Hello, fellow furries. o3o

If you like a cozy experience, this game does deliver a lot. A lot of people compare it to Animal Crossing, and frankly I could say that this is so much more than that.

First off is the character customization. The degree of freedom this game gives in customizing your character is big. It would generally be enough if the customization allows you to change gender, skin color, hair, eye color; it's great if it allows you to be a non-human species. However the customization here takes it even further. You're not limited by species types; you're not even given a base to work with. Want to be silly and play a human with a cat head and a human body? Sure. Want to do the other way around? Why not? Want to be full anthropomorphic animal hybrid? Sure. You can even be a TV head for all intents and purposes.

Next off is the worldscape. You don't get to "build" your home from scratch, rather you choose from a variety of different broken houses that just needs some elbow grease to fix. From there, you can craft decorations and furniture items. These can go into your home, and I mean CAN. You can on the other hand place them around the worldspace (the island) as you want. Want to be silly and put a bed on top of the peak? If it's flat enough, you can do that. The island is yours to decorate at your leisure.

Now I mentioned broken houses, and there's more to it. You see, the premise is you're building up an island, and need to invite people to your island. You can go about and find castaways on other islands and, through a small quest, can invite them to your island at your leisure. After some interactions, they'll think about real estate and putting permanent roots down. You then help them with materials and they'll build up the house themselves and move right in.

The critters aren't just for decoration. You can interact with them as you want, and sometimes they'll wave at you and have requests. Fulfilling them does net you some loot, and some affinity points as well. These critters can also be assigned to commercial buildings around the island (which you'll need to build up), and they'll function as staff there. Though some critters like working in some places than others, and there's generally a downside for putting the wrong critter in the wrong job.
Critters do have personalities to them. Not all of them a generally friendly. I won't spoil it, but they've got their quirks but if you butter up to them, they'll thaw out.

Now I talked about castaways and getting them from other islands, but how do you get to them? Later on you can get to them by boat, and you pilot that boat. There's no fixed path going from your island to the next; the sea is your playground.
And when I mean the sea is your playground, I mean literally. You can dive right into it and go scavenge for resources in the depths. You'll at first need to closely monitor your oxygen, and be careful of not going to down in the water to avoid the chills, otherwise you'll take damage to your health. If you lose your health, you pass out and reawaken on the surface, on the same day with not much time having passed, though with a debuff to you total health and stamina.
Stamina. You need it to disassemble most junk strewn across the islands and ocean. To recover stamina, you can rest or take something to eat or drink. One big thing to note is that there's no penalty for not sleeping, nor is there something like a curfew system. You can be active the whole day and night without any problems.

Gardening is generally the way to get things to recover stamina. Sure you can eat things raw, but generally cooked food will recover stamina or health, or both, better than eating something raw...but the game won't stop you. Food is classified according to some groups, like meat (yes, you can GROW meat. The vegan dream), vegetables and other groups.

Now, you're building up an island, and with commercial buildings? Is it just for you? No of course not. That'll be too lavish. Your island can be the perfect tropical paradise to draw in tourists to visit, and spend their cash in. The more you decorate, the more commercial stuff like kiosks you put in (and stock mind you), the more tourists are inclined to do various activities and pay you for your services. You may even spot a prospecting tourist that you might want to become a resident of your island and *ahem* hope they become a castaway by forces beyond our control.

There's a lot more to this, especially since the devs are listening and are following their own roadmap. At the time of this review, they've dropped a big update that included things like robot helpers to help gather resources.

Would I recommend it? If you're looking for a nice chill and cozy experience. Yes. This game is for you.

This game is very chill game akin to the likes of Animal Crossing, Stardew Valley and other games where you build up a town and do activities like farming or fishing, The game has plenty of Cute villagers called "Critters" that you can recruit to live on your Island and give jobs to each with their own likes and dislikes, with personalities again just like Animal Crossing. This game also has a feel for sea exploration Like Wind Waker and underwater exploration like subnautica without all the horrors trying to eat you.

Graphically it's not the most impressive game but it's not trying to be GTA6, some animations could be better and some folk might not like the models of the characters but aside from that the game has a charming look imo.

While playing myself, i did not experience many game breaking bugs and performance was solid, no complaints here.

There's plenty to collect in game clothes, furniture and object to wear or place around your home and island.

It's still in EA and there is more room to improve but i think the devs have a solid foundation here for a great game, the character creation is also a very good selling point. If you're a fan of animal crossing do check it out!