February 2024 Dev Update

Welcome to the first Coral Island development update of 2024!

Here’s part 1 of the 2-part series on what’s coming in the 1.1 update. Today, we're talking about new stuff on land. Next time, we'll dive into ocean content. 

State of Coral Island

Since 1.0 launch, we've been closely monitoring all the feedback from our community. Whether it's discussions on Discord, streams, Reddit posts, social media, or the Steam forums, we're grateful to everyone who's shared their thoughts and supported us.

We're committed to fully realizing the vision that we've had for Coral Island from the very beginning, and to making it the best game that we possibly can. There are a number of improvements and features, like the Town Rank S questline, the Merfolk storyline, and much more that we are excited to bring to the game with future updates.

Updated Roadmap

Today, we'd like to share a look at our current development roadmap with you. The future of the game is looking incredibly exciting!

Game Infographic

Since our initial Kickstarter, Coral Island has grown significantly. With the 1.0 launch, we brought you a world with 130 hand-drawn NPCs and over 600,000 words, among numerous other content and features. This game has been a true labor of love by our dedicated developers. Now, with the 1.1 update, we've added even more cool stuff, giving you new things to see and do.

Town Rank S

Become the ultimate farmer by reaching Town Rank S, a new end-game goal that expands and completes existing storylines. Yeah, hitting Rank A is pretty cool, but why stop there? If you're looking for more challenges and achievements, go for Rank S! We've added Town Rank S for anyone who's up for an extra layer of accomplishment. It's there for the taking if you want to push your farming skills to the max!

New Town Rank Category: Attractions

Attractions is a new Town Rank category that becomes available after you've reached Town Rank A. You'll help the town build new attractions that will benefit townies and attract visitors.

Here's a sneak peek at a couple of the attractions:

[Everyone needs a Decent Gym.]

[Also, everyone needs access to great ramen!]

Museum Rank S

To get to Rank S in the museum, your task is to bring dinosaurs back to life, sort of. You'll be making animated projections that make these ancient creatures look like they're alive again. So, how are you going to make that happen? Well, you’ll just have to play and see for yourself! Huehuheu.

[RAWRRR!]

Heritage Rank S

Embark on an epic quest to recover fragments of the Guardian's Mural and unlock the full story of the island's rich history and heritage.

[The Guardian’s Mural]

[The mysterious Guardians!]

Tourists now visit the town

Roll out the welcome mat for tourists visiting the island weekly, (looking at you too, Tourist Backers! Welcome to Coral Island!) offering new opportunities for exploration, interaction, and adventure.

Meet the Tourist Backers! They’ll be visiting Coral Island two seasons each year, wearing their own unique seasonal outfits. Plus, you can even chat with them! And just the heads up, before anyone asks: nope, you can’t romance these tourists.

[You’ll find tourists visiting different parts of town.]

Giants Story Finale Sneek Peek

[I wonder which way you ought to go...]

New Mechanic: Hangouts

For the 1.1 update, you can invite your favorite dateable NPCs to hang out and earn friendship points by inviting them to ramen, enjoy a fishing date, or have a movie night, among other fun activities. And that's not all – we're looking to grow this feature in future updates to include more than just the dateable NPCs. So, tell us, which townies are you most excited to hang out with?

[You can invite eligible NPC to hangout twice a week.]

[Choose from a variety of hangout spots. Unlock more spots through progression.]

[Getting up close and personal - here's a snapshot of me and Alice on our museum date. Alone, no more!]

New Ranch Animals: Buffalo and Ostrich!

Meet the Buffalo and Ostrich, two exciting additions to your farm. You'll be able to acquire these unique farm animals at the Savannah.

[How are you getting out of the coop door?]

[Look at those ears!]

New Outfits and Decor

We’re adding even more outfits and decor options! New look, who dis.

[Looking good.]

[Oh yes, we did!]

Other updates (SPOILER ALERT)

There's loads more to share, but let's not make this blog a novel. Here’s a quick sneak peek:

[Besides the bald hair option (which some of you really dig, so it stays), we've added two more hair choices for hat-wearers.]

[Wildlife will begin repopulating the island as you heal the land and ocean.]

[Say goodbye to those Pufferfish stalls at festivals, Karen's not running them anymore. Phew!]

Localization Update

Our vision for Coral Island has always been to make it accessible to players worldwide. However, at the 1.0 launch, we weren't able to include as many languages as we hoped. When we launched our Kickstarter, we unfortunately underestimated the sheer volume of words the game would have by 1.0, and the localization costs are significant. We're now re-evaluating our roadmap.

The next language we are going to implement will be Thai, and we're beginning work on that this month. Going forward, we plan to expand localization support in the future where possible.

Happy Chinese New Year

Whats next

Next April, we'll be diving into the ocean-related content of the 1.1 update. It’s a deep dive, so brace yourself for an ocean of info! A bit of an ocean pun for you.

Thanks for reading,

Stairway Team