Treasure Isle

There are some basic fundamentals in Treasure Isle that you'll need to follow to get ahead, just like in any of the Facebook games out there.

Crops

One of the main fundamentals will be planting and harvesting crops. Since you only are allowed two plots, you want to make sure that you are maximizing your game time and using them to your advantage. Just like in any farming game, you need to plant fruits that will give you energy to keep on hunting for treasure. There are different fruits that give different amounts of energy and each takes a different amount of time:

As you can see, you can plant crops that will be ready anywhere from 1 hour to 1 day, so you need to plant them according to when you will be online to harvest them next. Those that can visit several times throughout the day can easily harvest several types of fruits to build up your backpack with extra energy for when you need it.

When you are ready to plant crops, you'll just need to make sure that you click on your multi-tool first. Then, click on the plot that you want to plant (it can be withered and you can still plant), then click the "Plant Fruits" button on the little menu that pops up. The store will then open and you'll see the picture above, you can then choose from the four types of fruits available to plant. Click on the one you want to buy and you're done. Once your crops are ready to harvest, you simply need to click on them and your character will harvest them. They will go right into your backpack for you to use when you need them.

Neighbors

Another fundamental of Treasure Isle is having plenty of neighbors. Just like in any Facebook game, you need tons of friends and neighbors to send you items, visit their islands, and gift you energy packs, gems, and fruit. Without neighbors and friends, you will have a hard time gaining levels, so you want to find as many people to be neighbors with as possible. To do this, go through your friends and send neighbor requests. You can do this by clicking on the "Invite Friends" tab that is at the top of your screen when you are playing Treasure Isle. Also, go to the Treasure Isle site and become a fan and add your self to some of the discussions for adding neighbors. You'll start to get tons of friend requests from people you don't know, but most will add "Treasure Isle" when they send a request so you'll know why they want to be your friend.

Once you add friends that play the game as well, you will have to send neighbor requests, just like in FarmVille. You can do this by clicking on the "My Neighbors" tab at the top of your screen. Then, you can click on the "Add as Neighbor" button next to the friends that you want to send an invite to. When they accept your request, they will appear in your neighbor's list at the bottom of your screen and you can then visit their islands. If for some reason you have friends that you don't want as neighbors any longer, you can remove them. To do this, go back to the "Add Neighbors" tab and click "Remove" next to their name.

When you have friends on your neighbor's list, you will get friend popups requesting help — just like in the screenshot (the names have been blocked out for privacy). Most of the time, these popups will happen when you're on your home island. You can click "Accept" and you will head to their island and help them with whatever problem they might have — scaring away seagulls, clearing debris, and so on. You can also do this with all of your friends on a daily basis, which is a great way to get free experience points and free coins. The first 8-10 friends that you visit will give you 20 coins and 5 experience points each when you help them. After that, you will get 5 coins and 1 experience point for the remaining friends you help. Plus, as you are helping them on their island, you can also click on their treasure chests to get extra coins — from 20 to 80 coins for each treasure chest you click on! So, as you can see, the coins will really add up if you visit friends daily.

Gifts and Items

Another great perk to having friends is sending and receiving gifts. To send gifts, you can simply click on the "Free Gifts" tab at the top of your screen and you will see this screen pop up: (Of course, there are plenty more gifts below these two rows — I just didn't have room to screen shot every one of them.)

You can also send free gifts to your friends by clicking on the gift box that is on the far left side of your game screen and it will take you to the page listing all of the gifts that you can send. One of the great things about sending gifts to your friends is that they will return the favor. If there is something specific that you want, make sure that you ask for it when you're sending a gift. Fruits are always a hit with friends, because they give you bonus energy when you really need it. Decorations are always a good thing to send too, as most of the gift decorations that you can send are not available for you to buy in the store.

When you get gifts, they will go into your backpack and you can place them on your home island when you are there. If you already have one of those items, have too many, or just don't want that particular item, you can choose to sell it for coins instead. Otherwise, just click "Use" and your backpack will close and you'll be able to place the item anywhere you would like.

If you already have items placed on your home island and you want to move them, all you need to do is simply click on the item and click on "Move" on the little dropdown menu and you can move it anywhere you'd like. If you want to sell an item, you simply click "Sell" instead and you will get the option to sell that item for a certain number of coins.

Digging For Treasures

While you are digging for treasures, there are several fundamentals that you will want to keep in mind.

The main thing that you will need to keep in mind is your energy bar. Different areas will cost you different amounts of energy and yield different experience points — the experience points lists are without finding treasure (treasure chests will add to your overall experience from digging there):

When you dig somewhere, different items will pop up (such as treasure chests, gold, or fruit) and each of these will give you experience as well:

Helping friends gives you 20 coins + 5xp for the first 8 friends you help, and then 5 coins and +1 xp. plus you can collect treasure chests on their islands as well which is usually between 20-80 coins each.

One of these things is to keep an eye on your game screen for any treasure chests with "?" above them. If you see this, click on the icon and it will show you treasures that you might have missed in your searches.

Earning Coins

Coins are an essential part of your game play, although you can get by without them if needed. But you will need them to buy decorations for your home island, expand your home island, and more, so you'll need to know the best ways to earn them in Treasure Isle. Here are the main ways that you can bulk up your coin purse in the game:

1. Digging for treasures: Of course, this is the mainstay of the game so you'll be doing this a lot. As you go, you will find different amounts of coins throughout the islands. Normally, these amounts range from 20-280 and they are pretty common throughout the islands.
2. Visiting and helping neighbors: When you click on a neighbor's picture at the bottom of your game screen, you will pull up two different drop down menus. One allows you to send them a gift, and the other allows you to visit/help them on their island. Choose the one to visit their island and you will travel to their home island in Treasure Isle. Once there, you'll get a message to help them do something, like chase away sea gulls or clear debris off their island. Click accept and then ok and you will get free coins and experience points. For the first 8-10 neighbors that you visit during the day, you'll get 20 coins and 5 experience points. After that, it drops down to 5 coins and 1 experience point, but it still adds up and it makes it well worth visiting all of your neighbors daily.
3. Checking out your neighbor's treasure: While you're on your neighbor's home islands, you can also click on their treasure chests floating in the ocean. You'll get a decent bonus from their chests as well, which makes it even more fun to visit their islands.

4. Clicking on your treasure chest: At everyone's home island, there is a treasure chest that is floating in the water. Click on it daily for a boost to your coins! Sometimes, it's as little as 20 coins, but sometimes it can be around 200! Even though you can only do it once a day, it does add some great coins to your bag.
5. Selling items: If you get too many gifts or you have too many of one items, then you can easily sell some of them for extra coins.

Gaining Energy

1. When it comes to energy, you can't do much digging for treasure without it. So, you need to work on ways to gain energy when you need it. There are a few things that you can do to get more energy:
2. Level: When you level up, you're energy will automatically refill and you can start digging again! So, you want to maximize your experience points as you're going along so that you can level as fast as possible.
3. Fruit: As you dig, you will find fruits. Each different type of fruit gives you a set amount of energy from 2 up to 25. Make sure that you use your fruits wisely so that you can maximize your energy use and time everything just right so that you level and don't have to use all of your fruit.
4. Buy energy packs: You can purchase some cash and then buy energy packs for 10 cash in the store. This will refill your energy back up to the top and you'll be ready to go again.
5. Just wait: Your energy will refill itself automatically, but very slowly. So, you can always dig and use your energy then log off for a while and check back in later.

During your travels, you will come across large Tiki heads that require colored gems to open them. Sometimes they will only require one gem, and sometimes they will require many more. There are five different colors of gems: red, orange, green, blue, and purple. On your home island, you will have one colored gem tree that you can collect from once a day. Your friends will also have different colored gem trees on their islands that are ready to collect from once a day as well. The good thing is that you can collect a gem from their trees if they are ready. So, as you visiting your friend's islands, make sure you check to see if their gems are ready to collect.

If you still need more gems, you can also ask your friends to send you some and if they have any extras they will. You will also come across some while you're digging for treasure on different islands and normally you'll be able to share these with friends as well. And of course, you can buy gems through the Store as long as you have cash to do so.

Traveling To Islands To Dig For Treasure

Ready to head off to some of the islands on your map to dig for treasure? There are several great maps that you'll get to play through and here are the different ways that you can get to the travel map:

1. Click the map in your interface menu: This will take you to the maps and you can choose the island that you want to visit.

2. Click on your boat: On your home island, you'll have a small dock and a boat sitting there. Click on your boat and it will give you a drop down menu. Choose "Travel" and it will take you to the maps section as well.

3. Click the island button: Right over the interface on the lower right hand corner of the game is a purple button that ill allow you to go right back to the island that you were just working on. This is a great way to get right back to where you were without searching.

Tools

You will start off with a shovel that you'll need to use to dig on the different islands. This is fine for the first island or so, but you will need to buy a pick axe as you go to be able to dig under rocks and such. Make sure that you save up your coins so that you can do this right away so you don't have to come back to any islands later and finish them all because you didn't have the right tools. You will also need to get the machete very soon as well as you'll come up against plants and trees that you cannot search without it. As you go along, you'll come up against large rocks that you have to blow up with dynamite, that you can buy in the store. You will also find yourself having to use bug spray on a piece of island that is infested with bugs. You can also buy this in the store. So, it's always a good idea to have extra cash on you at all times in case you need to buy one of these extra tools so you can get past an island.

