Mermaid Resort Walkthrough

Mermaid Resort developed by TinyCo for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch is a delightful game of seaside fun! Open multiple resorts for your tourists as they visit hotels, restaurants and various entertainment establishments you have placed to keep them happy. Gamezebo’s quick start strategy guide for Mermaid Resort will provide you with detailed images, tips, information, and hints on how to play your best game.

Game Introduction – Mermaid Resort

Quick Start Guide

Getting Started

Mermaid Resort is a free application and can be found by clicking on the “Play Now” button at the top of this page.
Once installed, you will be asked to set up push notifications for game alerts which can be changed at any time in the game options menu.
There is a brief tutorial that will show you how to purchase items for your resort in order to make the tourists happy.
If you have played any of the other TinyCo games such as Tap Resort, you may see several familiar businesses in the shop. This game will offer these classics as well as many new ocean or water themed establishments to your collection.
When you begin you will have one established business in your resort along with a crate sitting in the middle of the water. Tap on the crate to open the second attraction and tap on it at any time to see how much time needs to go by before you can collect the maximum amount of money it earns, how much to upgrade it, how much it earns per tourist visit, or if you want to move the item to a new location, into inventory, or sell it.
The game will next guide you using the happiness indicator located at the far top right of the screen. Here you will see what your tourists want. If they want more lodging add a hotel or if they want restaurants then tap on the shop building and go to the restaurant section and so on. You will be asked to purchase lodging, restaurants, entertainment, and luxury items. As soon as you purchase the item requested a new one will appear in the menu. Keep adding these as you can and upgrade them once you have played the game awhile and have some money saved up.
You can play the game with other friends that have it by tapping on the “Social” button. You can look up friends or become friends with others playing the game you have never met.
You can also log into your Facebook account which will allow you to post your accomplishments and save screen shots of your resort which save to an album and post on your profile page for all to see.

Game Currency

There are two types of currency used in the game. You are given a small amount of each to start you out and will earn more by purchasing businesses and placing them on your resorts. After a certain amount of time passes (which varies per establishment), you will tap on the building to collect the rent. You can also upgrade each business up to three times after paying a fee and then it will earn more money for you per tourist that purchases from it.
Coins – Silver coins are the basic game currency and used to purchase many of the starting items in the game. You can tap on “Get More” to add more coins. Coins can only be added by trading shells for them so you may need to purchase shells first and then go into the add coins area.
Shells – This is the premium game currency. It will purchase you higher end establishments and decor which will earn more money for you. The upgrades will also require shells to purchase. You can also purchase instant building using shells. Instead of waiting several hours for construction to complete you can pay with shells and the building will be instantly ready for use. If you want more coins you can get them by trading shells for them. You can trade 12,000 coins for five shells or if you go for higher amounts you can save money as there are discount bundles available. Tap on “Get More” next to one of the currency indicator at the top center of the game screen to get more money.

How to get more coins or shells – Coins can only be obtained by tapping on a building once it has the words “Collect” over it at certain intervals, or by trading shells for them.
Shells which are the premium game currency can only be purchased using real currency via the iTunes store and is considered an “In app purchase”. You can earn free shells as you level up in the game but it takes a long time to earn enough to purchase a useful item. Tap on “Get More” next to the shell currency indicator and purchase the bundle you prefer. The more you purchase the cheaper the cost per shell.

Clearing away Trash

Trash will appear on your resort periodically. Tap on any trash you see to clear it away. If you do not clear it away your tourists will become very unhappy and will stop spending money at the establishments.
You will see that the happiness indicator is frowning and should be flashing a message in red telling you the problem.
Be sure to clear trash as soon as you see it. You can also clear trash away for your neighbors when you visit their resorts.

Shopping – Placing Businesses or Decor items on your Resort

When you are ready to purchase a business or decor item for your resort simply tap on the “Shop” button at the bottom left of the game screen.
Note that you have a certain number of building slots per level. Each time you level up you increase the number of buildings or decor items you can place on your resort. If you run out the game will notify you and you will have to wait until you reach the next level via collecting rent before you can place any more items.
Purchasing Items – Tap on “Shop” you will see a screen that divides into categories such as “Restaurants”, “Lodging”, “Entertainment”, and “Luxury Items” Tap on the category you wish to shop from.
You will now see a row of items and along the top there are three sub categories which divide the items into “All”, “Special” or “Super Premium”

Special items – “Special” refers to items only purchased with shells. These items will earn a much larger amount of rent for you over time. They can also be upgraded using only shells to earn even more for you. You can upgrade these items two more times once you purchase them.

