By Mira Chen — I remember my first hour in Heartopia vividly. I walked into town, talked to five NPCs, planted a carrot seed in the wrong spot, and went fishing with no bait. By day three I was broke, my cat was hungry, and I had zero idea what a Contribution Medal even was. This guide covers everything I wish someone had handed me before I started.
[IMG: The first view of your starter home plot — small cottage on the left, 6 empty garden plots on the right. This is all you need for the first week.]
Day One: What Actually Matters
The tutorial teaches you how to walk and talk to NPCs. It does not teach you the one thing that determines your entire first week: what you do with your first hour of free play.
Here is what I did on my second account. Night and day difference from my first clueless run.
Step one: talk to every NPC with a glowing quest marker above their head. There are usually 4-5 of them scattered around town. Each one gives a Resident Request. Some are painfully simple — deliver an apple to the baker, catch one river fish, introduce yourself to the flower shop owner. Boring, yes. But each gives you 1-2 Contribution Medals, and you need about 18 of those to unlock your first hobby.
Step two: find the wild fruit spawns. I know exactly where all 12 are now. Apples near the orchard north of town. Raspberries along the river path. Blueberries in the forest clearing east. Mandarins by the residential area. Collect every single one. That is roughly 300 gold worth of fruit just sitting there. Free money. Cook it later into basic jam.
Step three: craft a storage chest at your workbench. It costs 10 timber and 5 stone, both from foraging. You will run out of inventory space constantly for the first week. The chest is your best friend.
[IMG: The crafting menu with Storage Chest selected — 10 timber + 5 stone, build this immediately.]
What I skipped and regretted: I ignored the fishing tutorial on day one because I thought fishing was boring. Wrong. Fishing takes about 5 minutes to learn and it is your most consistent early gold source before crops mature. Catch 10 river fish, cook them, sell them. That is 400 gold from 10 minutes of work.
The 18 Medal Grind
Development Grade 5 needs roughly 18 Contribution Medals. Here is how long it actually took me:
First account, playing casually: 6 days. I skipped requests, wandered around, built a flower garden that produced zero gold.
Second account, focused grinding: 3 days. I hit every request on the board every single day. The board resets at 6 AM in-game time. I checked it first thing every morning.
Medal breakdown by request type:
- Delivery requests (80% of your board): 1 Medal each. “Bring wheat to the baker.” “Deliver this letter to Pete.” They take 2-3 minutes. Do every single one.
- Crafting or cooking requests (maybe 2 per day): 2 Medals each. “Cook a House Salad.” “Craft a wooden chair.” Worth the effort.
- Rare item requests (maybe 1 per day): 3 Medals each. “Catch a Salmon during rain.” If the weather cooperates, these are gold. If not, do not waste time chasing them.
Gold in Your First Week: The Strawberry Reality Check
Everyone online screams “plant strawberries.” They are right, but they skip the part where your first batches are terrible.
My first ever strawberry harvest on account one: 3-star jam. Sold for about 800 gold. I thought I was doing great. Then I watched a YouTube video of someone hitting 5-star consistently and realized I was leaving over 10,000 gold on the table per batch.
Here is the real strawberry timeline:
- Days 1-3: Your QTE timing will be bad. 2-3 star jam. Still profitable (about 600-900 gold per batch after seed costs), so keep going.
- Days 4-7: Something clicks. You start hitting 4 stars more often. Now you are making 2,000-3,000 gold per batch.
- Day 10+: If you have been consistent, you will hit 5-star about 70% of the time. That is 8,000-12,000 gold per batch with 4 stoves.
The trick nobody told me: the QTE sweet spot is roughly 0.3 seconds after the indicator flashes gold. Do not react to the flash. Anticipate it. After about 50 jam batches, your thumb just knows.
The Deadly Beginner Mistakes (I Made All of Them)
Mistake 1: Selling raw ingredients. I sold raw fish and unprocessed crops for the first four days. Raw fish: 50-200 gold. Cooked fish: 200-800 gold. I lost at least 4,000 gold before I figured out what the stove was for.
Mistake 2: Buying seeds I could not harvest. I bought avocado seeds on day two because 13 hours seemed reasonable. It was not. I planted them at 8 PM, went to sleep, and woke up to find they needed 5 more hours. Meanwhile my strawberries (6 hours, planted at 7 AM) were ready by 1 PM every day like clockwork. Match crop times to your actual play schedule.
Mistake 3: Expanding my garden before my kitchen. I bought a land expansion at 2,000 gold, added 4 plots, and had 10 strawberry plants producing crops. One stove. One. I spent 40 minutes cooking one batch. Get a second stove first. Craft it, do not buy it. It costs timber and ore from foraging.
Mistake 4: Adopting a cat before I had furniture. Ms. Whiskers at the shelter behind the residential area will let you adopt immediately. Do not. You need a cat bed, food bowl, and litter box first, or your cat sulks in the corner looking miserable. It is actually heartbreaking. Craft the furniture first.
[IMG: Ms. Whiskers’ shelter with the cat sign above the door — behind the residential street, down the alley.]
Daily Routine That Actually Works
Not a theoretical checklist. This is the exact routine I ran for the first two weeks on my second account:
6 AM (in-game): Check the Resident Request board. Accept everything. Check the weather report — this determines your afternoon activity.
7-9 AM: Water and harvest garden. Replant strawberries immediately. Do not let plots sit empty. Empty plots are wasted gold.
9 AM-12 PM: Complete every Resident Request on your list. If you finish early, forage for wild fruits or fish in the river.
12-4 PM: Weather-dependent. Rain? Fish the East Sea if you have the rod for it. Clear? Bug catching or more fishing. Fog? Bird watching if you have that unlocked.
4-8 PM: Cook everything. Every fish. Every crop. Every foraged fruit. Turn it all into dishes. Then sell everything except your 1,000 gold reserve and your seed money for tomorrow.
8 PM-bedtime: Plant long-growth crops. Avocado (13h) or Corn (12h). Pet your cat if you have one. Check if any night-only content is available.
This routine produced roughly 3,500 gold per day by day 7, after seed costs. By day 14 I was hitting 6,000+ daily.
Frequently Asked Questions
How fast can I unlock my first hobby? Three days if you grind every board request. Five to six days if you play casually. Cooking should be your first pick — the gold difference versus any other first hobby is about 7,200 gold in the first week.
What is the fastest way to make gold as a beginner? Strawberry Jam. 125 gold per seed, 6-hour growth, cooks into jam that sells for 600-12,000+ depending on star quality. Even 2-star jam is profitable. No other early-game activity comes close to this gold per hour.
Should I upgrade my tools early? Fishing rod yes, at level 3. The Improved Rod unlocks lake access and pays for itself in about two rainy days. Everything else can wait until you have stable income.
How many garden plots should I have before expanding my house? Ten. That is your first land expansion at 2,000 gold. Ten strawberry plots with two stoves is the sweet spot for the first month. Expand your house only after you have consistent daily profit.
Is the QTE cooking mini-game actually hard or am I just bad at it? You are not bad. Everyone sucks at it for the first 2-3 days. By day 5 you will hit 4-star consistently. By day 10 you will wonder why you ever struggled. It is muscle memory. Stick with it.
Do I need to play every day? No. Crops do not die from neglect, they just stop growing. Your cat will be annoyed if you miss a feeding but bond levels do not decrease. The game is designed for casual, intermittent play.
About the author: Mira has logged over 340 hours in Heartopia, tested two full account progressions from scratch, and runs a cozy Discord community for Heartopia players. Join us at discord.gg/heartopia-players — free, friendly, full of people who also missed the QTE timing for the first week.