How to Earn Golden Beetles
This guide is made by and for The Lioden Conservatory, and is made public to help others! This guide is new player friendly, and is written with you guys in mind, though it does assume you played through the tutorial. I recommend fully reading this guide rather than skimming.

Golden Beetles (GB / ) are Lioden's elusive premium currency that makes the lion economy go round. While the only way for it to enter the economy is by others buying it, that's certainly not the only way for you to earn it. However, if you're not going to open your wallet, you're going to have to do some work. There is no way to get rich quick on Lioden, the way to make the most money is being patient. In fact, most players who buy these special little beetle bodies don't buy their way to riches!

You can identify a player who has spent real life money on Golden Beetles by a special VIP Star () next to their name. Don't be mistaken though, this just means the player has bought GB from The Oasis five or more times. It is not indicative of how much they've spent on the game. Users with the star could have spent just $50, or could have spent as much as $500, just to earn the fancy little star. They also could have spent much more. However, you can't always rely on this to determine if a user has spent money on Lioden, as users who have earned the star can choose to hide it in their account options.

Now that we've gone over what GB is, how do you earn it? What ways are there to earn GB? Let's get started. Note that most players use a combination of all of these to earn their GB, but you can pick and choose what's the best for you. These are listed in what I feel are lowest profit to highest profit, as well as a factor of reliability. There are also other ways to earn GB, but a lot of them require luck, or skill not everyone might have, and aren't 100% reliable like these are. Every method listed below can be done by every user on Lioden.

Buying From Others
First things first, you can buy GB from the GB Sales. GB Sales are where players who do have GB list them to exchange for Silver Beetles (SB / ), and the general conversion varies widely. You can usually expect to see prices anywhere from 800 to 1,000 , but it can be lower or higher on occasion.
I would only recommend this if you have an excess of SB, say, more than 5,000 , since the game will stop giving you SB from explore if you have more than that.

Playing Daily Games
Wait, there's games inside a game? Yep! You can visit the Games Page to play some fun little minigames to take your mind off the stress of running a pride of lions who seemingly can't do anything for themselves. Most of these games only reward you a few SB, but some of them can be a one way ticket to getting a few beetles in your pocket. I'm going to go through the ones you should focus on!

Serengetti Shuffle - In the 3500-4443 prize bracket, you can earn a few different prices. We're primarily looking for Giant Tortoises, Dove Feasts, Black Stallions, and Honeycombs. Those four items usually go for, at bare minimum, 1 each. You could sell them on the Trading Center, or on Branches, which are special mini shops you can own yourself. For more specific information about branches, I recommend reading this wiki page! You should always check out the prices of these items on Branches before listing them, which you can do at their item catalogue page, which you can click on their names to go see!

Slot Machine - Costing just 50SB a spin, the Slot Machine has the potential to have some of the biggest returns in game. However, you are taking a risk each time you spin, you might just get nothing! You can only do 5 spins every hour, but this resets every hour on the hour, meaning if you spin at 11:59am LDT, you can spin again as soon as it hits 12:00pm LDT.
Starting at the Medium Tier, you get an item that can be sold for some GB. The relevant item in this tier is the Great Tit, a breeding item that makes all cubs in a litter female. This is also the tier where you start getting a significant amount of SB, being 222
At the High Tier, you can get the Leopard Orchid, an item that allows you to auto claim any lioness from explore, working exactly like the 2 auto claim option. It appears under the claiming container, just like Lucky Feet appear under the battle container when fighting. You can also get some previously mentioned items from Serengetti Shuffle, such as Honeycombs and Black Stallions. You can also get 888 from this tier, which might be enough to buy you a GB from GB Sales!
If you're lucky enough to hit the Jackpot, the items you get are really, really good. These items are Energy Boost, Grain of Paradise, Jellyfish, and Lion Meat. Jellyfish is the biggest ticket item here, since it allows you to freeze cubs with Lethal Mutations without them needing to die first, and they frequently go for at least 15 . Grain of Paradise and Lion Meat are slightly lower value, but are still great items for you to get if you're strapped for cash. Energy Boosts are perhaps the lowest value, given they're available for purchase in the Oasis for 2 , but you might be able to sell them on branches for 1 to players looking for a deal. This tier can also give you 2222 , which is definitely enough to get you GB from GB Sales!

