After a bumpy start, Stardew Valley challenger Starsand Island is wasting little time giving you mods and multiplayer

After a rather unusual first 48 hours, in which its developer had to request people to stop positively review bombing the game (yes, really), Starsand Island has revealed what it’s planning to fix, improve, and add following its early access launch. While it builds on the typical Stardew Valley life game formula with features like skateboarding and third-person combat encounters against mystical creatures, developer Seed Sparkle Lab knows there are a few areas where it’s lacking against rivals. Its new roadmap, which runs up until the summer, aims to plug those gaps.

As I write this on Friday, February 13, two days after its early access launch, Starsand Island has just hit a new all-time concurrent peak on Steam of over 10,000 players. All seems swell, then, right? That sounds like a successful launch for a self-published life sim to me.

However, Seed Sparkle Lab has had a couple of unusual fires to put out. As I mentioned, it’s had to discourage people from spamming positive reviews – “to whoever may be behind this, please stop,” the studio said earlier in the week. “Please let us focus on making our game in peace. We pose no threat to anyone.” Usually it’s hastily written, unreasonably negative reviews that developers have to deal with, not positive ones.

Seed Sparkle also had to rewrite its End User License Agreement due to wording that made it sound like it was adding microtransactions and outlawing modding. For a relaxing, calming, chilled game, that’s certainly a stressful start to life for its developer.

However, it plans to instill some calm and stability with the release of a short but important roadmap, outlining what it’s focusing on for the game’s first few months in early access.

March is, admittedly, a little light – it’ll focus on adding more items and customization options that you can buy with your in-game currency.

However, in April, things ramp up. Sparkle Seed Lab says it will “expand NPC voice content and improve existing voice performances,” which is encouraging to see as the lack of actual voice acting has been a main grumble among players. A dating system for romanceable NPCs will also be added.

In May, it’ll start rolling out mod support and “provide basic creator tools.” Following that scare with the EULA, it’s encouraging to see how swiftly it wants to get the Starsand Island modding community up and running. Sharing through Steam Workshop will also be enabled.

Finally, June introduces potentially the biggest addition of the lot: multiplayer support. You’ll be able to visit friends’ islands and generally play the game co-operatively, so while one of you is off fishing, the other can be harvesting some veggies.

It’s great to see some of the core pillars of the best games like Stardew Valley being implemented so quickly. While I appreciate that early access is for gradually building up features and testing them with your community, it was strange to see some of the things Starsand Island did have at launch versus the major features (like multiplayer) it didn’t. Still, in just a few months, we’ll have a much richer experience, and visits to other players’ worlds will finally be a reality.