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If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to keep dinosaurs as pets,Paleo Pinesmay be the perfect game for you. Unlike other games in the genre, these dinosaurs are specifically your friends and companions rather than attractions to be shown to visitors.
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Here, you make comfy pens for them to live in, and in return, they can help you clean up your farm and clear the way forward. Despite being a casual game, there are quite a few mechanics at work in Paleo Pines, and plenty of ways to make things go a little smoother for you.
Grow Crops Near Water
Farming is a big part of Paleo Pines. At the beginning of the game, you’ll be tilling the soil, sowing seeds, and watering crops daily all by yourself. It’s quite an arduous task and drains quite a bit of stamina, but it’s the only way to farm.
That is until you tame some useful dinosaurs and make them friendly enough that they help out on the farm! For example, the strong Styracosaurus can help till the soil, whilethe nimble Gallimimus can suck up huge amounts of waterbefore spraying your crop field with it.
Unfortunately, once a dinosaur has sucked up water from the pond on your farm, it will walk incredibly slowly. It has to concentrate to keep the water inside it, apparently! To make this less annoying,ensure you’re sowing your seeds near your water source. This means you’re able to save time watering your crops.
Save Money For Food
Dinosaurs, as you might expect, are big eaters. And eventually, you’ll find yourself with more dinos than you’re able to shake a stick at - it’s only natural; the game is all about taming adorable prehistoric friends, after all.
The problem is that keeping a large farm filled with dinosaurs is an expensive task. Depending on what type of dinosaur they are, they’ll prefer eitherHerbivorefood,Carnivorefood, oreither.
WhileHerbivore food can be found lying around outside, Carnivore food must be purchased from Corlan in town. It’s a heftyeight shells per unit of Carnivore food, compared the cheap three shells per unit of Herbivore food.
For this reason, it may be worthfeeding omnivores primarily on Herbivore foodand waiting until you have a very healthy reserve of shells and a steady incomebefore taming any strict carnivores!
Save On Fences
One thing that isn’t immediately obvious about fences is that your entire farm’s perimeter is made out of them! These are totally functional as pen fences, so you’re able to use them to save on the fences you must buy to make pens.
This makes placing pens right up against the edges of your farm an easy, beneficial task that saves on space and money at the same time.
How To Change A Pen’s Biome
While the first few dinos you tame will be totally happy with their pen as long as it’s clean, stocked with food, and has a bed for them, you’ll soon notice that later dinos have a particular preference when it comes to biomes.
There are three biomes in the game:
Naturally, these correspond to the three large areas in the game.
To change a pen’s biome, you mustplace specific items relating to that biome within the pen. The easiest way to do this is by changing a Dreamstone sleeping area to a certain area’s theming - though the Forest and Desert themes require some mid/late-game items that are hard to get early on, such as Forest Wood.
Despite the Forest biome being, well, a forested biome, building pens around trees that were already on your farm will not contribute to a pen being of the Forest biome.
Corlan will also sell decorative itemsfrom time to time that you can use to easily change up a pen’s biome. You may need to read the description or simply test them out to see what biome an item belongs to, but they’re useful to have on-hand.
Seeds & Soil
Something that the game doesn’t make terribly obvious to you is how the soil system works. The information is available within the Help menu, but we’ve also explained it below for your convenience:
you may use this information to plan efficient farms that don’t require the use of much actual fertilizer (which you acquire by cleaning up dinosaur messes in their pens with the shovel).
For example, imagine you’veplanted a few Potato seeds. Once they’ve sprouted, you use up some of yourFirm Fertilizerstocks to give them the best conditions for growth.
Once you’ve harvested the Potatoes, theyleave behind Soft soil.
This happens to be thebest soil type for Bell Peppers, so they get sown into the earth next. Voila, no need for extra fertilizer!
A crop grown in the right soil has a better chance of giving you extra items upon harvest and a better quality overall.
Packs Vs. Herds
Another thing that isn’t explained well by the game is thedifference between the various Social categories ofdinosaur. Solitary is simple enough, but what is the difference between dinos that prefer packs to those that prefer herds?
Explanation
Solitary
These dinosaurs wish to be in a pen on their own.
Pack
These dinosaurs prefer to be in pens with 2-3 dinosaurs in them total.
Herd
These dinosaurs don’t mind how many dinosaurs they are sharing a pen with.
Despite these categorisations, remember that penmates are just as important as pen size when it comes to a dinosaur’s happiness! You need a pen to be big enough for every dinosaur inside to comfortably have its own living space.
The Importance Of Dreamstones
Dreamstones are crucial to keeping dinosaurs happy and living on your farm. You will need to find a Dreamstone for every single dinosaur that you want to stay on your farm permanently - when placed in a pen, they automatically become sleeping areas for a dinosaur living in that pen.
Thereare two sizes of Dreamstone: small and large. The Dreamstone must match the size of the dinosaur you want to make a sleeping area for - a small dinosaur cannot sleep with a Large Dreamstone.
You’ll find Dreamstones while exploring the valley, forest, and desert. Many of them are hidden away, often behind obstacles that you’ll need to use dinosaurs to clear.
Don’t try to tame a dinosaur unless you’re sure you have room and a Dreamstone for it. Otherwise, it’ll only last a few days on your farm before it leaves out of unhappiness.
How To Upgrade Your Inventory
When you begin the game, you’re cursed with avery small inventory. You’ll find yourself dropping items in front of shops all the time and swapping things out on the fly to complete quests.
Luckily, there’s someone in Pebble Plaza who can help.Orani, who turns up from time to time to the left of Agami’s stall, is the resident stylist.After you’ve purchased a few pieces of clothing from her(which requires that you provide the materials, too), she’ll offer to upgrade your pockets. This will require some Fiber, but it’s worth getting for the extra room.
