Starsand Island

Was looking forward to the release, especially with the promise of multi-player to start over with friends and share a farm together. But the 1.0 release is pretty disappointing, and multi-player isn't truly multi-player. Dont buy this if you're going into it thinking it will play like Sunhaven or Stardew to share with your friends. The fact that there is no disclosure from the devs too is disappointing, but the 1.0 release didnt make it into a full game like a 1.0 release standardly should. Pretty much everything from Early Access, except a few "shiny" distractions, is what you have to expect. Very long grinds, janky bugs, poor audio balancing, and shallow story/npcs. I bought this game in early access hoping it would shape up into something fun to play at release, but tbh it's lackluster and not worth it. My friends and I spent tons of hours in the game already, and were super excited to be able to play this together at launch. Only to be severely let down today how the game "actually" functions compared to how it was advertised. If you dont care about all the warnings and just want to try it, then sure go right ahead. But your money is better spent towards *actual* indie studios putting out fully completed games for less than Starsand.

Grindy ass game and takes WAY too long to progress and make income. Crafting is godawful. Dating mechanic is stale and disappointing with characters that could be so interesting, but they're not. Final nail in the coffin? AI. They never disclosed anything about using AI in ANY FORM and had I known that I wouldn't have wasted my time. A shame I can't get a refund, but I will not be playing something that uses AI. I beg, don't give these scum your money.

On one hand this a beautiful game with cute characters (who actually look to be legal age on the marriables!!) On the other they have so much into design they wrecked the pacing and there is literally no Story. I get it's a casual game but having no purpose makes it get repetitive quick. So many options but it's all window dressing and no heart. I places 34 hrs about a month and a half game time and have done everything there is to do quest wise easily. A little storyline would help with that

It's an okay game. BUT I have played a few Cozy games so far from sun haven to coral island. From old classics to new additions to the genre and i must say (sadly so) that this game has no soul, no love in the development, DLCs, gameplay und Charakterdesigns. It's all so shallow even if you don't think about the AI issue and the fake recommendations from bots. If you want to play a wholesome, sweet and adorable game there are a huge amount of better options (e.g. stardew valley, Fields of Mistrial, Coral island, Chef RPG, sun haven etc. are just a few options)

К релизу вполне могли бы добавить новые локализации — тем более что спрос на них очевиден, а инструментарий для перевода, чуть ли не автоматизирован. Лично я не против даже официального машинного перевода. Но факт остаётся фактом: русский язык — третий по популярности в Steam. Для игры давно существуют любительские русификаторы. И вот наступает официальный релиз — а локализации как не было, так и нет. Печально.

feels like multiplayer was gated behind so much ingame progress only to make player unable to refund if they didn't like it,

Small Edit: I recommend reading other not recommend reviews as well. This game is a mess from the developer side from undisclosed use of ai, strange date collection. this its NOT a indie studio despite their claims, to still unfulfilled kickstarter things for the backers such as keys for being a backer and more. I wish I could be more positive on this and my opinions will most likely not change once it is out of early access and especially not to a point for me to ever recommend this. I have many, many complaints for this game in the long run but I'm just going to hit upon the 5-6 of biggest overall ones that started to kill the game for me after 5-7 hours in and have only gotten worse with more time. All the ncps, especially the dateable ones, feel hallow and super shallow, especially once you get to their fourth heart or get done with their quest. Constantly repeating the same line of dialogue over and over again. The guest characters from the "My Time At" games feels the most hallow and you can removed them and I wouldn't even noticed. Actually I would love them to be removed so the one that is almost impossible to speak to cause she sits in her house all day, that until your rate three with her you can't enter, to finish her request would no longer exist and stop driving me nuts. I want my money lady. The grind gets bad and fast. Farming sims can get grindy yes, but that's normally late to end game when they get really bad it feels like a wall but by then you normally feel like you've done something or have a attachment to the characters and world around you. Here though it feels a quarte of the way in, if even that far, and you hit that grind wall with nothing but doing request to past the time. With the stated above it feels even worse. There's hardly any events and I am so board trying to craw my way to finishing the next task for a crumb of development of the characters around me. All the goals I have left feel like long term ones that I should be able to do along side side quest and other shorter main quest or small events here and there. Not just a bunch on nothing which is what is there in place of those things. Also the farming is honestly such a small part of this I kind of hesitate to call this a farming sim. It's there, sure but your almost always in this games version of the mines more then doing any farming, even when doing the farming quest it's almost always back to the mines. The island is pretty to look at but most of it you have no reason to go to and is just empty of any npc life with maybe a chest here and there. Even the tourist don't show up to most of these places. This has gotten slightly better then in the past for a few spots but it's still the majority truth. The aquarium is ugly and so empty. That's not me referring to having to catch and fill the tank, that's the fact it's just one big tank that is one large wall in big empty room with just rock wall and nothing else. It's a aquarium where are the tourist/visitors? How about some benches? Plants? A fish statue or two? ANYTHING?! The aquarium isn't the only place with this problem but it's the most glaring one as its a place you do have to go to a lot for quest, to buy things, or for ranking up with a character cause it's where he almost always it. I did not know generative ai is/was being used during the development and feel lied to for having bought this and dlcs without that knowledge. As for me at lest, that does have big impact on if I buy a game or not and being uninformed about feels awful. Unless the full release does something major about many of my complaints for this game, I will never be able to recommend it. It's pretty but to shallow and way to hallow on may levels. I also really don't like being uninformed of use of ai.

