Idle Family Sim Guide: Tips and Strategies

Anurag Ghosh
(Last Updated On: November 25, 2022)

Idle Family Sim combines life simulator with idle game elements and is geared towards the casual gaming crowd. Create your virtual family and start building your dream home by purchasing furniture and décor. You can also select a parent to be the house’s sole breadwinner and choose a job for him/her. Furnishing your dream home can be fun as you will gain more hearts when a family member spends time in a room.

Idle Family Sim Guide
Home Sweet Home. Check out all four boosts on the right side of the screen. You can find life goals of family members on the left side of the screen.

Complete life goals, reach new milestones and boost your family’s income. Unlock the wardrobe and equip the snazziest outfits to all characters. Get costume and accessory bonuses when you equip them to a family member. Check out these beginner-level Idle Family Sim tips and strategies to grow your family’s wealth and fulfill their goals.

Getting Started

Before the actual game begins, you can customize your virtual family – Dad, Mom, Kid and Baby. Change their look and names. After customizing your family, tap on confirm.

Note: There isn’t any deep customization options such as costumes in the beginning. But once you unlock the wardrobe, you can try new hairstyles and outfits for the family using gems.

Once the family enters their new home, you can start building their future. The house’s big and it will take time to settle in.

Hearts and cash play a vital role in building your family’s future. You will gain hearts when members spend time in any room in the house, provided there’s at least one furniture item in that room. To gain hearts, start placing furniture in each room. A better furnished house means more hearts. You will start with 1500 hearts in the beginning.

Check the heart gauge above a family member when he/she enters a room and interacts with a piece of furniture. You will notice that a family member’s empty heart gauge fills up. You will obtain hearts when their heart gauge is full.

Check the heart gauge above mom.
The heart gauge above a family member. Once full, you will gain hearts.

Hearts gained by family members in a room depends on the furniture placed in that room and temporarily activated boosts, if any.

Tap on a room and a list of furniture slides up from the bottom of the screen. It displays only those items that can be placed in that room. Next, tap on an item and press the buy button to place it in the room.

The room upgrade page showing furniture and the total number of hearts earned per hour.
Family members gain around 55 hearts per hour.

In the same items list, pay attention to: “Family members gain hearts per hour spent in room”. Every time you place an item or upgrade/level up an existing item, the hearts gained per “in-game hours” increases whenever a family member spends in a room.

The clock on the upper-left corner of the screen shows the current in-game time. Hours pass by quickly and you gain hearts every time a member spends time in the room every in-game hour.

You will need cash to purchase and upgrade furniture. As the game says “Home upgrades cost cash though”. Luckily, the game provides 1750 cash in the beginning, so you can buy some furniture items to gain hearts per hour right from the start.

To earn more cash, one of the family members needs to get a job. You can choose a member – either Mom or Dad – to be the family’s breadwinner. After choosing a family member, he/she sets a new “life goal”.

To know the employed parent’s life goal, tap on his/her icon on the left side of the screen to open “Life Goals”. Pay attention to tasks and use hearts to complete them.  Every time you complete a task using hearts, you inch closer to finishing a milestone.

Most life goal tasks of an employed family member require certain home upgrades to complete them. These home upgrades are buying/placing new furniture in a particular room and/or leveling them up.

A home furniture upgrade will be specifically written under “Upgrade Task”. Upgrading a piece of furniture requires multiple steps to fully level it up, so make sure you have enough cash to do this.

To upgrade/level up a furniture item, tap on the room where the furniture is placed and then tap on its icon in the list. Press the upgrade button to fill the level meter of the item. Once full, tap on the purple “Level Up” to fully upgrade it to the next level.

After fulfilling home upgrade requirements, you can go head and use hearts to complete the task, provided you have the required number of hearts to complete the milestone.

Completing a milestone will earn you a reward. So if your first life goal is to “Get a Job”, then you will have to complete two tasks to complete a milestone and only then a family member will start earning 100 cash per hour each day. Pay attention to more tasks/milestones under a parent’s life goal to increase the cash earned per hour.

