General Tips

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• Build as many houses as possible, and upgrade them as soon as you are able. In the early days of the game, houses are your only source of coins. Collect from each house as soon as you see the bag bubble pop up above it.
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• Every three minutes you should see a bird fly by with a bag in its feet. Click the bird for 3 coins and 1 food. There are birds with no bag as well - 1 in 4 birds will have the bag. As you island size increases, it gets harder and harder to find them, because they can fly across any open area and they may fly across an area where you're not looking.
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• Every few minutes a mole-like creature pops out of the ground. Click him three times while he's there, and you'll get 6 coins. As with the birds, he will get harder to find as you open more ground on the island, as he spawns randomly and he may spawn in an area where you're not working.
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• Do not sell the gears you get from the fallen satellite once that quest is done. They are the only way to upgrade your warehouse, short of spending a lot of game cash. (Gems)
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• Don't use your gems (game cash) on things like hurrying tasks or opening chests. Save them up for important things like side events, which are impossible to finish without gems. 
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• Once the sonar is built, you will receive piles of coins on your island, randomly placed. You get 3 at a time, with a max of 6. More information on the sonar and how best to find the coin piles is found here:  http://islandexperimentwalkthrough.blogspot.com/2017/02/how-to-use-sonar-in-island-experiment.html
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• Levels play some part in this game, but ultimately it's mostly quest based. Work on the quests and you will move forward.
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• You can make special requests for most, but not all, items. To do so, go to the quest or manufacturing building that requires the item, and click the green + sign in the top right corner. Don't bother using the "ask friends" button, as that will spam your Facebook friends list. Just let your game friends know that you have a special request. You can have up to 4 items on the special list. When you send items to friends that are special requests, these items actually come out of the sender's warehouse, so be careful not to send something all of something that you need for yourself. A more detailed explanation, with pictures, is available here:  http://islandexperimentwalkthrough.blogspot.com/2017/01/how-to-add-and-remove-items-from-your.html
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• There is a daily bonus that runs through a 5-day cycle. Coins, food, shovels, one gear and one gem. For most people, if you miss a day of logging in, the cycle resets back to the beginning. So even if you don't have time to play, try to at least log in for one minute so you can get the daily bonus. VIP status (gained by making real-money purchases in the game) can double, triple and even quadruple these daily bonuses. More information found here:  http://islandexperimentwalkthrough.blogspot.com/2017/02/daily-rewards-in-island-experiment.html
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• Every day, the official page has 300 coins and 15 food available as a free gift. The link to the Official Page is located in the black bar across the bottom of the game screen. You MUST click the morning link first, then the afternoon one, in order to get both gifts. During 15 day special events, the morning freebie will be either stamps or obstacle resources for the event, while the afternoon freebie will swap back and forth between food and coins from one day to the next.
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• To keep from overwhelming your warehouse, make resources in the various production buildings but DON'T collect them until you need them. Same thing with the food patches and field kitchen. Nothing in the game will "go bad" like in other games, so you can just leave your items unpicked. This not only saves space, but assures that you have a few things made ahead of time.
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• Another way to save warehouse space is to leave gifts in your gift box for up to 7 days, and only pull out what you need, when you need it. Be sure to collect before 7 days is up, though - after that your gift will disappear.
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• There is no purpose to visiting the islands of your friends and neighbors, other than to look around and see how they have things arranged.
  
• Remember that actions taken on the island result in XP being given, which helps you to level up. Asking for resources from friends is fine, but if you ask for all of your resources, you are missing out on XP and it will take longer for you to level up, if that is important to you.