Pixel People - how to splice your way to a better tomorrow

Welcome back to our comprehensive guide to Chillingo's latest freemium hit Pixel People.

In this sci-fi city builder, you're in charge of an extraterrestrial effort to rebuild and repopulate the planet. With a little gene-splicing thrown in for good measure.

Previously, we revealed the recipes you need to cook up all 150 clones, and showed you every pixellated building that's featured in the game.

We thought we'd wrap up our Pixel People walkthrough series with some general tips to help you on your way.

Plus, we asked Abhishek Radhakrishnan, chief creative officer at Pixel People developer LambdaMu Games, to give us some of his expert tips.

The basics

Pixel People has a pretty simple loop. You splice, you build, and you expand.

The key component is gene-splicing. Enter the Arrival Center and splice together two professions to make a new one. A vet and an Olympic swimmer make a marine biologist, for example.

You can tell if you've stumbled upon a new recipe because the test tube button is pink. Yellow means you've done that mix before. Grey means the splice won't work.



All clones work in specific buildings. If you don't have that clone's primary building (the first building in our list of jobs), you'll get it for free, and can plop it down in your ever-growing space city.

You also need a free space in a residential building before you can get a new clone.

Here's the rub. Houses and buildings take up land - which is a very precious commodity. You'll need to keep stretching out your city limits, then, and paying the increasingly expensive expansion cost to keep splicing.

So, you splice, you build, and you expand. And then you repeat it until you've either got all 150 jobs, run out of money, or died.

Decorate your city

"Building trees and decor as early as possible lets you maximise their bonuses and discounts right from the get-go," Radhakrishnan says.

You can build trees and decorations when you unlock the Nursery and Park buildings, respectively. Trees frequently offer up rewards like coins and Utopium.



Decorations, like monuments and statues, boost your town spirit. This results in your getting a discount on expansion costs, and leads to both construction and clone arrival times being sped up.

"Build those early and as frequently as possible, and you'll see yourself sailing a lot smoother through outer space," Radhakrishnan adds.

Trees and decor do take up precious land, though, so don't overload your city with them.

Fill your buildings

"Instead of rushing for new discoveries, try and fill up all your businesses with clones-of-clones," Radhakrishnan suggests.

Sometimes, multiple buildings can house the same clone. For example, the Courthouse, Police Station, and Bank buildings can all use the Police Officer.

If you fill up a building, it will max out the number of coins that building can produce. And once your Bank is open, all filled buildings will double their financial output. Awesome.

"This is especially useful when you're land blocked, since Yellow Clones [clones you've already made before] don't have a land cost associated with them, and always splice super quickly," Radhakrishnan says.



Get Utopium for free

Utopium is Pixel People's premium currency. With Utopium, you can purchase the most expensive houses; expedite pretty much any process; buy trees and decorations; and unlock hints.

You can top up with in-app purchases, but there are many ways to get the pink stuff for free. Just note that you can only get 25 Utopium a day if you don't pay.

First, the Utopium Mine will generate a small amount of the stuff every 24 hours. Also, you sometimes get Utopium when you activate 11 hearts from residential buildings.



Some achievements - which you can view from the menu for the Museum or Police Station - offer Utopium. There are also one-time Utopium pick-ups in some of the profiles in the developer credits (found in the Sheriff's Office)

If you do want to pay up, mind, here's the financial breakdown:

50u - £1.49 / $1.99
250u - £5.49 / $7.99
1,000u - £17.49 / $24.99

Don't fret about optimisation

You don't need to worry too much about building the most efficient city possible.

"The game is designed and balanced for many different modes of play to be equally rewarding, to allow for varying playing styles," Radhakrishnan says.

"Whether you go all-out suburbia with the Rocky Mansions or choose to splurge on Shiny Towers later on, we've made sure the balance all works out in the end."

Get organised

Radhakrishnan recommends you "take time designing your city and placing things out aesthetically".

"Organisation makes access easier, special buildings easier to find, and, most importantly, makes the entire experience of building your own city a lot more pleasant."

Animals R Us



Pixel People also features 64 collectible animals. You can obtain these by filling up 11 hearts from residential plots in your city and then hoping for the best.

Some are rarer than others, and it is possible to get the same animal twice. So, be prepared for this collection side-quest to take some serious time.

Here's the list:Common

Tabby Cat
Tom Cat
Tuxedo Cat
Siamese Cat
Calico
Box Cat
Corgi
Alsatian
Pug
Golden Retriever
Poodle
Chow Chow
Pig
Cow
Bull
Horse
Unicorn
Zebra
Donkey
CamelUncommon

Mousedeer
Llama
Moose
Hippopotamus
Giraffe
Chicken
Duck
Rabbit
Elephant
Tiger
Lion
Panther
Cheetah
Rhinoceros
Harp Seal
Walrus
Panda
Polar Bear
Brown Bear
Sun BearRare

Koala
Gummy Bear
Tortoise
Fox
Wolf
Orangutan
Gorilla
Chimpanzee
Penguin
Whale
Orca
SnailSuper Rare

Owl
Eagle
Chameleon
Parrot
Toucan
Goat
Red Panda
Mouse
Octopus

More tips?

That should get you started on your way to maximising your Pixel People city and unlocking all 150 jobs.

Got any tips you think we've missed? Drop them in the comments section below.