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Paw Prints White Left New Player FAQ Paw Prints White Right
There is so much to do in Garden Paws that new players may feel overwhelmed at first. This page is aimed at helping to answer some of the most frequently asked questions we see on Discord, as well as being a source of basic advice for the game.

If you have an early-game question not answered here, feel free to ask on the Bitten Toast Discord, Steam forum, or suggest it on the FAQ Requests page.
Last update: 05/8/2023

What's this game about?

The storyline centers around you working to build up a house and farm and helping NPCs (non player characters) in the nearby town and on other islands. There are lots of items to collect and ways to customize your character and home.

The overall 'goal' in the game is basically:

  1. Collect stuff
  2. Craft stuff with the stuff you collect
  3. Make money by selling all that stuff at your shop
  4. Buy upgrades at the table next to Frank in town so you can add buildings and NPCs to the town
  5. New NPCs and buildings mean new quests and more variety of stuff to collect, craft, and buy
  6. Rinse, repeat

It's far more in depth than that, but it gives you a general idea of the type of game this is.

What should I do first?

The answer to that is "it's up to you", but that's not why you're here reading this.

You can start with the following:

  • Run around and pick up stones and wood lying around, until you have a sizeable stack of both.
  • Press T to open the Quick Crafting Menu, and craft an Axe and a Pickaxe
  • Chop trees to get more wood, then craft a bunch of Small Chests (you're going to need the storage space)
  • Place the chests near your home and fill them with anything you collect, to be used for quests or crafting other items
  • Place the items you want to sell on your shop table, and open your shop.
  • Sell more items until you can start affording upgrades from the Upgrade Table. Order of upgrades is up to you, but expanding your shop first will allow you to sell more items at once. The Miner's Camp and Blacksmith are also good to start with, since they're necessary for better tools and opening up new areas of the island.
  • Start doing quests for NPCs. You can get some very useful rewards.

Coin Bag How do I make money?

The main way is to sell things in your shop. Place items on the tables, then between 12:00 and 18:00 you can flip the "Closed" sign in front of your house to "Open", and begin serving customers. For more information, see Shopkeeping. Completing quests is another way to earn Coins, but not as lucrative as shopkeeping.

Is there anything I should keep or not sell because I'll need it later?

One good rule of thumb: if you can't replace it easily, don't sell it yet.

Safe/easy items to sell in early-game:

Some specific items you should save for later quests or crafting:

What upgrade should I get first?

You'll end up buying all of them eventually, but you may as well boost your stats first. Opening the Upgrade Table and looking at the details for each upgrade will show if they have any additional effects, such as +5 Energy or +5 Inventory space. Both are useful to increase in early game, since you'll run out both space and energy a lot early on.

I found a furniture item! How do I put it in my house?

Press I to open your inventory. Click and drag the item you want to place into a hotbar slot (the 8 squares at the bottom of the screen). Exit the inventory screen and use the mouse wheel to scroll to the item on the hotbar, or press the corresponding number key on the keyboard.

Press E to activate a placement guide, which will show as a green wireframe of the object. Move the cursor around to change position or use the mouse wheel to rotate the item. Press E again to place it in that position.

Not every item is placeable as an object. Only furniture items, storage containers, workstations, and decorations can be placed in the world as objects. Food, plants, and other items can only be held or placed in special storage display containers.

You can know if an item is placeable because it will show a text prompt to place it when held.

Item Shifter How do I pick things back up or move them?

The Hammer and Item Shifter can be crafted from the Quick Crafting Menu.
  • The Hammer can be used on a placed object to remove it from the world and place it back in your inventory.
  • The Item Shifter can be used on a placed object to nudge it in different directions or rotate it at different angles. It can be a bit fussy to get the hang of. See the Item Shifter page for details.
If you can't seem to select the exact item you want to pick up or move, the Hammer and Item Shifter have what's called a "Selection Menu", which shows all nearby movable objects as buttons on the screen. Clicking on one of them will lock the tether in place as if you pressed Ctrl (see the hammer/shifter pages for more information).
Note: If you pick up a planter with a Hammer while seeds are still growing in it, you will lose the seeds. To avoid losing a plant, wait for it to be fully grown, harvest it, and then move the planter.

