Ice Age Village from Gameloft is a free Xbox city building game for Windows Phone 8. As far as we know, any Windows Phone 8 device can run it and the game only takes up 79 MB of storage, so it should have a sizable player base already.
The city building genre is a time consuming one since many tasks involve returning to the game at a later time or date to reap their rewards. Wouldn’t it be nice to speed up the process a bit and get your village making money faster right off the bat? Darn right it would.
Windows Phone Central has a bunch of codes for free Coins, animals, and items, plus a handy Achievement guide. Don’t spend a single Acorn until you’ve read it!
Get your free stuff!
First off, let’s get those Coins and special animals. All you have to do for these is change your village name. Tap the name of your village at the top-left corner of the screen and you'll be able to change the name. After receiving the bonuses, change it back to whatever you like.
Here are the codes:
- Alpenliebe (a caramel toffee candy sold outside the US)
- BestBuy
- Bonus
- Danimals (a brand of yogurt)
- McDonalds
- Post
- Saturn
These codes are the gift that keeps on giving, because each special animal is part of a collection. Complete these animals’ families by buying a second adult and two children. Once the family and collection are complete, you’ll receive more rewards (as with any collection), including precious Acorns.
One more code!
Gameloft snuck in another trick that doesn’t involve a name change. Your village must have reached level 2 to pull this one off.
During gameplay, tap Sid the sloth four times and then Manny the mammoth three times (without tapping anything else in-between) and you'll get a bunch of coins and a snowy fox.
Collection-based Achievements
Many of the game’s Achievements involve completing various collections of animals. The rub is that some of these animals cost Acorns, the game’s premium currency! Now, you can actually earn Acorns through gameplay. You’ll receive them for completing collections, as prizes in the Kung Fu Scrat minigame, in snow piles, and by leveling up. Still, Acorns don’t come quickly. If you want to earn all of the Achievements without going broke in real life, it’s imperative that you save them to buy the premium animals associated with these Achievements.
These animals are:
- Brown Mammoth (costs 80 Acorns per family member, so 320 Acorns total. Can also be won as a Kung Fu Scrat prize on certain days)
- Gravelbeast (costs 110 Acorns per family member, so 440 Acorns total)
- Leopard (costs 120 Acorns per family member, so 480 Acorns total)
- Rhino (costs 50 Acorns per family member, so 200 Acorns total; can also be won as a Kung Fu Scrat prize on certain days)
- Weasel (costs 60 Acorns per family member, so 240 Acorns total)
Now, here are the collections that have Achievements:
Birdies Collection – Tweet tweet! Achievement
- Orange Bird (unlocks at Level 5; costs 5,000 Coins per family member)
- Diving Bird (unlocks at Level 20; costs 185,000 Coins per family member)
- Beaky Birdie (unlocks at Level 3; costs 3,000 Coins per family member)
Chomp Chomp Collection – Om Nom Nom! Achievement
- Beaver (unlocks at level 2; costs 2,000 Coins per family member)
- Possum (unlocks at level 8; costs 15,000 Coins per family member)
- Weasel (costs 60 Acorns per family member, so 240 Acorns total)
Four-Legged Runners Collection – Dashing Dashers Achievement
- Gazelle (unlocks at Level 26; costs 280,000 Coins per family member)
- Reindeer (unlocks at Level 25; costs 260,000 Coins per family member)
- Leopard (costs 120 Acorns per family member, so 480 Acorns total)
Main Characters Collection – The Star of the Show Achievement
- Sloth (unlocks at level 1; costs 1,000 Coins per family member)
- Mammoth (unlocks at level 6; costs 8,000 Coins per family member)
- Possum (unlocks at level 8; costs 15,000 Coins per family member)
Not Extinct Collection – Survival of the Fittest Achievement
- Mammoth (unlocks at level 6; costs 8,000 Coins per family member)
- Brown Mammoth (costs 80 Acorns per family member, so 320 Acorns total. Can also be won as a Kung Fu Scrat prize on certain days)
Scary Time Collection - Aiiiiiiieeeee! Achievement
- Armadillo (unlocks at level 7; costs 11,000 Coins per family member)
- Bonycap (unlocks at Level 27; costs 300,000 Coins per family member)
- Sneaky (costs 50,000 Coins per family member)
Tiny Family Collection – Big Hearts Achievement
- Orange Bird (unlocks at level 5; costs 5,000 Coins per family member)
- Ermine (unlocks at level 21; costs 200,000 Coins per family member)
- Hedgehog (unlocks at Level 15; costs 110,000 Coins per family member)
Walking Bulldozers Collection – Outta the Way! Achievement
- Rhino (costs 50 Acorns per family member, so 200 Acorns total; can also be won as a Kung Fu Scrat prize on certain days)
- Musk Ox (unlocks at Level 28)
- Mammoth (unlocks at level 6; costs 8,000 Coins per family member)
- Hippophant (unlocks at Level 14; costs 95,000 Coins per family member)
Level-based Achievements
When your village gains enough experience, it will level up. This usually a new animal or item and awards the player one Acorn.