Whack a Snake & Reptile Roundup - These are lumped together because they focus primarily on Decor. Often times, the decor from these games are rare and desired, though Whack a Snake more so than Reptile Roundup. For Whack a Snake, you want to get at least 500 points, as that's the tier where you get a Random Decor From the Pool + Either a Catnip, Snake Scent, or Coconut. However, you can also get a Giant Tortoise and no decor. If you're a go-getter, you can go for 1,000 points, which will get you an extra valuable background!
For Reptile Roundup, you want to get 100 points on any given level so that you can have the best chances of getting the valuable decors. In general, any backgrounds, Falling Petals, and Flowers & Scenery decors are going to be the most valuable. To see what decors the level you're playing can give you, check out the wiki!

Hunting & Selling Food
Do you have lionesses? Congratulations! You can make some of the most reliable profit in game. Hunting costs you exactly nothing but 30 minutes, and if you have a small pride, you'll hunt more food than you could ever use. Users with larger prides will often buy food bundles off of TC, or just buy carcasses from branches. However, most users are only interested in buying large carcasses, which refers to carcasses that fill 60% hunger, rather than small carcasses, which can fill significantly less. Carcasses that fill 60% hunger are carcasses such as as Elephant Calf, Hartebeest, and more. For a comprehensive guide of which carcasses fill how much, I recommend checking this forum post.
In general, food usually sells for 5 a use, and large bundles sell for 1 for 100 uses. Sometimes food prices may be higher and lower, but these are always incredibly safe bets.

Participating in Events
Energy is your most valuable resource, and, luckily, Lioden has monthly events. These events often have extremely valuable items in their shops, but wait, people are selling them for cheap during the event? How does that work?
When the event is ongoing, those items are referred to as in season. This means they're the most plentiful they'll ever be, but also at their cheapest. If an item appears in multiple events, the event it's easiest to obtain it in would be considered its season. An example of this would be Buffalo Scrotum, which appears in both February and August, but is far easier to obtain in February compared to August.
!! DO NOT SELL ITEMS DURING THEIR EVENT !!
It may be tempting, it's some fast GB for minimal work, but you are cheating yourself out of so, so much more profit. Unless you are in desperate need of the GB, you should wait it out. Ideally, you should wait at least four (4) months before selling your event items. However, the longer you wait, the more valuable they get, with the exception of the weeks before their event, where most players will wait for the event rather than buying from someone else if they can avoid it.
To give an example of why you should wait, let's look back at Buffalo Scrotums. These are often sold for around 3 during February, as they're so easy to get. As of writing this guide (June 23rd, 2023), Buffalo Scrotums are at 29 . That's only four months after February, and they're worth nearly ten times the amount they were during the event!

In general, you want to focus on applicators and breeding items. Decor can also bring in some big bucks, depending on the event, and some applicators are worth more than others. While I can't 100% tell you which is better than what, you should find a balance between applicators that are expensive, items you want, and breeding items. Breeding Items tend to bring the most profit out of all events, but not every event has them. Applicators bring a much more moderate profit, but they exist in every event shop (except April, where all April base applicators are craftable). In some cases, the marking applicators can be more valuable than the base applicators, such as in March, but in general, you should prioritize base applicators over marking apps.

Closing
There you have it! An updated, and clear, guide to earning Golden Beetles on Lioden. If you have any questions, you can feel free to ask them in the thread, and I (or someone else) will answer them. Just note that earning currency is not a race, you cannot measure your own personal success based on users who have been active for months, or even years. You just started! Or you just came back from a hiatus, and you need to refamiliarize yourself with the game. Either way, active players have a huge advantage over you in terms of what they know, and the time they've had to gather currency. You do not need to buy fancy, expensive lions to have be successful on Lioden, you just need to have fun!


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