How do I turn on Grid Placement or any other settings?

Press ESC, then go into Audio/Video Settings. There are various options to toggle if you have having performance issues or if your screen jumps around while playing. For details, see the Settings page. Grid Placement can also be manually toggled by holding Alt while placing items. If Grid Placement is off, holding Alt will turn it on and vice versa.

I'm having trouble placing an item exactly how I want

A trick you can use if you want to lock rotation first is to press 'E' to lock placement, choose the rotation you want, then hit 'Esc' or right click. Pressing E again will begin placement with the rotation from before locked in. Then Press E to lock it into place once you have moved it to where you want. You should also turn Grid placement off if you have that on.

Calico Cat Skin I just got a skin, how do I use it?

Either place the skin in your hotbar and press E with that slot selected, or go into the Paws Menu → Customize Character and click the green button labeled "Unlock all skins in inventory".

If a skin item in the hotbar does not activate when pressing E or the green button, that means you already have that skin unlocked.

If you have the Starduster and some Stardust, you can turn any duplicate skins into glittery Stardust versions.

Workbench How do I get the workbench?

The questline for the Workbench requires the Blacksmith upgrade at Frank's table.

Geode What do I do with geodes?

Break them open at an anvil by putting the geodes in your hotbar, selecting them and then pressing E while standing in front of the anvil. Breaking geodes is how you get Copper Ore, Silver Ore, and Gold Ore, which are important crafting ingredients.

If you do not have an anvil crafted yet, there are 2 that become available in town after purchasing either the Blacksmith or the Miner's Camp.

Stone Furnace How do I get the furnace to work!?

Once you collect sand (from sand piles) or ore (from geodes) you're going to want to mine coal, which is found in most caves. Walk up to the Stone Furnace and add the thing you want to smelt, then add some coal. Once the coal is added, the furnace will begin smelting.

Only 10 items can be smelted at a time and each item takes 1 coal to smelt.

Fallen Star I saw a star fall! What do I do with it?

That's a Fallen Star! One falls somewhere in the world at 22:00 every night. You can collect them by walking up to them and pressing E.

Fallen Stars are used for crafting unique items like the Fallen Star Light, or for turning into Stardust, which is a very important ingredient in some of the more special crafting recipes.

Honeycomb How do I get honeycombs?

Honeycombs are harvested from Beehives. They have a very low drop rate, so you may need to harvest quite a few before gathering enough. There are 4 wild beehives in the world, so go explore!

How do I find the recipe for <item>?

Items that have specific steps to unlock blueprints or recipes will typically have those requirements listed on their wiki pages.

In most cases, unlocking them will happen through natural progression in the game, and cannot be sped up or triggered earlier. But if you focus on the storyline quests and Upgrade Table purchases, you will be able to more quickly unlock different recipes over time as new NPCs move to the island with their own questlines.

If you are still having some trouble and don't mind major spoilers you can always ask in the Spoilers channel on the Bitten Toast Discord.

Help, I got a quest talking about a character I never met!

Quests often refer to NPCs, and if you progress questlines far enough, the assumption is that you would have purchased more town building upgrades by that point. You can:
  1. Check what upgrade, shop, or other questline is required for that NPC to show up, and purchase it or do the prerequisite quests.
  2. Abandon the quest and re-take it later. There is no penalty for abandoning quests.

For Bulletin Board quests (the generic ones asking for flowers for gifts or tea), if you don't abandon the quest the name will automatically change to another NPC in three days.

Sunflower Where can I find Sunflowers/Pumpkins/<other plant>? I need them for a quest!

Some plants like Sunflowers only show up after you have played a certain number of in-game days. Some plants only become available in certain seasons. Or in the case of Pumpkins, once you travel to Halloween Island.

Don't worry about not completing quests that require certain plants - or any item in general - "before the next season". Those quests repeat every year, so you can ignore them if you don't have access to the right plant or item yet.

Cat I saw a cute animal, how do I tame it?

See Raising Animals for taming instructions.

I fed an animal and it followed me, but I passed out and it's gone!

