Starsand Island has been on my radar for a while now, immediately catching my eye with a different art style to most other agriculturally inclined games, but a familiar setting offering your usual farming, fishing, and foraging fare. I've played a few hours of the early build of the game on Steam Deck and PC - with no shared save, I might add - so I'm well versed in starting off a new life on the island. Or, getting back to it, as you grew up on Starsand Island and then moved away. Now, it's time to leave the rat race behind and return to nature.
You begin by making your character as they're at the train station, having just arrived on Starsand Island. The hair colors are a little limited, but there's a wide range of styles to work with. The same goes for outfits - there isn't much, but a few vibes come into play. One shirt has headphones on it, there's green denim overalls (my personal favorite), or a loose shirt.
Then you're kind of let loose in your new setting. You have a few beginner quests, including meeting the professionals in the town who can set you on the path of learning their trades. These are ranching, farming, combat, fishing, and crafting. You can start with whichever one you like, but you do need to work on some in tandem in order to unlock items needed in other paths. The illusion of freedom of choice is strong here.
You can talk to NPCs and tourists that visit the island to get quests like helping them wrangle lost animals or fetch specific items, or take their commissions from the Community Board for some extra cash. There's no obvious icon when they have something to ask of you, so have a chat with people and see what happens.
Outside of your chores to make that sweet gold, you've got the classic pastimes. Catch some bugs, fish a bit, mine some ore, or adopt a pet to follow you around. There's actually plenty to do here to keep yourself occupied while you wait for cucumbers to sprout. Plus, after a hard day's tilling, you can take a rest at the arcade to play some games and pop open some gachapon pods (who doesn't love doing that?), maybe have a coffee at the café, or treat yourself to a fine meal at the bistro.
If you want to change up your look, you're a bit limited. I found that the available clothes and cosmetics were limited to what was on the character creation screen. Whether new items become available in different seasons, or once relationship levels with the owner of the clothing store improve, or even in the full release of the game, is something I'll need to see - but for now, it's just the basic options. So no bright red hair for me, unfortunately.
Something that sadly did not gel with me was the build mode - specifically, resizing and restructuring the house. You can freely open the menu and put your items down where you please, as well as build your house from different components, as long as you have enough wood and stone. Placing objects and equipment is fine, and even painting walls and floors, but resizing walls or placing roof pieces? No thanks.
It's similar to The Sims 4 and the recent Tales of the Shire's decorative modes, which, for me, aren't fun on a handheld or controller. It really needs a mouse and keyboard to be precise, but even then is really fiddly. Moving a wall and then trying to snap it back into place shouldn't be as annoying as it is. Also, I wish it said which objects overlapped, as I extended a wall into thin air, but apparently, there was something in the way. What it was, I couldn't say, so I ended up basically demolishing and completely rebuilding a rectangular room with a roof instead of keeping the fancier roof and wooden trims.
As I said, this is an early access version of the game, and while it looks delightful with miniature cows roaming and anime characters wandering around, it does feel early. Load times could definitely be better, as it takes a couple of minutes to open up (and took around two hours to download), and some NPCs floated sideways or popped in occasionally. There are some grammatical errors or words that aren't translated, too. That said, it didn't really harm the experience too much, if you're like me and just love pottering around planting and harvesting items.
Starsand Island is just adorable. It has really sweet designs for the characters, furniture, and animals - heck, even the menus have a capybara on them and round, welcoming aesthetics. When I say this game has the cutest cows in any farm-related game I've played - I mean it. They're tiny. They have little horns and blushing cheeks. I nearly cried.
By the third week, I had four chickens, eight rabbits, three miniature cows, and a lot of crops on the go. Plenty of machines littered my yard, and I was slowly but surely making friends with the locals by giving them my hard-earned farm produce. I may have only scratched the surface, and I look forward to seeing what each season brings.
If I were to liken it to anything, it would be a mix of Coral Island and Story of Seasons, with an almost Hoyoverse-like art style to the characters and scenery. A demo is live now for Steam Next Fest, and I do recommend you play it to see how it feels for yourself. I'm going to continue playing to experience any and all updates - and to test it out on the Nintendo Switch 2 nearer release, too.