To do well at Fairy Godmother Tycoon, you'll have to master the concepts of supply and demand, and of buying low and selling high. The in-game tutorial does a pretty good job of explaining the basics of how to play, but if you want to win then check out our tips & tricks:

The First Turn
You start each level with a small amount of money. Before your first turn begins, here's how you should spend it:
1. Buy 15-20 of each available ingredient.
2. Upgrade your storefront once (This is the equivalent to free advertising, and also makes peasants slightly happier to be there).
3. Pay for the third tier of advertising: Flying Monkeys (Anything less won't really get you the foot traffic you need).
4. Invest enough money in research so that you have between 10 and 15 days left to your next potion discovery.

Managing inventory
To avoid running out of potions during the day, keep a base level of ingredients stocked at all times. This should be around 20 during the early part of the game, but as you start to earn more customers and research new potions you'll find that it needs to increase to 60, 80, 100 or more to keep up with demand.

Be smart about restocking. If each potion calls for 1 Fish Head and 2 Eyes of Newt and you estimate needing 20 potions in total, then you need to stock 20 Fish Heads and 40 Eyes of Newt. If you can only afford to buy 20 Eyes of Newt, there's no point in buying more than 10 Fish Heads because the extras won't be usable.

The exception to the above rules is when potions go on sale. When a potion's price appears in green, it has been significantly reduced. You should stock up on reduced price potions whenever they appear - don't worry about all the money you're spending up front because you'll make it back by not having to restock the potion (and pay full price) for several subsequent turns.

Maintaining a minimum stock of ingredients and splurging on reduced price ingredients when they pop up means you'll hopefully never find yourself in the position of having to pay for ingredients when they're overpriced (indicated by a price in red).

Research
Deciding how much to spend on research is a tricky balancing act. If competing stores discover a spell before you do, then they have a significant advantage because they can now provide a service to customers that you can't. You'll have to turn away customers who want the new potion, losing money and customer satisfaction in the process.

On the other hand, spending too much on research early on can quickly sink your business because it's a daily expense that generates no daily income in return (unlike advertising, which brings new customers, or ingredients which create potions to sell).

It will typically take the competition 12-15 days to research a new spell, so adjust your spending to match that. Ideally you should spend between $20 to $50 per day on research - certainly no less, and perhaps slightly more only if you can afford it after you've spend a few turns establishing an ebb and flow of steady income.

Pricing
At the beginning of the game, it's more important to make money to invest back into the business rather than making customers like you, so don't lowball yourself when it comes to setting prices for potions. (At the same time, don't make your prices so insultingly high that customers storm off in a huff.)

To that end, never sell potions for less than the minimum recommended price, which is found on the Pricing tab. When you scroll over a potion in the Pricing tab, the TIP window below will display the recommended market value as something like $40 - $70. This means to sell at $40 when demand is low, and crank the price up to a maximum of $70 when demand is high.

Lost sales and how to avoid them
Customers will storm out of your store for three possible reasons:
1.Your potions cost too much.
Solution: Pay close attention to the curse forecast, and adjust your prices accordingly using the recommended selling range in the TIP window of the Pricing tab. The lower the demand is for a potion on a given day, the lower you should set the price.

2. You run out of ingredients for a potion that people want.
Solution: Make sure your warehouse is well-stocked with ingredients at all times, and check the forecasts to anticipate approximately how many ingredients to purchase for the next day. If the forecast is only 10% then you won't need many of that type of ingredient, but if the forecast is 85% then you'd better stock up.

Don't forget that some potions use more than one of a given ingredient at a time, and that one ingredient might be used in multiple potions, which alters demand.

Purchase the Flying Elephant spell, which will let you send an emergency delivery of ingredients to the shop during the day.

3. Customers get fed up with standing in line.
Solution: Upgrade to a faster potion maker and/or upgrade the in-store entertainment.

Upgrading
Aside from upgrading your storefront once or twice if you can afford it, you shouldn't do a lot of upgrading until you've finished researching all available potions - make research your first priority.

Each new potion you discover will take a little longer to make than the one before it, so you should upgrade your potion maker immediately after discovering the second potion, and then again after discovering the third potion to make sure the counter staff can keep up with the demand of making them.

After research is completed, storefronts, potion makers and warehouse upgrades should be the top priority, followed by in-store entertainment and spells, followed by spy devices. (Spy devices aren't really necessary to do well in the game, so consider those upgrades optional.)

The Competition
Although many of the level goals involve eliminating all competing stores, don't actually worry about taking out your competition until later in the game. They're too powerful at the beginning, and your meagre funds are better spent on research, ingredients and upgrading rather than hiring goons.

Once your net worth is close to that of your competition, it's a good time to start think about taking them out. Here are some techniques for doing so:

1. Lower your prices. At this stage in the game, we're going to assume you've amassed a pretty good stash of money and that your business is solvent, which means that now's the time to price gouge the competition by offering your potions at prices that are at the low end of the recommended selling price, regardless of the demand. If you really want to make customers love you, offer extremely low prices when demand is at its peak (90% or higher).

2. Pay for more advertising - now's the time to go for the Brainwashing and Non-stop infomercials.

3. Hire some goons. Quite frankly, you don't ever really need to use the goons that increase your popularity. However, the punitive goons are quite useful (not to mention a lot of fun) in discouraging peasants from visiting your competition. Try putting some Persuasion Trolls on the paths leading towards a rival's store, or stick a Giant Lazy Baby right in front of his door.

NOTE: If there is more than one rival business to contend with in the same town, don't take them all on at once. Pick them off one at a time, focusing on the weakest one first (the one with the lowest net worth).

Final Tip
The most crucial part of the game is the first 20 turns or so. Don't try to do anything fancy here. Just maintain the status quo and slowly build up your net worth, buying the occasional upgrade, and focusing on researching all available potions. Fairy Godmother Tycoon is not a game of grand gestures, and is best played with patience and a mentality of slowly chipping away at the competition.

The tips are very good wish they had been on here when I played the game would have saved me having to play a village over and over again. Sure Wood Forest really kicked my tail. until I realized that supplies and the potion maker were the most important thing. I also pumped up the marketing and research on the bigger villages,after learning from all my mistakes the rest of the villages just breezed by.

Great game just beat it! Additional tip, in later levels make sure to check loyalty and position your goons as needed.

As far as I'm concerned even these tips aren't sufficient. I've used them and other tips gleaned from players and have probably replayed Beantown 3 dozen times or more. This is one of the absolutely hardest tycoon/sim games I've ever tried and I'm sorry I purchased it.

I only had to replay a level once. I found that it was very important in the later towns to keep some cash available, because your cash and net worth will probably go down for a lot of the first week or two. After that it gets a lot easier.

Also, I noticed that the competition always uses one goon,starting the day after you use a goon. So if you're not ready for the competition to have a goon, don't use one yourself.

I had a lot of fun playing this game, and just beat it yesterday. It's one of my favorite casual games
for sure.

Hi Janice,

I'm sorry to hear that you're having trouble with the game. I had to restart quite a few times as well before I started to get the hang of things.

The hardest part is just to get the ball rolling at the beginning. It really is a question of going slowly and steadily and gradually building up a reserve of cash and a high net worth. If you can stick it out for the first 20-30 turns and monitor your forecasts and ingredient purchases carefully, you should find that things will start to snowball in your favor.

I don't understand why you are charged twice for your expenses (except interest and rent). For example, if I spend all my money on marketing, research and supplies, those things are paid for. Then if my daily sales are $1000, I might still have negative cash because all of those expenses are subtracted again. This makes the game impossible to play, unless you think of everything you buy as costing twice what it actually does. Am I the only one this happens to? I've search other forums and haven't seen any mention of it.

Research and marketing expenses are recurring expenses that you have to pay over again at the beginning of each new day -- it's not a one-off expense, which might make it seem like you're being charged twice when you're actually not.

For example, if you hire a goon at $80 per month, it will be assumed that you still want the goon the next day, and the next day. That $80 will be subtracted at the beginning of each new day until the goon is fired.

The same goes for money invested in marketing and research. You don't just buy marketing and research for one day, you're setting up a regular amount that you want to pay per day. This amount will be deducted each day unless you manually adjust the amount to something cheaper.

These recurring expenses are why you can sometimes end up with negative cash. You won't be able to continue until you've adjusted some of your spending to get rid of the negative amount (i.e. spend less on marketing that day, get rid of a goon, spend less on research).

I know, I feel like an idiot. I totally get it now. I think what was messing me up is that I try really hard to finish research at least a couple days before anyone else. Then I would be shocked when I had negative money. But, I slowed down and looked at the numbers and now I totally get it. Thanks for answering!

Does anybody have any advice for beating Sneersworth in Castle City? I feel like I've been there for a thousand days already and I've tried everything. I have far more customers and popularity and have nearly cut his sales off completely, but his cash and net worth sustain. Help?

I'm having the same problem with Sneersworth and I have no idea what to do

A very helpfull tip is the following (you might see it as a spoiler but it is just normal gameplay).

At the beginning of each level go to the loan shark and take out the maximum loan.
Then spent ALL you cash on upgrades and potion items.
Do NOT spent anything on advertisement and research. Then start your first day and you will not get a single customer in your store and therfor not earn a single penny.
At the end of that first day you're bankrupt but the godmother fairy will come by giving you a second change.
She will pay of the loan shark with intrest completely so you will have a little cash back and you can take out a loan again.
This trick will give you a much better starting position for the next days because you have several upgrades and a full warehouse with ingedients for free. The only thing you miss is one day of research but you can make that up easily.
After this first day follow the leads as described above and no level should be any problem.

I've just finished the miner's town. I'm not having any problems getting through each village, although twice I had to have the fairy godmother bail me out...

My disappointment is the following:

After beating the miner town level, I went back to try and drive out of business the other vendors. So I thought using the "Happily Ever After" selection I could get back to where I was in each village when I “won” it. I was shocked to see that although I can get to the previously played levels, I have to start ALL OVER again! As if I had just started the game over with a new player name!

:(

I should have chosen, "Keep Playing" instead of "Next Village" then. I wish I had known that before I rushed through (opting for "next village.") wah..

How to beat Sneersworth :

If you have a lot of beans you must hire 2 Charming Prince & 2 Street Siren and put 4 goon
infront of the sneersworth store.

ถ้ามีเงินเยอะให้เอา 2 Charming Prince & 2 Street Siren
มาวางไว้ตรงหน้าร้าน Sneersworth.

To beat sneersworth, just put 4 lazy babies in front of his store, kind of staggered, to make it harder for people to get in there. Be sure you have the spell to freeze his goon too. Make your prices lower so people like you better, crank up your advertising and wait. I finished castle city in 58 days.

I just beat the game, the last level was the hardest, but thanks to Loon's somewhat obvious suggestion, I won. Thanks. The best thing to do on the harder levels (especially Castle City), is to take out the max loan, and regardless of how it might help at the time, DON'T advertise of do research. I would buy three or four storefront upgrades, up to the Mole spying, Gingerbread Potion-Maker, the Jester guy entertainment, and all the of the spells (because you'll need the advertising bomb to attract more customers later. Also buy one Warhouse upgrade for now. With whats left, fill up your supplies. Go thru the first day, then on the second, she'll repay the Loan Shark dude, and then use the remaining money to advertise (at LEAST 75 beans). Then use the rest on research. It's best to be, at the lowest(!!), one day BEFORE the competition. Use the mole to see.

i play the 5 minute extensions...fairy godmother paid shark but it ended and i am super stuck how can i continue without restarting?please answer

I have noticed that even if I have my loan paid off no research and no marketing my expenses are at
330$

I can't finish the game !
I played the last level for 150 days now, I have all the upgrades, I put 4 babies in front of his store, my prices are the lowest suggested but I just can't get more than 85% favorite!
help !!!!

Help! I can't get passed the beantown level!!

Thanks =)

I think there is a bug in the game. My expenses are always much higher than i expect them to be, and i cannot get them lower!! right now i'm in castle city, which has a daily base rate of $50. i'm all out of money and bail outs. I fired all goons & advertising, i am buying no ingredients, i have no research spending but my daily expenses are still $630. shouldnt i only be paying $140 to the loan shark plus $50? the game hasn't said i lost, it tells me to cut expenses, but i dont know what else to cut!

Here are some tips I wrotr up that might help some of you. It's actually really easy to beat the levels in Fairy Godmother Tycoon. It takes approximately 1 hour to beat a level.

Make sure that when you start you know what your goals are so you know when your level will be beat. Sometimes you have to reach a certain networth, a certain cash amount or put the other store out of business.

Make sure you see what the weather is for that day. The higher the percentage, the more supplies you'll need and the higher the marketing you'll have to use. When a potion is in demand, you can raise your prices without the complaints. If demand is not so high, lower your price, your marketing and dont spend so much on supplies (unless they're green)

Here are some tips in no particular order.

In the beginning of your level, set your price only $10 more than your cost. Once you become more popluar, raise it $20 more and when demand is %80 or higher, you can sometimes even raise your price $30-$60 more.

Its hard to beat the 2nd level. If you make a good strategy and beat that level, chances are your strategy will work for the upcoming levels.

After about level 3, if you don't use any marketing (no junk mail, etc.) you won't get many, or any customers.

When an ingredient is in green, get a loan from the loan shark, upgrade your warehouse and buy as many as you can hold in your warehouse. You'll make lots of proft off these.

If customers are satisfied with your shop and prices but aren't coming out of the store with happyfaces, add some entertainment.

Always work towards getting the fastest potion maker. People hate waiting.

If you are aiming for a networth or cash, usually you just need to spend money on marketing and goons aren't really needed unless you need popularity to put someone out of business.

