Golden Walnut
| Golden Walnut | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Type | Collection |
| Location | Farming; Mining; Foraging; Combat; Fishing; Digging; Breaking Golden Coconuts |
The Golden Walnut is the currency of the parrots on Ginger Island, and almost everything the island has to offer is bought with it. Walnuts are hidden rather than earned: buried under patterns in the sand, tucked into bushes, locked behind puzzles, dropped by the creatures in the volcano and pulled up on fishing lines. The running total sits under the farmer's name in the skills tab, and in a shared save the whole team draws on one pile. Parrots take them for the island's upgrades, from the bridge to the dig site and the farmhouse on the west beach to the Parrot Express that links it all together. Collecting a hundred of them is also the key to Qi's Walnut Room, which is where the late game keeps its hardest challenges.
Overview
Most walnuts are simply buried. The island marks its dig spots with patterns that look deliberate once noticed: rings of stones, circles of flowers, triangles and diamonds of starfish, an X scratched into the sand by the tide pools. A hoe turned on the centre tile of any of those shapes brings up a nut. Bushes hold more, often in corners reached only by a hidden path that looks like solid cliff on the map.
Ordinary farm work pays too. Casting a rod anywhere on the island turns up walnuts on the early catches, mining the mussel nodes along the west shore gives a few, and crops grown on the island farm have a small chance of yielding one each time they are picked. The Volcano Dungeon is the richest single place for them, since its rocks, metal crates, chests and monsters all hold a share, and a walnut plant stands at either end of the Forge. The very first Golden Coconut that Clint cracks always contains one as well.
The island also sets puzzles. A Banana left on the altar east of Leo's hut brings a gorilla down to trade, the Gem Birds want their stones returned to the shrine, and the Gourmand Frog in the west farmhouse asks for a Melon, then Wheat, then Garlic, shown to him in that order while still growing. A mermaid on the south-eastern rocks sings on rainy days and pays out once flute blocks are tuned to match the stones beside her. There is a Simon Says cave north of the Tiger Slime Grove, a mole to whack on the beach, and a dartboard in Pirate Cove that pays for a winning round. Professor Snail's fossil donations and his island surveys are worth a good handful on their own.
Nobody is expected to find all of this unaided. The parrot in Leo's hut squawks one hint a day, in a riddling shorthand that takes some learning: buried near bones means the dig site, stripey slimes to the west points at the Tiger Slime Grove, fire mountain is the volcano. The hints update as nuts are found, so the list narrows over time, and the bird goes quiet for the rest of the day once the walnuts behind the current hint have all been collected.
Spending is the pleasant part. The parrot in Leo's hut opens the north of the island for a single nut, the one by the turtle on the beach clears the path west for ten, and from there the walnuts buy the Island Farmhouse, its mailbox and an obelisk home to the valley, the bridge to the dig site, the Island Trader, the beach resort, the Parrot Express network and two shortcuts in and out of the volcano. Once every upgrade has been paid for, Mr Qi takes the leftovers at his own counter and hands back two Qi Gems a nut.
Notes
A hundred found walnuts changes things off the island too. The Bookseller adds the Queen Of Sauce Cookbook to his stock, and the raccoon family starts paying out unshipped goods from its sixth request onwards.
For anyone who has given up on the hunt there is the Golden Joja Parrot, perched west of the volcano entrance. It charges ten thousand gold for every walnut still missing and delivers the lot overnight, with a pointed warning that this is not the true Ginger Island experience. Since the useful total is reached well before the last nut, paying the bird is usually worse value than one more afternoon with a hoe.
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