Palia: Tips and tricks for beginners

Like any new game, even with tutorials, it’s going to take a while to get used to things and learn everything. Let’s go over some tips and tricks for beginners starting Palia, the cozy farming sim and MMO.

Beginners tips and tricks for Palia

Choosing your appearance

As soon as you jump into Palia, you’re going to be making your character. If you don’t know already, you should know that once you leave character creation, you won’t be able to change certain things.

You won’t be able to change your body, face, skin tone, eyes, or voice once inside the game. But luckily, there will be ways to change your hair and clothes later on. So make sure you’re okay with how you look besides the changeable features.

Swapping and unequipping tools

Throughout the introduction of Palia, you’ll quickly receive all of your tools. You can access these tools by holding the “R” key, and then hovering over the tool on the tool wheel you want to switch to. But what if you don’t want to hold a tool?

At first, I was confused as to why I couldn’t get my hands to stop holding a tool. But there’s actually a button for putting away your tools! Press the “X” button to unequip any tool you’re holding. I didn’t notice the game telling me this, so I had to keyboard smash my way through figuring this one out.

Eating food fills your Focus

Although Palia doesn’t have a hunger or thirst meter, you do have a Focus bar. At the top left of your screen, you should see a bar with an eye icon. Having more Focus will help you level up faster by earning you more EXP.

There are plenty of ways to find food. Go fishing, grow crops, or go hunting and foraging. You can eat certain foods on their own, but you can also turn them into meals by cooking at a campfire. This is a craft-able item early in the game.

Keep crafting for new recipes

In the first couple hours of playing Palia, you’ll get a few crafting recipes for free. But did you know that the more you craft, the more you’ll unlock? Occasionally, after crafting something, you’ll begin to imagine a new recipe to learn.

A choice of three possible recipes pops up, and you get to choose which one to discover. All you gotta do to learn new recipes is keep crafting new furniture and items, such as the Terrarium that can hold insects!

Building and decorating tricks

Once you get your first house—or should I say a tent—you can start decorating your plot to your heart’s content. But how well does this system work? Although there is a grid system, you can place items and furniture very precisely.

Not only that, but you can ignore the grid! Hold “Ctrl”, then go to the furniture item you want to rearrange. Left-click it to move it around, and use the “Q” and “E” keys or your mouse wheel to rotate it around. To ignore the grid, press “Z”, and you can place the item practically anywhere without it being locked on a grid. Also, pressing the “H” key will give you an overhead view of your property for easier decorating.

Don’t be shy, chat with players

Palia isn’t a single-player game, it’s a small MMO that allows around 20-25 people in one world! Of course, you can ignore others and play on your own, but why not talk with other players? You can press the “Enter” key to type in the server, or even in your party.

Are you not so keen on talking? Well, if you hold the “T” key, you’ll see an array of emotes your character can perform. In your menus, you can change which emotes you want on your emote wheel. Why not wave at a player walking by? If you meet someone and want to stay friends, you can add them to your friend list by pressing the “O” key.

Many new players are probably jumping into Palia after it recently launched on Steam. With the new patch that comes with this launch, you can finally grow flower seeds!