Super Premium Items – The “Super Premium” items are also only purchased with shells but they cost quite a bit more than the special items. The majority of the items for sale are 200 shells each and a few are 500 shells. These items can also be upgraded for a large number of shells and earn a high number of happiness points and rent for you.
Once you see an item you want to purchase in the list tap on it. Note that you can scroll the list to your right with your fingertip to see additional items. You may see a padlock over an item which indicates it has not been unlocked yet. Each time you reach a new level in the game more items are unlocked in the shop so be sure to keep an eye on it.

Placing an Item – Some items can only be placed on water and some only on land. The items are marked if they can only be placed in one area. You will be taken back to the resort screen and you will see your item with a small panel under it. This panel has an “X” which means cancel the transaction, arrows to indicate the rotation of an item, and a green check mark which means to save or lock in choices. You have not made a purchase until you tap on this green check mark button. Take your fingertip and drag the item to the location you wish to place it. You must see a green border at the bottom of the item. If you see red it can not be placed in that location. Keep moving it until it is green and when you are ready to lock in the sale tap on the green button and the cost will be immediately deducted.

Item Statistics – Tap on any building to see its statistics. You can see how much time until the maximum amount of money is earned. You can also move or sell the item, or collect coins immediately which will be a lesser amount than if you wait the full maturity time. You can see how much profit has been earned at any time as well. If you want to upgrade your building so it changes its appearance and earns more profit for you tap on “Upgrade”

Collecting Rent from Businesses

When you see the word “Collect” appear over a business and the business goes dark you have reached the maximum amount of money you can earn from that business. It will then shut down and remain closed until you collect from it.
Tap on the building and you will instantly collect the funds and the business will be open again until you either collect from it or wait until it collects its maximum amount of money again.

Tourist Happiness

The happiness of your mermaids (or Tourists on other resorts) is critical to success in the game.
If your tourists are not happy they will not spend money and this will cause things to shut down over time.
Tourists are not happy when the island is dirty. Be sure to pick up any trash when you see it.
Tourists will always be requesting another type of building to be added to the island.. This is listed on the happiness indicator area on the far right of the screen. You will see a happy face icon and you want it to be yellow and smiling. If it is blue and frowning you need to make changes quickly.

Happiness Indicator/Happiness Points – A tiny thought bubble will appear next to the smiley and over some of your tourist’s heads while they are walking. They indicate what your tourists require to become happy again. This will fall into one of four color coded categories – Restaurants, Lodging, Entertainment, or Luxury items.
Entertainment – Green TV
Lodging – Orange bed
Restaurant – Blue fork and knife
Luxury items – Purple diamond

Giving a Lei to a Tourist – You can tap on a tourist to see how happy they are at any given time. You will see a rating with a percentage of happiness shown. At the bottom of this screen you will see a button that says, “Give Lei” this will increase the tourists happiness by a few percentage points. Tap on it as many times as needed to get it to 100% and you will see a yellow smiley appear over the tourist or mermaid. This will cause the tourist to immediately get up and start shopping at the various establishments. If you go around and make several tourists happy in this way it will benefit you with extra profits.

Goals

Goals are in place to work as a tutorial and to help you advance in the game faster.
Tap on the happiness indicator at the far right of the screen to access the goals page.
You will see a graph such as the image above. It will tell you how many points you need to earn in a given category to complete a goal.
Once you complete a goal you will either level up or earn a large cash bonus or both.
Tap on the goal indicator at any time to see your progress.
Only one goal at a time is listed and a new one appears as soon as you complete one.
Each category such as restaurants, lodging, entertainment and luxury have a point value and these are added together each time you purchase and place an item on your resort.
Inventory items do not count toward you goals. If you place an item in inventory you will lose the profits that building can earn you as well as the number of points the item will add to your overall rating.
Read the goal along the bottom of the screen and follow any advice it gives you. As you advance the goals will become more difficult and the rewards greater for completing them.

Upgrading

Each business that you place can be upgraded two more times. You will need to purchase this upgrade and wait for it to complete unless you choose to purchase the instant upgrade which will cost you shells but will eliminate the construction wait time and you can start earning profits immediately and your tourists will be very happy causing them to shop like crazy which also translates into more overall profits for you.