Feeding animals is not enough to tame them. You need to craft and place the appropriate habitat, and lead the animal to the habitat once it starts following you. When it enters the habitat, a naming window will pop up. Naming the animal (even if it's blank) will complete the taming process.

I can't put an animal in my barn/other habitat

Animals require specific habitats to be tamed and displayed. For example you can put Horses in a Stable, but not Cats or Deer. Check the animal's page on the wiki to see what habitat they can be placed in. Remember, an animal is not completely tamed unless it's placed in the proper habitat and given a name.

I saw a rainbow! Does it mean anything?

Yes it does! (Spoiler warning for link)

I woke up and there was a rumbling noise and the screen was black, what's going on?

You probably just experienced the Earthquake! It's a scripted event, so just keep playing and you'll get a ton of new quests from the townsfolk!

How do I get to those other islands? (Spoilery)

You will not be able to swim to other islands, but there are special items that can help you get across, including gliders and a raft. You can also build "bridges" across the water using Wooden Foundations.

Rock Mage Do I have to play the Dungeon to complete the game?

Not at all. The Dungeon has no affect on any of the storyline quests, and just exists as an extra activity for players looking for a bit of variety in gameplay.

There are some items in the game that can only be found or purchased in the Dungeon, but they are only required for Museum collections, and they're obtainable as rare prizes from festival minigames or digging them up as treasure. It's not easy to collect them all that way, but it's possible.

How do I play with my friend?

See the Multiplayer Mode page for details.

How do I upload screenshots from Garden Paws to Steam?

If you've been using the Screenshot mode in Garden Paws and have been taking screenshots with F8, you can follow the instructions in this video to be able to upload them to Steam. Alternatively, you can use F12 to take screenshots directly through Steam.

SingleBed Lightwood How do I save the game?

Game saves are automatically done if you sleep in a bed or pass out at the end of the day at 24:00. You can also save in the middle of the day using the Paws Menu, but it is not fully reliable yet as it is a newly-implemented feature.

How do I go back a day?

For more information on loading backups, see Saving Games.

How can I take a screenshot?

Press F11 to enter Screenshot Mode. F10 is the same as F11, except it does not pause the game. Press F9 to change the Drone Camera's settings. See the page for details.

Any advice?

Focus on NPC quests and Upgrade Table purchases. Many of them are necessary to unlock parts of the world, new plants, or storyline progression, and some have very useful rewards.

My game keeps freezing/crashing!

Try lowering your graphics settings. You can read about what each option does on the Settings page. The first settings you should lower to see if it helps are Render Distance and the overall Quality. If that doesn't help, uncheck the different "effects" boxes for things like fog, clouds, high quality water, etc.

Another thing you can try is closing all other noncritical open programs if you have any, especially browsers. Some browsers are huge memory hogs, and can significantly impact the functioning of more RAM-intensive games.

If your graphics are at the lowest settings possible, no extra processes are running, and you're still having issues, it may be that your computer or GPU does not have enough memory to run the game. For suggestions/advice geared toward your specific computer setup, you can ask for help from community members on the Bitten Toast Discord.

Beetle Black I found a BUG! Where do I submit it?

Please submit bug reports through:
  1. The in-game submission form accessible from the Paws Menu (ESC)
    The reports go straight to the Garden Paws Trello board at http://www.gardenpawsgame.com/trello
    You can also check the Trello board for known-bugs and more information.
  2. Post your output log in the Bugreporting channel on Discord
    To access the output log, type this in to your Windows Explorer bar, which should take you to a folder with some game files: %AppData%\..\LocalLow\Bitten Toast Games\GardenPaws\
    See if you can post the log in bugreporting. If it is too big, you can email it to admin@bittentoast.com. If there are any crash files, send those too.

How can I contact the devs?

Daniel and Kristina are always around working on the game, but before pinging either of them directly it is better to ask other players for help on Discord. The mods and community are incredibly helpful and can answer most questions.

(Thiago is the audio dev, but Dan and Kristina handle the community side of things.)

You can also contact the devs by email at admin@bittentoast.com

More FAQs will be added soon.

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