A virgin to the world of Viva Piñata

Don't worry, I hadn't played any sort of game like Viva Pinata in a while, and picked right up. I'd suggest playing through the tutorial, and just taking it slow. There's not much to know, and the tutorial isn't really long.

Also, be sure to tinker with things once you have the ability. As there are lots of things that can be changed into something different.

Otherwise, just pay attention to what your pinatas need to romance, or become residents and focus on one species at a time...

So far I'm loving this game!!

eric

The game holds your hand for the first 20 minutes or so, but after that it really opens up.
http://pinataisland.info/index.php?title=Pi%C3%B1ata_Island
This site is all you'll ever need to know anything and everything about Viva Pinata. Only consult it if you really need to, though, as it basically ruins every secret in the game, and part of the fun is discovering that stuff on your own.

Quick way to earn some money:

Buy Chili seeds from the store, plant 10 of the seeds (all that you can.) Purchase RED fertilizer, fertilize 4 chili plants at a time, 3 times in a row. This will cause your chilis to grow to enormous size and allow you to retail them for $400. $400 x 10 = $4,000.

Chili farming FTW!

What a coincidence, I'm also picking Pinata up this evening, and I'm also a stranger to the Animal Crossing/Nintendogs/Sims type games of this world.

I've been looking forward to it for a while, for no apparent reason as it's so removed from what I usually play. It's nice to see this sort of content out on the 360 though.

don't be afraid to sell your pinatas for money. they will be your main source of cashflow.

Rush the levels early.

Don't worry about pinatas (including sours).

Start fast working in on Seedos either by talking with him (for good seeds) or by beating him up (for poisonous seeds).

Check your journal, and gain experience points quickly by successfully growing every different type of seed ASAP. Certain pinatas aren't going to show up until you plant a specific type of seed and grow it, and your supply of new seeds is limited by the seeds you've planted and grown to date.

Also, remember that you can go back for two or three more experience ribbons by getting bonus growth using fertilizer. You can use up to three effective doses of fertilizer on almost every plant. For certain tree type plants, you're going to have to wait a bit between fertilizer applications (watch for the shower of leaves and then wait about 15 seconds or so).

When the hobo shows up, give him at least 1000 coins to open up his shop (which has the best equipment upgrades later, and a one-for all fertilizer).

If you rush the levels, then you can buy the segments of the tower of sour from costalot that will repel the types of sours that showed up earlier. If you see two kinds of sours in the garden, that's your clue that you need to upgrade the tower.

You can also upgrade the tower by converting the sours, but I don't know if it's worth the effort. Coins are so easy to obtain once you get your resource cycle running (cows for milk, sheep for wool, bees for honey).

Later on, you can mess with the pinatas and do the romance stuff to reach the other award ribbons for more experience, but I am increasingly of the opinion that the rush is the best option.

There's also a strategy that involves a 2nd garden full of only poison ivy to generate excess cash (your bankroll is shared between gardens that are in your profile). Since poison ivy is an evil seed, it plants itself and it also doesn't require watering. So you just leave that for a bit, and then come in and sell all the flowers.

By year's end, I will own this (damn fruity looking) game.

I got some advice

GT = DaKing240

Think of playing "The Sims" I felt like there was so much going on and every 2 seconds there is a video of a new piñata. Other than feeling like you are running a real life daycare its pretty fun.

I'm in way over my head w/ this game. I got so much crap going on that i'm on information overload. i've haphazardly placed fences and houses and bails of hay and such. and just when i think i'm makin progress i turn around and there's a bloodbath going. all in all, an AWESOME game but it will pwn you on a number of different levels.

Don't get attached to any Pinatas. At first, I was naming all of my residents and watching them do their thing. There's two problems with getting attached:

1) Like ThweeSiddy said, you need to sell Pinatas to make money, and I was hesitant to do so at first and went broke pretty early. I was able to make cash later, but the game was slow as I bred to sell for a while.

2) They're gonna get eaten. They're gonna get in fights and get sick. And they're gonna get smashed by that scary dude. So save yourself some heartbreak and treat your pinatas well, but not TOO well.