Villages gain experience from blue stars. Acquire these by feeding animals after collecting coins from them, completing goals given by the story characters, and completing collections. To level up faster, prioritize buying new animals over Fun Stuff (swings, etc.) since Fun Stuff doesn’t provide experience..
- Caretaker – Reach Level 5
- Community Organizer – Reach Level 10
- The Mayor – Reach Level 20
- The Gov – Reach Level 30
- The President – Reach Level 40
- The Bestest of the Best! – Reach Level 50
Miscellaneous Achievements
Expert Slasher – Win Kung-Fu Scrat three times.
You'll gain access to the minigame early on when one of the main characters gives it to you via a Goal. To place the object, go to Stuff and then Collection. It looks like a small whirlpool. Once you've placed it, tap on the pool and choose to play the game.
The game costs tokens to use. You get a free token to start with and sometimes find them within snow piles. You also get one free token per day from the Kung Fu Scrat object/building itself. If you don't have enough tokens to play, you can choose to use Acorns, but I wouldn't recommend it. For the purpose of the Achievement, you can just choose to Practice three times without spending any tokens.
The minigame works like Fruit Ninja. Slash the blue fish that pop out of the water and avoid hitting a spiked puffer fish. You lose a life by missing a blue fish or hitting a puffer fish. Avoid running out of lives and try to get the highest score you can within 30 seconds.
Rewards are completely random, not based on performance. You’ll want to keep coming back to the minigame whenever you have tokens in order to try for Acorns, but you don’t need to win any more. Losing right away will save time.
I’m the Richest – Spend 30,000 on decorations.
Just head to the Shop and purchase a few high-value decorations. This is cumulative, so you needn’t buy a single 30,000 Coin decoration.
Most Famous - Get 5-Stars Village Status.
Your village has a star rating which you can view in detail by tapping the stars at the top-right corner of the screen during gameplay. Four ratings combine to create the overall rating:
- Animal Families - Based on the number of complete families
- Friends - Earn hearts by visiting other villages through the Social option and sending hearts to the village owners.
- Fun Buildings - Based on the number of Fun Buildings (swings, etc.)
- Village Size - Based on the amount of village expansions purchased
All four ratings must be 5 stars in order to have 5 stars overall and get the Achievement. If your village has less than 5 stars overall, just look at which individual ratings are below 5 stars and work to increase them.
The Friends rating is the most challenging one to raise up to five stars. You can only earn so many heart per day by visiting other villages. It will take at least 15 consecutive days to max out Friends and thus get this Achievement. Remember, Facebook and Gameloft Live integration is broken at launch. For now, you can boost your Friends rating by visiting random villages. Gameloft has promised a patch to fix the social network integration soon.
Update: The 'Most Famous' Achievement for earning a five-star village rating is broken. In fact, unlocking it seems to cause the game to glitch out and become unplayable. :(
Rule the Roost - Complete 7 land expansions.
To buy a land expansion, tap just outside of your active village area. You'll be offered the chance to buy an expansion for either coins or acorns. After a certain point, each successive expansion costs 50,000 more coins than the first one. I believe the seventh will cost 250,000...
Catching Scrat
This doesn’t relate to an Achievement, but here’s a beginner’s tip. The longer you leave the game actively running, the more likely snow piles will develop and Scrat will run by. When Scrat appears, he’ll first pop his head out of the left or right side of the screen and make a sound. As soon as you see or hear him, scroll a little away from your buildings and start tapping the bottom corner of the screen below where his head popped out. You’re guaranteed to catch him and win Coins with this method.
You can also find Scrat once daily when visiting another player’s village, though it works differently. He randomly hides behind an object and you’re tasked with tapping wildly to find him. A visual indicator appears over his head after a few seconds, but you’ll get more Coins if you find him before the indicator shows up.
Ice Age Village is free for Windows Phone 8. Get it here from the Windows Phone Store.
Cheating Notice
We’ve intentionally left time manipulation strategies out of this guide. Feel free to discuss those in our forums, but don’t mention them in the comments of this article.