How To Dig For Treasure

When you get to an island, you are ready to dig for treasure. To start digging, you must be on one of the islands that will allow you to do so — not your home island or a neighbor's island. When you arrive at the island, you'll see the different treasures that you'll be trying to find on the island. You can then mouse over any part of the island and when your cursor turns it green, you can click on it and your little character will start digging. Sometimes, you'll get only experience points, sometimes you'll get coins, gems, cash, or treasures. If you are close to a treasure chest, you will get either an orange message that says "Treasure Nearby" or a red message that says "Treasure Very Close!". When you get the red message, you'll know that it is on one of the squares that is somehow touching that square is a treasure chest. When you do find a chest, you simply click on it and it will automatically open and tell you what treasure was inside. It will also add that treasure to your list of different collections.

When you're digging on an island, you can look up in the top right hand corner and it will tell you how many treasure chests are level on the island. You want to make sure that you dig everywhere on the island you're on, even after you've found all of the treasure. Why? Once you complete an island, you get a coin bonus and an experience point bonus. The experience point boost can help you get to the next level most of the time so you always want to completely an island before you move on to the next one.

Leaving An Island

When you are finished with an island, you will get the option to travel to another island or you can go home. If you run out of energy before you are done with an island, you can always go back to your home island. To do this, you can simply click on the little purple icon above your lower right hand interface that has a little picture of a house on it and says "Return Home" when you mouse over the icon. Or, you can also click on the boat at the dock of the island and travel somewhere else.

Items

Just like in the chart earlier in the chapter, there are several different things that you'll come across as you dig. They include fruit, gems, coins, cash, and treasure chests. Each of these will offer you a different amount of experience points when you find them, and even plots that don't give you anything will at least offer up 1 experience point so you won't walk away empty handed.

Unlocking Large Tiki Heads

As you start to move up in the islands, you will come to larger Tiki heads that have oneof the colored gems on them. This means that you'll need that kind of gem to unlock that particular Tiki head. Sometimes it will only take 1 gem, sometimes it will take 5 or more. So, you always want to check your neighbor's islands for gems each day! When you open a larger Tiki head, you'll automatically get 5 experience points or more, and you won't be using any energy to do so. Once you open it, it will disappear and the area behind it will be lit up a bit instead of being all under shadow. You're then free to dig in that area and open the smaller Tiki heads that are there.

Sending Extra Treasure

As you dig, you'll come across extra items that you can send to your friends. There will be several different things that you can share with friends when you're digging for treasure, such as gems and fruit, and when you open a treasure chest, you can sometimes find extras as well. When this happens, you will see a pop up that will show you four of your neighbors that you can give one of the extra treasure items to.

Treasure Collections

As you find treasure chests, there will be different pieces to a collection in them. There are several different collection types: normal, uncommon, and rare. Each piece will fit into a collection and when you collect all five pieces, you can trade the collection in for coins and experience points. And, you friends can even send you pieces if they find an extra one.

Wish Lists

If you are having trouble searching for that one piece you need to complete a collection, you can add it to your wish list. Once you have your wish list filled up, you can then publish it for your friends to see. They can send you an item if they have an extra one.

Fruits

Fruits are extremely valuable to you in Treasure Isle, as they can give you more energy to keep digging. You can get fruits in three different ways:

1. Plant them (check the Crops section of this chapter)

Get them as gifts from friends and neighbors

2. Find them while digging

As of April 2010, there are four different types of fruits that you can plant on your home island as I listed earlier in the crops section. Each one takes a different amount of both time and coins to plant and harvest. Make sure that you time this accordingly with the times that you will be online or your planting will be wasted and you'll lose that money you spent on them.

Giving and receiving fruits are a great way to make neighbors and friends happy and still get ahead in the game. When you gift fruits to your neighbors and friends, they will gift back — so both of you win. There are several different kinds of fruits that you can get and give:

1. Baby Blackberries give 2 energy points
2. Baby Blueberries give 2 energy points
3. Baby Cherries give 2 energy points
4. Baby Grapes give 2 energy points
5. Baby Kumquats give 3 energy points
6. Kiwis give 5 energy points
7. Raspberries give 5 energy points
8. Bananas give 10 energy points
9. Mangos give 15 energy points

When you find fruits while digging, you can get several different types that you cannot plant or gift. You can find some of these larger fruits that give 5-15 energy while you're digging, and you can also find coconuts (20 energy) and pineapples (25 energy). So, you can easily build up your fruit piles while you're just going through the normal game play.

These are all of the basic fundamentals that you will need to know about Treasure Isle. Of course, there are some great advanced tactics that you can use to really speed through the levels and islands and get ahead of your friends. In the next part of this guide, we will go through these advanced tactics so that you can get on the fast track to leveling.