After choosing a parent to start his/her job, the first life goal will be easy to complete as there will be only two tasks to reach a milestone and get them a job at 100 cash per hour. Once you complete the first life goal, you can choose a career from three career choices. 

Along with the life goals of the earning parent, you will also find and complete life goals of other members of the family. Tap on a member’s icon on the left side of the screen to view his life goal. Completing non-earning members’ life goals provide various boosts, such as a “motivation boost” that will increase the earning member’s income per hour by a percent percentage, making the parent earn more cash during working hours.

Besides increasing the income earned by a working parent, you will also earn gems after completing a life goal milestone. You can buy room décor using these gems. Tap on a room and then go to the “Decorations” tab in the furniture list on the bottom of the screen. Tap on an unlocked décor and then press the “Change” button. Certain decorations will require players to spend gems to purchase them, whereas most décor can be purchased using in-game cash. You will also need gems to unlock new décor types.

Upgrading furniture not only helps you complete life goals in Idle Family Sim, but also changes the overall look of a room. Every time you level up a piece of furniture, it turns into something new. New items are also added with the upgraded furniture. Home gym in the study room is the best example. When you buy it for the first time, you only place a yoga mat but as you upgrade, you add new gym equipment to the map, turning it into a full-fledged workout gym.

A Member Earns Only During Working Hours

The earning member of the family earns hourly income only during working hours. It’s the usual 9-5 job, so you need to pay attention to the in-game clock to check the time when the earning family member leaves the house. The clock is located on the upper-right corner of the screen. Usually, it’s around 8:30 AM when he/she leaves the house and you start earning money every hour from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM. Once the earning parent is back home, income stops until the next day. However, you continue generating hearts every time a member spends some time in a room.

Always Check Tasks to Complete Life Goal Milestones

All members in a family have life goals, and completing those increases the overall income. If you complete a life goal of an earning parent, you can increase hourly income by a certain amount. If you complete a life goal of a non-earning member, you will boost the hourly income of the earning member by a certain percentage.

Tap on a member’s icon/portrait pic on the left side of the screen to open “Life Goals”.

Under the “Life Goals” page you can view goals of all family members by tapping on their tabs on the top of the page.

Life Goal of Kid
In this screenshot, Luke’s (Kid) life goal is to make new friends. To complete his life goal, finish tasks displayed under “upgrade task”. You will need to purchase a new furniture and or upgrade existing furniture to fulfill task requirements. Next, use hearts to complete the task and move to the next task. Finish all tasks to reach the milestone (star icon ) and only then you can complete a life goal and get your rewards.

Under “upgrade task”, note down the furniture purchase requirement or existing furniture upgrade requirement and the number of hearts to complete a task.

The furniture requirement could be placing an item in a particular room. The upgrade requirement could be leveling up the same furniture to level 2 in the same room. To place furniture, tap the room and tap on an item. Press the buy button. To upgrade the same item, press the “upgrade” button.

Pressing the green “upgrade” button does not level up an item instantly. You will have to upgrade it a few times before you can fully level up. Press the upgrade button and the level bar above the button fills up a bit.

When the level bar is full, the button turns from green to purple. You can now level it up fully. Every upgrade costs cash and so does the final “level up”, which may cost more cash than the initial upgrade stages of an item.  

Leveling up a furniture to complete a life goal.
Purple level up button. The button turns purple when the level bar above it fills up. Keep upgrading an item to fill the level bar. Press the level up to fully upgrade an item.

Once you fulfil the life goal task requirement, i.e. a furniture purchase or an upgrade, you can then go ahead and use hearts to complete that task. Only then you can move to the next task. You will also notice that the blue milestone bar checkmark when you complete a task.

Complete task requirement and then use hearts to finish it up.
Now that you have fulfilled the task requirement (book shelf level 2), you can use hearts to complete the task. The milestone bar will show second checkmark.