If you are aiming to put someone out of business, add goons that will increase your popularity.

Always add money to research. Even just $5 a day will get you a new potion by the time a new curse comes to town.

Spells are nice, but don't waste your money on them. You can still beat the whole game without ever having to use a single spell.

Don't hire local characters, they only work in the beginning. After the 1st or 2nd level, they always backfire.

When someone asks you for help, help them. They will usually give you money. If you are trying to put someone out of business then you should sabotage their plan.

Read your instuction manual. The tips and stategies near the back are how I won. Follow these and you'll win too.

Any questions just comment back Ill be happy to help.

I think there is a bug in my game. I have the full version, and I can only play like 5 minutes and then it shuts down. I am getting really annoyed at this. Anyone else have this problem?

Mine did crash a few times. I just thought it was a problem with my computer because all my games always crash at least once. Do a scan check on your computer and try again. Maybe its taking up a lot of space on your computer or something. Or it is just the game. I think there are patches available if that is the case. Good luck.

Hey Folks,

I just went through this game twice, and I think I found a pretty good method.

The key, I found, was to get spells before anyone else and exploit that.

In the first few levels when you don't have competition getting spells ahead of time is not that helpful, but once you do have someone to compete against, getting new spells as soon as possible becomes really important.

Once you get to the first level where you have competition (Shoe Haven) immediately borrow the full amount from the loan shark. Use it to buy 30 spells and upgrade everything to the second level; two exceptions are spying devices and spells--upgrade to the corporate mole the the magic ink spell (if possible).

Use the rest of the money to upgrade your marketing to brainwashing (which is anywhere from 125 to 250 depending on the level) and use the rest of your money to upgrade research as much as possible.

Within a few turns you will run out of money and the Fairy Godmother will pay off the loan shark. Keep your research budget as high as you can while making sure that you have enough supplies (always checking your competitor's price and research status with the corporate mole) and enough marketing. Having extra marketing (beyond the brainwashing) is helpful in the early turns of each village to help everyone become aware of your store.

You are going to have to borrow from the loan shark again even after the FG has paid off the first loan. Don't worry about this--it is necessary. Once your research investment pays off and you have a new spell six or seven days before any of your competitors, you are going to have to borrow from the loan shark to get enough supplies and maintain your marketing. But here's the thing: when you have a spell that your competitors don't have, you can really jack up the price.

As you start each turn, set the game on the slowest setting, and use the magic ink spell to lower or raise your prices. If villagers are objecting to your prices, lower then, and if not, raise them a buck or two. You can actually charge a couple of bucks more than your competition without anyone objecting.

After each turn, get as many supplies as you think you need for the next turn, and use the rest of the money to pay back the loan shark. You also want to stay 4-6 days ahead of your competition in terms of research (until you can't research new spells any more.)

These days that you can charge exorbitant rates for spells that your competitors do not have are what is going to help you to win. Make as much money as you can, and after you have paid off the loan shark, use the surplus cash to upgrade yourself. You will find yourself winning the level in no time.

I love fgt and the best way to win is max the loan shark limit,upgrade to all the spells,pay nothing to marketing or research,buy supplies with the rest of your money until you reach one-digit money and the next day the godmother will pay off for you.

i cant play the game proparly. i just bought it and everytime i play it i skip the help at the starting town and about after five minutes the game just exits on its own. i have tried reinstalling it but it keeps on doin it. can u help

I've been playing FGT for a very short while now, and I can't seem to get past Level 2 (Shoe Village.) The goal is to wipe oout my only competition. I have every upgrade available and 4 Persuasion Trolls throughout the village. My popularity is 98%, and my competition's popularity is 1%. After 119 game days, this hasn't changed. I've spent every dollar I can on non-stop informercials every day, have more than enough ingredients each day, and my prices are as low as they can be. Why can't I finish the level? What am I missing?

P.S. My popularity - 98% + my competition's popularity - 1% = 99%. What happens to the other 1%? It never shows up in the popularity tally.

I'm on the very last level of FGT. I need some help! i restarted the level several times. any suggestions?

>>I'm on the very last level of FGT. I need some help! i restarted the level several times. any suggestions?

What specific problem are you having?

are there any cheat codes for this game

What are your suggestions of starting off Castle City?

I feel so stupid, but I can't FIND the loan shark.

The tutorial didn't say how to borrow, and I can't find the information anywhere.

I hope someone can help.

Hey I'm stuck on Beantown....i can't figure out how 2 'take down' those pesky dragons.
I love this game so much that i'm gutted to think 'what will i do when i complete it....redo it with my hands behind my back??'
soooo just in case i'm downloading plant tycoon just in case.

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