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Moonstone Island is a new cozy life-sim game that features a creature-collecting twist, and it manages to pack a lot of content to explore into a little Indie game. Developed by Studio Supersoft and published by Raw Fury, the game offers players well over 40 hours of relaxing gameplay that can continue even after the story has finished. It includes all the farming, crafting, decorating, and romancing of NPCs that are commonly thought of with a cozy sim, but blends it all with flying, magic, exploration, card-based combat, and creature-collecting.
Moonstone Island was a featured title at the Wholesome Direct 2023 and covers one year in the life of a young Alchemy student. After finding her home base for the year, she embarks on an adventure that leads her flying across floating islands in the sky using vehicles such as a balloon, broom, or glider, in search of materials and new Spirit creatures. Players get to slowly figure out what things are needed to be able to see some of the more hostile islands that might be filled with electricity or lava and require her Alchemy skills and upgraded tools to get past.
The Story Of Moonstone Island
The story begins with the main character in Moonstone Island following her village's tradition of leaving home for one year to live out an adventure, armed with a flying broom and a Medallion that works similarly to a Pokéball from Pokémon to house a favored Spirit friend. She is given an area of land where she can set up her home and from there on it is up to the player to decide how to make it their own. Farming is essential to get necessary ingredients and materials, but so are other skills like foraging and mining.
Taming Spirit creatures to then use in battles is how the little Alchemist protects herself from harm and is able to get through dangerous Temples and hazardous obstacles. NPCs on the main island offer up many quests for gathering resources and more, but perhaps the most adorable of requests are ones for the player to find certain Spirits for the villagers to have as their own companions. After the correct Spirit has been gifted to the NPC, from then on the Spirit is seen by their side whenever strolling through the village.
Moonstone Island's Creature Collecting With Deckbuilding Combat
Combat in Moonstone Island instantly becomes a turn-based deckbuilding game using the Spirits that are in the main character's Medallion to fight against wild and vicious Spirits from the open world. When not in combat, players can swap out or upgrade the cards that each Spirit brings to fights. Similar to traditional tabletop card games, Spirits have specific natures that dictate what types of damage they do, such as water, poison, or fire. Even if the team happens to go up against Spirits of a much higher level, death is not permanent in Moonstone Island. Rather, a mysterious friend gathers the Alchemist and her Spirit creatures, and she will awaken the next morning safe and sound with all the Spirits revived and at full health.
Dungeons, Crafting, Romance, And Spirit Collecting - All In One Year
Despite Moonstone Island having 100 islands to explore, dates to go on with romanceable NPCs, thousands of craftable decorating items, and rewarding quests and goals to complete, the game only covers the one year that the little Alchemist is away from home. Moonstone Island ends on the last day of that year, although players can continue to play their game in sandbox mode after that. This can be frustrating as some of the quests are limited to certain seasons, such as collecting types of seasonal flowers from the surrounding islands, which is very difficult to complete in the Spring while still trying to get the basics set up. Also, the NPCs are romanceable, but they are not quite ready to fall at the character's feet and can take some real effort to get their hearts full.
Overall, Moonstone Island is a wonderful blend of deckbuilding, creature collecting, and traditional cozy life-sim. It is a game that makes it easy to lose track of time as players may be left feeling like they could do just one more day before logging out. The quickness of the passage of time, and the fact that the main story ends after one year is disappointing, but only because there is so much engaging content that Moonstone Island gives players to do that it feels like there should be more time to do it all, and more story to go along with it.
Source: Wholesome Games/YouTube
Moonstone Island will be released for Steam on September 20, 2023, and is planned to be released on the Nintendo Switch at a future date. A digital download code of Moonstone Island was provided to Screen Rant for the purpose of this preview.