PAO PAO Activities Guide: Cooking, Fishing and Farming

PAO PAO is ArtDock's low-poly seaside life sim, published by Dreland Enterprises and scheduled for Early Access on 2026-10-26 for Windows, according to the official Steam page. The activity list is wider than a simple farm loop: you run a restaurant, fish, grow crops, forage, decorate, explore the town and play mini-games with friends.

The short answer: restaurant work is the daytime anchor, fishing and farming keep the kitchen stocked and fill the hours around shifts, and decorating your house, restaurant and garden is the long-term project that shows off what you have earned. Around those sit quests, an arcade, a library and co-op stunts such as boat races and water fights.

What you can do, at a glance

The restaurant: cooking and serving

The restaurant is the activity with the most structure. The Steam page describes installing equipment, assembling a menu and serving everyone from a handful of easy orders to a packed dining room, solo or with friends. In the demo, LadiesGamers found that the restaurant only opens during daylight, which naturally pushes fishing, foraging and quests into the evening and night.

Two things are worth planning around. First, shifts can get busy: the same demo impressions describe the restaurant as fast-paced at times, in the spirit of Lemon Cake, and mention one timed quest that was too quick for that writer's taste. Second, the kitchen is actively being tuned: ArtDock's 2026-10-01 patch announcement on Steam lists updated recipes, one new recipe, cookbook and daily menu changes, and fixes to how shift results are calculated. Cooking also hooks into quests — in the demo, the scientist Milo asked for a specific meal served to five different customers before reporting back.

A practical habit from demo play: stock ingredients before you open, because once a shift starts you are tied to the kitchen until it ends.

Fishing

Fishing works from the shore or from a boat. The demo's reeling minigame, as described by LadiesGamers, asks you to hold a fish inside a target area using the left stick while pressing a face button on the controller — challenging without being punishing. Treat that as a demo-era description rather than a fixed keybind; the game advertises full controller support, and the 2026-10-01 patch mentions new fishing hints, better fishing spot detection, and improved fish behaviour and effects from the earlier demo patch.

Fishing is a good night-time or between-quest activity. Fun Guys Swarm's activities guide frames it as a steady way to top up kitchen ingredients; the Steam page keeps fish and restaurant work in separate paragraphs, so that link is a reasonable community reading rather than a stated mechanic.

Farming and gathering

Farming happens on a plot near the restaurant in the demo, with seeds bought from the town shop that also sells restaurant supplies and decor. Garden beds have received attention in patches: interactions were improved, and a duplication bug affecting garden beds, treasure chests and dirt piles was fixed in the 2026-10-01 update.

Gathering is the low-commitment version of the same idea — collect resources in the forest, then bring them back to town. The tool wheel now shows category icons and supports quick switching with a short press, which matters when you are moving between harvesting, gathering and fishing in one trip. The idea that crops and foraged goods feed the kitchen is community framing from Fun Guys Swarm; the official page presents farming and cooking as neighbouring systems rather than spelling out the supply chain.

Your house, restaurant and garden

Decoration is confirmed in the developer's own description: bring a vision to life, change it whenever you like, and decorate the house, restaurant and garden by combining furniture, decor and styles. Decor items appear in the town shop in the demo, so shopping trips double as decoration runs.

If you are coming from the demo, note that saving home decorations and several house and decoration bugs were addressed in the 2026-10-01 patch — worth knowing if an earlier build lost your layout. Separately, the pawprint doormat is a navigation cue for entering neighbours' homes, not a decoration feature of your own house.

Side activities and small discoveries

Beyond the main loop, the Steam page lists arcade visits, boat races, basketball and water-gun fights, and suggests splitting up to explore or skipping work entirely for a chaotic day. The demo also hides smaller interactions: LadiesGamers describes untying kites and retying them somewhere new, eating apples from a yard basket, setting off a box of fireworks, reading partial recipe fragments in the library, and browsing a clothing store. Boats at the docks connect to other areas, and at least one demo quest sends you to a second island.

Your journal is the quiet quality-of-life feature here: it tracks inventory, quests and collections, and includes a "guidance" section that re-explains mechanics. The current objective also sits in the top-right corner of the screen.

A practical first session

Based on the demo flow described by LadiesGamers, a sensible opening looks like this:

1. Complete the tutorial and skim the journal's guidance section.
2. Meet the villagers and collect your restaurant key and starter supplies.
3. Buy seeds and supplies from the shop, then plant the plot beside the restaurant.
4. Fish at the beach while crops grow.
5. Run the restaurant during the day, cooking and serving until the shift ends.
6. Use the night for gathering, quests and decorating.
7. Keep an eye on the top-right quest tracker so you do not lose the thread.

Playing with friends

Co-op supports up to four players in total, online. The obvious division of labour is one person on the kitchen, one fishing, one farming and one gathering or decorating, and the developer explicitly suggests splitting up to explore different parts of town. Multiplayer patches have addressed private lobby joining, network sync, money desyncs and item duplication, and added voice chat settings; lobby codes can be entered with the Steam keyboard. Demo saves can be carried into the full version, according to the 2026-09-18 demo patch note.

What is confirmed before Early Access

As of 2026-10-19, the official Steam page lists Windows as the platform and does not name a price. It also does not publish a recipe list or a crop list, so treat any complete recipe table as community work in progress. The Fun Guys Swarm guide expects the recipe book to grow at Early Access; ArtDock's 2026-10-01 patch note does confirm recipes were updated and one added. Note that the January 2026 demo write-up on LadiesGamers expected a mid-2026 launch, while the Steam page now gives 2026-10-26.

Next steps

• PAO PAO Tool Wheel: What It Is and How It Works

FAQ

What does a PAO PAO activities guide cover?

It covers the playable loop rather than the story: restaurant cooking, fishing, farming, gathering, decorating and the side activities around town. The Steam page is the clearest single list of what is confirmed.

How does cooking work in PAO PAO?

You equip a kitchen, set a menu and serve customers during daytime shifts, alone or in co-op. Recipes and shift calculations have already been adjusted in patches, and cooking is used as a quest objective in the demo.

Is fishing in PAO PAO worth the time?

It is one of the confirmed activities and works from shore or boat, so it is a natural filler between shifts and quests. Fun Guys Swarm treats it as an ingredient source; the official page stops short of stating that link.

Can I decorate my house and garden?

Yes. The developer's description confirms decorating the house, restaurant and garden with furniture, decor and mixed styles, and changing the layout at any time. Decor is sold in the town shop in the demo.