Beginners' guide to Smurfs' Village on iPhone

Smurfs' Village has been gathering steam on the App Store for over a month now, combining the Smurf-like features of farming and subtle environmental badgering into one cartoony freemium title.

If you’re finding it hard to gather together the crew, though, then maybe this Smurfy guide to the game will give you a few hints and tips for how to build a wonderful home for the diplaced Smurfs without having to resort to purchasing handfuls of Smurfberries in the process.

(Please note: The information provided in this guide is accurate as of version 1.0.1 Some elements may have changed since it was published)

As with a lot of Freemium titles, the key to advancing up the ranks in Smurfs' Village lies in crop rotation. Planting, waiting, and harvesting should be a familiar process for everyone who’s played anything from FarmVille to We Rule, and the same principle applies here.

Unlike those previously mentioned games, Smurfs' Village’s crops go bad extremely quickly – proportional to how long they take to grow. So Strawberries (one hour) tends to wither and die two hours after it’s fully grown.

Because of this, my best advice for those seeking to gain levels is to pick the crop that fits in with their life, rather than just pick the fastest. For me this mainly ended up being the 12 hour + crops, as the ‘safety’ period fitted in perfectly with me getting up and going to bed.

Every few levels you should unlock a new ‘special’ building containing one of everyone’s favourite Smurfs (but not Smurfette, whose love needs to be ‘bought’ using Smurfberries).

These mini-games aren’t just a clever way of making you fling your iPhone out the window while shaking it like a particularly troublesome Polaroid picture, but also a great way of picking up XP without having to plonk down any cash on crops.

The better you do on each game, the more XP you’ll get, although make sure you have an idle smurf around for when you do play the games as otherwise no-one will pick up the object afterwards, thereby depriving you of its benefits.

It might take you by surprise, but there is actually some semblance of a plot in Smurf’s Village, and it all revolves around Papa Smurf’s missions.

These missions aren’t just a good excuse to stick it to Gargamel. They're also a vital way of gaining XP. It doesn’t hurt that they’re structured in the style of a tutorial, introducing new characters and buildings for your village at regular intervals.

If you ever lose track of what it is you need to do next, just tap the little fella walking around the village to be given a quick reminder.

Playing on your own is fine up to a point, but playing with friends is arguably better (unless your friends dislike Smurfs/freemium games, of course) as you’ll be able to claim one-a-day gifts.

Due to the way it requires you to spam your Facebook wall to get said friends to join, however, it won’t be to everyone’s liking.

Wouldn’t it be great if, say, you could fool the game into thinking that time had passed when it hadn’t?

For instance, say I planted some delicious watermelons, then decided to go into my iPhone or iPod touch’s Settings screen, alter the clock forward 12 hours, and resume the game – wouldn’t it be fun if the crops were fully grown in mere seconds?

Using this entirely imaginary exploit, I could grow my village up 20 levels in a matter of minutes, rather than months, and would be able to afford whatever I wanted straight away, without Smurfing about.

I would advise against adjusting the clock by more than a day, though, as otherwise Papa Smurf will start getting a little annoyed at your behaviour (and remove Smurfs from your village).

Not that such a cheat exists or anything. [Note: this applies to version 1.0.1, so it may be fixed by the time you read this guide.]