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Dinkum is a farming simulator game developed and published by James Bendon, that made waves on Steam on its release in July 2022. The special thing about this game is that it takes its inspiration from farms based in Australia.

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The character's desire to leave behind a place with no passion and fulfilment takes you to a location where you have to start off by building tents and entertaining visitors. Slowly, you'll progress towards building a town and having a permanent residence for people to settle down in.

As an Early Access game, things can and will change before its official release. We will update this article if there are any such changes.

You Can Move Your Camera Around

Dinkum Character Looking In Front

In the beginning, it feels like you're stuck with a certain camera angle, as you can only shift your view from normal to building view. However, you can actually move your camera around as much as you wish — it's just a little tedious.

In other games, you'd hold Shift to run faster, but since there's no such mechanic in this game, you can simply hold shift and move your mouse around to change your camera position. You can change it both vertically and horizontally, even though the vertical one is a bit counter-intuitive.

Clear Up Your Quick Inventory

Dinkum Inventory

There are two types of Inventory in Dinkum — one where you can access items quickly by scrolling your mouse wheel or pressing the respective numbers on your keyboard, and one which you can open upon pressing Tab. You can store a ton of items in the latter, but the former is more restricted.

The quick inventory only has eight slots by default, hence, you will have to choose the items you want to put in this one. Ideally, you'd want to put tools, weapons, a campfire, a sleeping bag, eatables, etc. in this inventory as the rest of the stuff goes in the other one.

If you're running out of space in both of your inventories, you can simply head back to the Town Hall that you placed at the start of the game. Here you can store some items in the bag on the left when you enter. Eventually, you'll make boxes for storage as well.

The Map Has A Lot Of Functions

Dinkum Map

The map is usually super important in most games, but Dinkum takes it to the next level. Firstly, you can place different kinds of pins anywhere on the map, and highlight them if you want to set them as waypoints. Upon highlighting, the pin will be shown on the mini-map to guide you in its direction.

Furthermore, the map will already have pins for special locations, such as the Town Hall, Visitor's Site, and your tent. And there's more — when you hover over a certain area on the map, it tells you what that area is called, making it easier to locate items such as trees, ores, and more.

Choose The Location For Your Tent Carefully

Dinkum Tent

At the start, an NPC will ask you to place the Town Hall and then your own tent in any location you find fit. You will be spending most of your time making journeys to the Town Hall and a few other areas, so it's recommended to place the this building, your tent, and other buildings close together for easy access. You can find a scenic location that has an open area for all of your buildings.

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The Journal Has It All

Dinkum Journal

After finishing some tasks given to you by Fletch, she'll provide you with a journal that belonged to her father. This journal can be accessed by pressing the Esc key, and it can provide you with multiple useful details::

  • Milestones - These are essentially your achievements while playing the game. It includes all sorts of tasks, such as walking, taking damage, and farming certain items. You can finish them to get currency that is required to obtain licenses in the game.
  • Tasks - This is the quest page, where you can see all of your current quests and choose the one you want to pin. You can also keep track of the ingredients required for a certain item on this page.
  • The rest of the options provide you with different details, such as animals, the things you've discovered, your character, and photos taken. You can find it all summarized in one place through the Journal.
  • Finally, you can use the Settings menu to access game settings, controls, and exit the game.

The game saves every time you sleep in your bed. If you log out of the game in the middle of a day, all your progress will be reset, and you will begin at the start of that day.

Exploring Is Important

Dinkum Milestone

Being a game all about farming and knowing your surroundings, exploration is arguably the most important aspect of Dinkum. Apart from finding new places and items, you also get Milestones for simply walking around and exploring the lands you're in. Make the most of your day and find out more about your surroundings, before you crash in your bed at night.

You Can Sell Anything To John

Dinkum John Sell items

John is an NPC that arrives as a visitor to your town on the second day. Eventually, you'll have to work towards making him stay permanently in order for commerce to start building. At the start of the game, he sells basic tools such as axes, pickaxes, and fishing rods.

Other than that, John will buy almost everything off you for a certain price. He says that the reason he can buy things at a good price is that people in urban areas pay a lot for them. So, simply farm some shells, bugs, ores and the like, and sell them to John to make some quick money.

Buying most of the tools from John will require licenses in different areas. These can be purchased from Fletch for the currency that you get from completing the daily tasks and Milestones within the Journal.

Cook Food Before Eating

Dinkum Cook Food

While it is also used to make other items, like a Furnace, the main purpose of having a Campfire in Dinkum is to be able to cook food on it. You can cook anything on it, ranging from fruits to meat. The good thing about this game is that food automatically pops out once it's cooked, and doesn't have a chance to burn.

Almost every food in the game restores higher health and energy once it's cooked, so you should always have a Campfire in your inventory. Furthermore, it seems like the Campfires in Dinkum are waterproof, and can keep burning even in rain.

Be Careful Of Running Out Of Energy

Dinkum Low Energy

In the top-left section of your screen you will see red and orange bars. The red bar is your health, and the orange one represents your energy. Your energy drains with every task that you perform, except for picking stuff up from the ground.

This includes chopping trees, farming rocks or ore, swimming, and fighting enemies, among other things. Keep an eye on your energy bar because if it reaches zero, all of your tools will take damage. When you're getting close to zero, your screen will start turning pale, and your character will move more slowly.

Whenever you sleep in your bed, you regain all of your health and energy. During exploration, these can be restored by eating food — but be mindful, as you can only eat up to three food items at a time.

Beware Of Environmental Dangers

Dinkum Dangers

Exploration is fun and all, but you need to watch where you step in the vast world of Dinkum. There are certain places where you will find hostile creatures who will stop at nothing to finish you. In the starting areas, you can encounter sharks or crocodiles in the water, or big birds near their nests.

Sharks will only attack you in the water, while crocodiles will follow you on land — but they don't follow you for too long if you run. The big birds, on the other hand, will chase you for a long time if you get anywhere close to their nest. Eventually, you can make weapons and fight these creatures for goodies.

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