给没入坑的玩家一个忠告，虽然这游戏还挂着抢先体验的标签，实际上核心玩法框架早就定死了，后续顶多是在现有基础上打打补丁加些边角料内容，毕竟版本号都已经是1.0开头了，绝不可能有翻盘空间。 对于这游戏，我的评价是远远不如星x波x沙x等同类型作品，哪怕经常被人诟病半成品的沙x都不如，沙x起码主线做的有灵魂，这游戏就是个究极缝合怪（集美+海量堆素材+堆肝度）的史作。XSJ上黑名单吧，真白瞎了这么好的人物场景建模。 我到现在都好奇制作组到底有没有亲自玩过自己做的游戏，这一堆明晃晃的问题难道他们心里一点B数没有？ 1. 但凡上手玩两小时就能感觉到，游戏里的NPC交互、人物动作、物品制作还有挖矿、种植、养殖、钓鱼这几个核心玩法系统，全给人一种说不出的别扭诡异感，每步操作都有一种不顺畅让人烦躁的感觉。各种重复没用的套路话术翻来覆去地出现，能互动的内容少得可怜，交互动画能阉割就阉割，镜头拉进后人物都是带点糊的。。。 2. 游戏难度的设计更是离谱，根本不是正常的随进度的线性递减，而是直接呈滑铁卢式的。前期初始工具很快就能换成更好的，这点倒还无伤大雅，但从中期开始就死命倒逼玩家反复折腾去造机器人搞自动化（比如我都没用过这么难使的电钻电锯，挖掘范围小得可怜还不如直接不做）。 3. 这游戏优化很差，差到什么程度，我用推荐设置（默认参数中等），自己的 游戏本4050都跑不满，就算把画质调到最高也没区别。1. 而且天气系统做得敷衍到离谱，雨天的雨幕稀疏得几乎看不见，跟普通阴天没差，晴天的光影也几乎没有。。。很难想象这是2026年的游戏。 4. 没主线剧情没什么挑战任务，人物故事还没玩到但已经玩不下去了，哪怕你联动波西亚和沙石镇的4个人气NPC你这一坨也摆脱不了空洞和乏味的基调。号称休闲你休闲在哪里？我TM还不如去刷视频都好过在里面别扭钓鱼别扭种田对着你一堆奇怪互动操作的贴图模型要轻松的多。 5. 游戏里塞满了毫无用处的垃圾废物物品，之前提到的波西亚、沙石镇这些作品里虽然也有冗余道具，但绝对没像这作做得这么离谱——不管是普通物品、剧情道具、图纸材料、工具还是装饰摆件，从来没见过这么不管玩家体验、硬往游戏里堆海量无用道具来破坏游玩节奏的操作。就说载具系统吧，里面的电动车、摩托还有汽车做出来完全等于摆设，上下车的动画慢得要死，稍微碰个障碍物就直接熄火抛锚；前期有滑轮和牧场用免费载具券就能换的鸵鸟，中期有巴士、马匹还有飞行滑板，后期直接解锁全地图传送点，谁还会去开这些慢得要死的载具？车上还特意做了速度表，结果跑起来连我脚踩飞行滑板的速度都比不上，真的给我整无语了。 6. 建筑系统的自由度把控得完全走偏了，最基础的便利功能都没做：像生产设备、围栏还有大型家具这类物件，本来就该设置成占用固定方格的判定，尤其是各种养殖屋，就该预设好固定的占地格数方便玩家快速批量布置，你一个主打种田经营的游戏，这些最基本的便利操作都懒得做，真不知道是恶心自玩家还是故意来恶心自己。 上面我只是列了几个最显眼的大问题，真玩过的人都知道这游戏里各种奇奇怪怪的bug满天飞。制作组完全是拿做抽卡二游的思路来做单机模拟经营，从根上就烂透了。要是真的喜欢模拟经营类游戏的玩家，不如去试试别的新品，千万别在这上面浪费钱和时间。

As of right now, I do not recommend Starsand Island. It's bland, there's barely any story or NPC content and progression is a mess. The visuals are very striking and pretty, but that's about it. Most things you do feels like a chore, but the building is alright. If you're looking for the depth games like Stardew Valley and Fields of Mistria has, you won't find it here. They put all their effort into making sure the game looks amazing, but the actual gameplay and content is a bit lackluster for now. Some updates to introduce more stories, events and depth for the world and characters would be nice.