The screenshot below shows the milestone bar with checkmarks, indicating all tasks have been completed. When the blue milestone bar reaches the end (white star), you will have to spend hearts to fully complete the life goal. That’s the final task to complete the milestone and get your rewards.

Complete all tasks to finish a life goal.

Reach the star or gift box icon on the milestone bar – only then you have completed the milestone and then obtained the reward, which could be a boost in earning member’s family income. You will also receive bonus gems as reward.

Get your life goal rewards
Life Goal Complete

New life goal will appear once you complete the current life goal.

Fast forward to start a new Day

After a tiring day, all members in your family fall asleep at night. You won’t be earning hearts or cash while they sleep, so it’s better to skip night time.

Tap on the night sky icon on the right side of the screen when everyone goes to sleep, watch a 30-sec video to fast forward and start a new day instantly!

You don’t have to watch videos to skip if you purchase the “No Ads Offer” with real money. It’s a one-time offer and provides instant rewards, instant skipping without having to watch an advert. Tap on the shopping cart icon on the bottom-left corner of the screen and purchase it under “Special Offers”.

Pay Attention to Boosts

In Idle Family Sim, boosts appear on the right side of the screen at regular intervals. Make the most of them:

  1. Extra cash: Watch a video to earn bonus cash. Appears are regular intervals.

2. Extra Hearts: Obtain bonus hearts by watching a 30-second video.

3. Workday Boost: Boost cash income of the earning family member by 2x for a day.  

4. Baby Boost: Boost heart gain for a day by 2x.

Both workday and baby boost requires players to watch 30-second videos.

Double Idle Rewards

Your family keeps earning rewards even when you are not playing. The offline time for generating idle rewards (hearts + cash) is capped at 2 hours. You can be rest assured that your family keeps generating hearts and cash for a maximum of two hours when you are away.

Double idle rewards
Double Family Profits

When you open the app, you will have the opportunity to double the offline rewards. Just tap “Collect x2” and watch a 30-second video! That’s it, you will obtain x2 offline cash and hearts.

Increase Maximum Idle Time and Obtain Bonuses with Pets

Pets are a premium in-app purchase feature in Idle Family Sim. You can purchase them from the shop menu using real cash. Tap the shopping cart icon on the lower-left corner of the screen.

Under idle time pets, you can purchase the parrot that can extend your offline time cap by +2h. The family generates rewards, such as cash and hearts for a maximum of 2 hours when you are not playing. You can increase it to 4 hours by purchasing this bird.

Under “Bonus Income Pets” you will be able to increase bonus cash and hearts by 50 percent when you purchase the family dog and cat.

Purchasing bonus income pet is one-time and grants a “permanent effect”. While any premium in-app purchase is not mandatory as earning cash and heart is fairly easy in this game. However, if you are impatient and want rewards faster, you can purchase pets.

Unlock the Wardrobe and Gain Outfit Bonuses

In Idle Family Sim, you will have to complete Dad’s life goal no. 5 to unlock the wardrobe. Once unlocked, tap the clothes hanger icon on the lower-left corner of the screen.

The wardrobe
The wardrobe

Open the gift box (free for the first time you open it) using 50 gems to get a random costume, accessory or hairstyle. The random outfit could be of one of the family members.

To equip the new outfit, tap the family member’s picture in the wardrobe . There will be a red exclamation mark above the character, suggesting that the outfit is available and can be equipped to him/her. Now tap on the outfit icon in the list to equip it.  

Unlock a new outfit and equip it to a character to obtain hearts and cash boost.
Luke’s new Top. You will gain a +2% heart and cash boost when you equip this top to him.

Equipping new outfits to a member increases your cash and hearts multiplier and add a massive boost.

How to Earn Gems

Gems are used to purchase décor and outfits. You can earn gems by completing life goals or purchase them from the shop. Tap on family member icons on the left side of the screen, complete all tasks to reach milestones and earn purple gems as rewards. Tap the shopping cart icon and purchase purple gems.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *