New to the valley and want to unlock everything all in one go? Good luck. For anyone wanting to know what they should expect in the first 20 odd hours, here are some Disney Dreamlight Valley tips.
I’ve been addicted to this for the past two weeks (access before release – haven’t got my dates wrong), and the bubble hasn’t popped – it’s fantastic. As good as it may be, there might be times the grind isn’t working, or you’re wondering if it’s worth doing one thing or the other. Here are some things I’d wish I’d known when starting Disney Dreamlight Valley.
Get Enough Rest
Though you won’t collapse and be dragged back to your digs like in other life sims, you’ll hit a wall if you don’t rest or eat often enough.
To counter poor energy levels, go into your home and exit again – there’s no need for sleeping or selecting a rest command. Ideally, you’ll need to carry some food with you as it’s a pain when you go to a new realm and have to head home as you’ve got no energy left. Bananas and apples are perfect, or you can eat one of the dishes you’ve cooked at home (but best save those for your friends).
I Can Cook
When you unlock Remy, you’ll be able to take on a quest to recover his recipes. This is good and all, but like Zelda BOTW, experiment with dishes to unlock them. It doesn’t have to be so rigid – just use a couple of core ingredients, including veggies and seasoning (i.e. oregano), and you can get a decent-rated dish.
Don’t forget that different areas have different ingredients. Heading down to the beach will bag you some shrimp or swordfish, but you can get tuna and squid in the swamp.
Always Bring A Friend
One of the easiest ways to level up your friendships is to ask to hang out with whomever you wish to level up. Running around foraging, mining or fishing will level up the character in tow, and based on the ability you assigned them; you may find you get extra resources.
My favourite is assigning the mining skill as it’s easy to double-up on your gems and then sell them to Goofy for a quick buck. Friends max out at level 10; before you know it, having them follow you around speeds up the process.
Sell, Sell, Sell
Selling frequently to Goofy will ensure you always have funds and don’t run out of inventory space. While he’ll buy anything and everything, make sure you don’t sell quest items (indicated by a purple icon) unless the said item is in abundance. Also, I’d recommend keeping back a few items like gems – great for giving as gifts, and coal – used to cook dishes.
Expand Your Horizons
When you unlock new areas, make sure to unlock the wells for fast travel and grab Goofy’s little stalls so you can sell items on the fly.
It’s not essential to upgrade Goofy’s stall, but sometimes he’ll sell seeds required for a specific mission, so it’s worth investing. Also, each stall sells different items, so get familiar with his wares.
Also, Expand Your Pockets
You have a limited inventory but can expand how much you can carry early on. Just head to the inventory and click on expand, and you’ll be told how much it’ll cost. No errands are required but note that the more you upgrade, the pricier it’ll become.
Let Scrooge Make His Own Money
Don’t focus too hard on upgrading Scrooge’s store too early. Investing 25k for a few more exclusive clothing and furniture items isn’t worth it early on. Why? The goods are great, but their tags are the same price as Scrooge’s upgrades – 25k! It’s not worth it until you’re making more money.
Upcycle
Here’s a bit of a cheese move: when Scrooge says about improving an area, you’ll often need to place 10 items of furniture to progress.
Head to the region in question, preferably close to a well, and place any 10 items you’ve unlocked (perhaps from the Founder’s Pack?), then go to your quest list to ensure it’s registered and return to Scrooge for your XP.
Leave the items there when you return to him, but after you’ve completed the quest, you can collect the furniture you placed and use it in another area. Rinse and repeat. This is good for levelling up, but naturally, you’ll want to do up the old valley in due course…
The Kingdom Of Opportunity
At the time of writing, there are three realms with the castle where you can unlock extra characters. There’s Remy, Wall-E and Moana. However, you can return to Moana’s realm a little later and encourage Maui to join you (pending, you can cook three dishes with a three-star rating).
Other characters are unlocked in the valley through quests, such as Minnie via Mickey, plus two villains – Ursula and Mother Gothel.
Keep A Tab On Quests And The Map
Quests will automatically update with a notification should you pick up an item for an untracked quest, so check the menu now and then and flick through the options as you may be close to completing one and should track that.
Additionally, you’ll be looking for a character, but they aren’t at their home. On the map, you can locate them, click their avatar then a trail will show on-screen for you to find them. You can manually do it, of course, but they may change their course.
Call Of Duty
Also, check your duties. Like Animal Crossing: New Horizons, you can earn many points for doing a range of activities such as mining particular gems, picking up a flower so many times, or initiating a conversation with one of the locals.
These points all add up and will allow you to unlock new paths or open realms with the castle to make a new friend. This also applies to the events. You earn points through completing activities, the current event is the Pixar one, and when you unlock two items within each tier of goodies, the next one will unlock.
Home Is Where The Heart Is
You won’t be able to upgrade your house until a Scrooge sign shows outside, which can be costly. The first upgrade will remove the planks of wood on the window and make it a little bigger; the next expands, and you can have three extra rooms; the third adds a new floor.
As for your friends, you can place their homes almost anywhere, but you may find that characters like Moana want to be near the sea, and in the case of villains like Ursula, in the sea. Place the home as if you would furniture, then interact with the Scrooge sign to build/pay for it.
Making Money In Disney Dreamlight Valley
Whether there’s a better method out there or not, I don’t know, but for me, it was always mining.
There are plenty of rocks to mine from your home, so you can do a loop of at least three or four areas (if unlocked), and pending you have something like bananas or apples to keep you going, you can get quite a few gems to sell to Goofy.
But the best part is getting a friend to accompany you. If you assign them the mining skill, you can double up on the gems – especially the top-tier ones- and level your friendship up. Most characters have about four or so levels worth that include money boosts, so before you know it, you’ve made quite a decent amount of money in a short space of time.
There are plenty more Disney Dreamlight Valley tips I can think of, but I’ll add those later. I did think about adding some walkthrough sections, such as those with Ursula, but you’re smart. You’ll work it out. Just go out there, make some money and make the valley great again.
Have any tips you want to share? Let me know, and I can add them to the list. And finally, if your one and only question is whether Disney Dreamlight Valley works on Steam Deck, then I have to say, Yes, of course! That’s all I play it on.