How to upgrade – Tap on the building and then when the statistics menu appears tap on the “upgrade” button. You will be taken to a screen that shows the cost and time required as well as how much the upgrade will earn you in coins and in happiness points per category.

Tap on “Upgrade” or “Instant Upgrade” to purchase it. If you upgrade you will see a construction site appear over the area and if you tap on this a countdown clock will appear in its place. If you upgrade instantly your building will be immediately available and already earning money for you. Tap on it at anytime to see how things are going.
Each upgrade changes the appearance of the attraction making it more detailed and inviting to tourists.
If an item is purchased with shells you will have to spend shells to upgrade it as well.

Additional Resorts

There are several resorts available for purchase once you reach the correct level to unlock them. There are currently twelve resorts available for purchase. You will need to reach level 100 in the game to purchase the final resort.
Each resort has its own look, and type of tourists. You will need to clean the trash off of this resort just like your first one and you will need to maintain and collect from the businesses you place on it.
You will share one shop for all of the resorts.
Tap on “:My Resorts” at the bottom right corner of the game screen.

My Resorts – Here you will see a menu that will take you to each resort you have opened. Be sure to visit all of them daily to keep them collected and opened. The more resorts you have the more money you are going to make.
Once in a resort clean all the trash away and collect from any buildings with the word “Collect” over it. If you can afford it add more buildings based on what the happiness indicator tells you.

Social – Playing with Friends

Tap on the “Social” button at the bottom of the screen
Here you will open the social menu which allows you to edit your profile and log into your Facebook account.
Profile – Choose an avatar to represent yourself and update your email contact information here. You can also connect to Facebook through your profile page. You can then post game accomplishments and screen shots of your resort on your Facebook profile page at any time.
You can also access the community which is all others playing the game.
Friends – Friends refers to those you have invited to play or have invited you.
Invite – You can also send invitations to those in the community.
Newsfeed – Here you can see any new news or updates added to the game.

Community – Tap on “visit” for anyone in the community menu. You can invite this person to become a friend or leave them a tip, clear trash, and collect a reward for helping them out.
Friends – You can visit those that are your actual friends. You will earn a higher reward for helping out friends versus community members so it is a great idea to make community members friends whenever you can. They will need to accept your invitation to be on your friend list.

Visiting Resorts

Tap on the “Visit” button next to a friend or community member’s name. You will be taken to their first resort and you will have access to all of the resorts that have been opened by that person.
Tap on any trash you see to help out your neighbor or community member. This will not earn you any money.

Leaving a tip – There is a tip jar at the top left of each resort page. Tap on this to leave a coin bonus for your friend and this will increase your reputation ranking located on the heart meter at the top left of the screen.
You can only leave a tip for your friend once per twenty four hour period per friend.
Remember you can tap on the resort button at the bottom right and then visit each resort your friend owns and leave a tip for each one. This is a good way to increase your reputation rating.

Reputation

Each time you visit someone in the community or an established friend you will earn reputation points each time you leave them a tip.
Each person has a different number of resorts and you can tip once per resort per friend. If a person has twelve resorts you can tip them twelve times giving them a huge bonus and giving you twelve reputation points.
Reputation is shown in the heart meter at the upper left of the game screen.
The higher your reputation level the more likely you are to show up towards the top of the community member list when others play the game. Most people tap on the first few names on the community member list so if you have a high rating more people will visit you and leave you tips.
It is definitely worth your time to do a few visits each day especially to community members with high reputation ratings and friends with large numbers of resorts.

Shop Extras

You can purchase items to help you in the game by tapping on the “Extras” button in the shop menu.
Here you will find items for sale for coins and for shells. You can scroll through them by using your fingertip and moving to the left.
You can do all kinds of fun things here such as change the music, purchase the ability to have all of your buildings collected from at once, have all your resorts cleaned of trash at once and for twenty four hours, have all tourists receive a lei at the same time making them happy, or you can purchase thirty happiness points at once, or add another building slot to your island.

Congratulations!

You have completed the basic game play guide for Mermaid Resort for iPhone, iPad and the iPod touch by TinyCo. Be sure to check back often for game updates, staff and user reviews, user tips, forum comments and much more here at Gamezebo!