The best thing to remember is that it's best to concentrate on one (or at most, two) pinata at a time. Make your garden a haven for them, and kick everything else out (or sell it). Once you have achieved master breeder for that species, move onto a related one, such as one that feeds on the species you just mastered.

If you keep on in this fashion, clearing out things you've already mastered and haven't yet mastered, you can do very well in terms of both achievements and awards. After a while you'll get to a place where you can establish multiple pinates at once in their own pens once you have more space in the later levels.

Gamertag is the same as my name above, send me a F/R and a chat and I'll send you some sweet stuff. I LOVE this game, I actually played this over GoW for the past couple weeks. It's so easy to get hooked on it once you start leveling up.

Be prepared to learn the specifics of the pinata's you want to take up residence (plants or pinatas they love to eat, pinatas that love to eat them) and learn to fertilize. When you need 10 blackberries on the ground to attract a Doenut, you'll understand why. Oh yeah, Fudgehogs love Thistle! And everyone knows, Fudgehogs are cool.

You shouldn't really have to sell Pinatas for money, just try farming Chillis and fertilizing them completely, its very profitable.

Build fences. With gates. It's not pretty when an entire garden goes completely batshit and rabid pinatas won't stop killing each other.

This game is awesome, and a nice breather in between GOW matches.

if you get a chance can you send me a cool animal: Bedpanjohn

If it says that a fight is starting between two pinatas, you have about 20 seconds to hit one (either one) with the shovel to stop the fight (only hit them once per fight). If you miss that window, there's nothing you can do and one will end up sick from losing the fight.

I want to see how much candy comes out of an elephant Pinata.

That is the sole reason that I own the game.

Money trick:
Buy some chilli seeds, and quickly PLANT as many as you can as close as you can in a large square. Lottie will ask you to stop and pay for them after about 10 or so seeds, so pay for them and plant more. I can useally fit about 50 seeds in a 2 meter^2 area. Now, water them as quickly as you can, then buy some RED fertilizer (or magic mix) (or cocadile tears, or taffly fertilizer) and fertilze about 10 at a time. This will save you TONS of money. You can fertilize each seed 3 times and they will grow 4X in size, and thus more valuable. I average $400 per chilli instead of $40.... its good money.

Later on (lvl 34) you can use the same trick on orchids... get about $2000 per, which is big money.

Best advice I can give you is to not take any advice :) I don't mean that completely, but the less you know, the more you'll gain from it. I hope it's not too late, but don't get people to send you pinatas, it's the equivalant of using a cheat code in this game. It takes away from the game for you. Think about it, if everyone sent you one of every pinata, you'd be "done" with the game, so why have any sent? It only takes away from your experience.

I also have only ever played things like SimCity, B&W, very short time with The Sims, etc. This game is so deep, and it can really only be fully enjoyed by a teenager or adult. I'm glad to see so many are playing it. I think the word is definitely out that this game is what we all love about Rare.

vivapinataforum.com is good, as is the forums.xbox.com forum for it, lots of helpful people.

My advice: Don't let your wife play. She's now hogging my 360 and won't let me get a few minutes of Rainbow Six Vegas or Gears in with a friend because "I've almost got my Master Romancer award for my Goobaas."

Seriously though, it's an awesome game. I'd be dishonest if I didn't admit that I'm pretty addicted to it too.

Don't be afraid to bust open your pinatas so all the other pinatas can enjoy the bountiful feast that spews out of thier dead bodies.

The only advice I could give you is "don't eat yellow snow"...

Shame there's no yellow snow in the game though :)

After reading this I too may go out and buy this game. Start my wife playing Pinata and work her towards GoW.

Yeah it was pretty funny, my girlfriend was playing Viva and i was the one doing the dishes. shes played for hours and hours. i need some exercise

Viva Piñata is just a waste of money. the game is gay and retared. who ever buys this game is not going to like it. i think it should get pulled off the market. it is a peice of crap!!!!!! not even going to buy the demo. thats all im going to say. peace:)

Try gowing a lot of chili and then using red fertilizer. Soon enough you'll have 100,000 chocolate coins. Also, try hitting a snake egg when it jumps into the air after a while to make a 2 headed snake. Then make another 2 headed snake and hit that egg when it jumps up to make a 4 headed snake!