for how
| your character arrived on the island. It seems that there's a farm on the
| island, and you're interested in taking over and revitalizing it! So you
| travel on a ship to the island; the ship captain will ask you questions
| on the way.
|
| The way you answer the questions early in the game will, obviously,
| determine various characteristics about your character, such as your name
| and birthday. You may want to select a birthday that's some time away from
| other events, like festivals, so that you have something to interrupt one
| of the long festival-less periods. In my opinion, the best birthday dates
| are mid-summer (around the 13th to the 15th, to interrupt the 15-day
| festival-less period) or early fall (around the 3rd to the 6th, to break up
| a 16-day festival-less period. Personally, I choose for my birthday to be
| on the 4th of Fall - but, this is really up to you. The date you choose
| really won't matter much.
|
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| Disaster Strikes!
| 
| What? A typhoon in a simple farming game? It must be a clever plot device!
| Just enough of a storm to knock you out and make you dream an
| unrealistically vivid dream - well, isn't that just incredibly convenient.
| It seems either you're schizophrenic or there's a Harvest Goddess
| somewhere that needs your help. You have two choices: check into a mental
| hospital to see about those voices in your head, or try to help her out.
| And it seems the clinic on the island is tragically ill-equipped to deal
| with your particular brand of mental illness, so let's try to help her,
| shall we? (And in case you're reading this and (a) aren't playing the game
| yet and (b) can't detect sarcasm, no, you don't actually get to make that
| choice - you're helping her whether you like it or not.)
|
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| Welcome to Your New Home
|
| When you awaken, you'll be on the island, and your character will finally
| respond to that weird nub thing on the nunchuk. Oh, right, it's called
| a joystick. Run downstairs and a scene will play out - at the end of it,
| you'll get three options: tour the town with the mayor, tour the town
| on your own, or sit around twiddling your thumbs (meaning no tour at all).
| If this is your first time playing (which it probably is, considering you
| read this much of this section), I recommend touring with the mayor. This
| guide will describe most places, but nothing is as effective as a hands-on
| tour. Plus, you'll also get an overview of the controls - those tend to
| come in handy.
|
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| Earning Your Way
| 
| After the tour, you're sentenced to two days of slave labor at Souffle
| Ranch. Work there for two days (sometimes more, so don't freak out if
| you're still there after 2 days), helping out around the ranch and meeting
| people in the process - once you're done, the Mayor will offer you one
| of three land plots. For more information on which plot to choose, see
| the Initial Location section, under Your Property (search for < YPR >
| without the spaces). And if you'd like to see that section moved here, let
| me know - I couldn't decide where it belonged.
|
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| Free At Last
|
| Now that you have your property, you're pretty much on your own.  You're
| given 250G and a bag of seeds in exchange for your service at the farm. The
| sections below will detail the different options you have, but there's no
| longer any specific tasks you must complete each day. Harvest Moon is one
| of the most open-ended games around - so have fun and make your own life.
| If you really, really need help getting started (meaning if you tried once
| and failed), see the Getting Started walkthrough (search for < GSW >
| without the spaces.
|
| Before you go though, just a few general tips on the first few days:
|
| - Get the fishing rod. It's free - just go by the Fishing Co. to pick it up
|   from Toby.
|
| - Make the first rainbow soon. It'll likely take a fair amount of your early
|   money to get the first home extension, the Oven and the ingredients, but
|   it's worth it: when you make the first rainbow, almost a dozen villagers
|   move to the village the following season. But in order to make the first
|   rainbow, you need an apple, which can only be gotten at the Spring market
|   or in the Fall: so if you don't make it the first Spring those villagers
|   won't arrive until winter. For information on how to do this, see the
|   Reawakening the Goddess section (search for < GOD > without the spaces).
|
| - Forage when you're out. You'll often find yourself passing herbs and other
|   items that can be sold in your daily routine - pick these and sell them
|   for some quick additional money.
|
| - Don't be a workaholic. Chances are you'll enjoy the social part of the
|   game far more than the farming and ranching, so make a little time each
|   day to go around and talk to people.
|
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