Stranded on a mysterious island, what should you do? In the Shorekeeper demo, there are many options to help you turn your campsite into a sanctuary.
The Backstory of Shorekeeper
The demo of Shorekeeper does not have much of a backstory; the developer has assured me the full game does. In the demo, I awoke on a mysterious island, having nothing but the clothes on my back. There was no explanation of how I got there, but I got right to work making this island my new home.
The Gameplay of Shorekeeper
The first thing I learned was how to chop wood, and it was super easy!! I didn’t even have to equip my tool; the right one was automatically chosen for me. I explored my island and learned that in addition to trees to cut down, there were also berries to pick, boulders to break into smaller rocks, and coconuts to harvest. I enjoyed all of those actions; they were easy and fun.
Shorekeeper is not a complicated game, and I appreciate that!! The tutorial walked me through the mechanics of the game as I needed them. As I mentioned before, the first thing I learned was how to chop wood. Then I learned many other small tasks such as building a campfire, making jam and repairing a bridge. Each task was presented as a quest, and I had to collect certain items in order to complete it. I thought it was a nice introduction to the mechanics of the game.
I had the ability to swim, but not for long, at least not at the beginning. I made the mistake of trying to swim too far and drowned! But it was not a big deal, I just ended up where I started. I’m pretty sure I didn’t lose any inventory or have any other consequences. I like that!
As I went about my various chores, I was rewarded with coins. I could spend those coins for various upgrades, such as walking faster, or having crops that mature quicker. Those are really nice upgrades, especially the crops maturing faster! My pumpkins went from seed to crop in just one day. The length of the day was also longer than in many sim games. I felt like I could really take my time and get a lot done in Shorekeeper.
My energy levels were very visible in Shorekeeper. When my energy got low, I could eat to restore some of it. If it were past 8 pm, I would just go to bed and wake up with full energy again. Also, when I woke up, the environment was restored. How cool is that?
The trees that I had cut down were back, the rocks I had broken up were large again, and the bushes were full of berries. That’s a great thing to keep in mind; it means, for example, I could cut down as many trees as I want to get wood for crafting, but I wouldn’t be creating a barren island. Nice!
The Look and Feel of Shorekeeper
The island I now call home was bright and colorful with interesting things to look at. There was a quiet soundtrack playing in the background, which fit the calm and peaceful gameplay. There were no timers or fast actions to perform; I was able to go about my tasks as I wanted.
There is also a large inventory area, as well as a hot bar and crafting mechanics. Shorekeeper is an open-world, 3D game with really nice graphics that are very cheerful and friendly. It has complexity, but it’s still not a difficult game to master. I’m really not very good at complicated games!
I learned that the demo currently offered on Steam is timed, and since I play really slowly (!!), I missed a lot of game features because the demo timed out before I reached them. Very soon, there will be an updated, expanded demo on Steam, with longer playtime and more content. I encourage you to try it; it should be live by the time this article is published. When I played, a mine was only mentioned briefly in the demo, but if you play at a normal speed, you will get inside the mine and also learn about fishing and light combat. The full game will also have “mysterious subworlds” which are mentioned in the Steam page, animal farming, lots of NPCs to interact with and more extensive trading than I saw in the demo. And some really cool news – crops will only have to be watered once! Love that!
There were a few Hiccups in Shorekeeper
When I played the demo, it had only been released 5 days prior. So there were a few hiccups, which were to be expected. I reached out to the dev on Discord and heard back very quickly. He understood the issues I was having and said he would definitely be fixing them. I’m always impressed with game devs who are very responsive to players. To me, it indicates that they are committed to developing an excellent game and want to make sure the players have the best possible experience with it. So Bravo to Gullfrazie, the game dev forShorekeeper.
He is a solo developer and is working on the game full-time. It’s his first PC game and he is doing it all, coding, design and marketing.
I will close with something he told me in a conversation we had. “My main goal with Shorekeeper was to answer this question: “why do survival games always have to be stressful?” I wanted to create a world where you can survive without the constant panic or fear of death. ”
I love that sentiment. I am very much looking forward to playing both the longer demo and the full game. I like what I’ve seen of the game so far and look forward to seeing a lot more. I have every expectation that the full release of Shorekeeper will be something really special.
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