Came across this one today and it looks really interesting.

First look

Early game play

It's all very interesting!!! I am guessing that the neighbors left because living next to a convicted felon (Ingrid) is not good for the value of their property????  That would also explain the excessive police presence!!!

Fortunately the police, although plentiful, have kept their distance. Red, there's no Ingrid in this game, it's my third Islander family which consists solely of Ian. So she's not around to be a bad influence on the game world. 

I finally was able to play a game of chess. I tried several times over a few days but my Zoi and his selected opponent never actually sat down to play. I suspect there may have been too much confusion with other Zois barging in to discuss the weather or whatever. Interrupts the flow of the interaction.

Ian did not play his best game. He was a little distracted by his opponent's attire.

After the game I had Ian search around to find his first rock collection spots. Managed to dig up some copper and other stuff, and most importantly, to finally start advancing his Collecting skill.

Current plan is to stay in Bliss Bay until he gets his second career promotion at the end of the week, then head for Cahaya. I'm assuming his career is placed on hold while he's on vacation, but we'll see how it works out.

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Saw this on Reddit and thought it was cute:

 That is cute!

Super cute!!!! 

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So Ian Islander is off to Cahaya -- warm breezes, tropical beaches, exploring sunny jungles searching for treasure!

Nope. When Ian arrives it's raining. Hard. I dunno if the devs planned it this way but the weather really doesn't give a very good first impression of an island getaway. Made a few small changes to the starter home I chose. Cleaned up the layout. Looked outside, still pouring. Did some yoga meditation, cooked an early lunch. Peer through the windows, nope, still pouring. Sigh.

Got tired of being cooped up, put on the raincoat and wandered around some of the nearby streets. There are a lot of motorcycles on the roads. Like, a gang of them holding up traffic. I think the driver in the car is honking his horn.

 

Ian went further into town to try to meet some locals. The problems with chatting and jumping up and down and switching seats is even worse here, I think because there are a lot more street-side benches. Here's Ian's most recent attempt:

• Ian spots another YA down the block a bit and calls out to greet her.
• She stops and turns. Ian is nowhere to be seen. No, he's way back along the street sitting on a bench, apparently insisting that she should come to him even though he was the one who initiated the meeting.
• She eventually walks over, but sits on the other bench so there's that other Zoi in between them. We're yelling back and forth through this innocent bystander.
• After one topic, she jumps up and sits down beside Ian. Now that's better -- but only for the next topic.
• Then she jumps up again and sits in Ian's lap. Like, literally IN his lap.

She stayed there for the rest of the conversation. It was kinda uncomfortable but Ian persevered.

Hopefully tomorrow will bring better weather so Ian can enjoy exploring the resort island. And hopefully the motorcycle gangs won't be out terrorizing the neighbourhood.

That girl was something!!!! From being too far away to being on top of Ian!!!! Too much!!! 

Looks like she wanted his raincoat. 

That was it!!!! Good catch, Rose! 

  She's more clever than I thought!

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It's been raining consistently for the last couple of game days. Initially today was no different -- until it turned into a deluge. My Zoi hurried home but what he found was not encouraging:

Yikes. This isn't going to be good for the wooden furniture. When the storm eventually abated and the flood waters retreated there didn't seem to be very much damage, just one rug that needed cleaning. Mind you, I didn't risk using any electrical equipment like the TV or computer while standing in 15 cm of water.   My Zoi did catch a cold, I guess while running through the deluge to get home.

This house is a copy of the one I built for Bliss Bay but I had already been thinking about building an elevated house just to provide better views of the ocean. The extra height could be useful during nasty storms.

That's a lot of water. 

Sometimes reality in a simulation is not necessarily a good thing!

I agree with you, @FzzyDg8

Wow!!! That is too much for a "relaxing getaway" in Cahaya!!!

Too bad I didn't think of it at the time, but I should have had Ian do pushups on the yoga mat during the flood. 

One <splash> two <splash> three <splash> 

That is crazy! I do like that they have added some realism to the game with actual consequences. 

3 hours ago, Klinn said:

One <splash> two <splash> three <splash>

This visual literally made me laugh, I scared my kitties

Would Ian be taking a drink with each push up? 

Whether he wanted to or not, Red.  

By some miracle it was sunny today in Cahaya. Ian took the water taxi over to the Resort Island with the intent of exploring what's over there. But after walking along the beach for a little while he was distracted by a cute young woman and spent most of the day chatting with her.

I find both islands are just the right size to be walkable. I'm going to get Ian a scooter soon anyway, but it's quite pleasant to just wander on foot through various detailed streets on the main island and along the beach over on the resort island. Found some sea turtles sunning themselves on the sand.

In reality, flood water is absolutely vile and you would definitely NOT want to drink it.  And anything that got wet, is ruined.

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Hee-hee, when the devs mentioned that not all translations are complete, they weren't kidding. Even though the English translation is one of the better ones, not only do a few Korean button labels remain, but there are some, ahh, intriguing attempts at translation.

In the option selections below we've got the correct "Snorkeling" plus "Snowkling" and "Snow Cling", a couple of phonetic translations that don't quite work. 

 

Speaking about snorkeling/snowking/snow cling, I was expecting to be able to explore a bit while underwater to discover stuff. I'm not talking about a Subnautica-grade diving experience, but at least moving back and forth, clicking on objects, etc. To the best I've found, nope, you tell your Zoi to dive straight down or to dive and swim in a rough circle and then they head back up. Collecting a special fish or coral or other item is just a random number generator completely unrelated to anything your Zoi did. Better rented snorkeling equipment = better RNG odds. Frankly, rather underwhelming.

A lot of this DLC seems to be about collecting. Types of fish or minerals/gems or crops or tools. And of course there's the "family collection" book you're supposed to fill out as you find things. But isn't any way to store these collectables properly. There are display tables & fish tanks but they're limited and some of them take up a huge amount of space. The only thing left is your Zoi's "bag" or inventory and that's limited to 100 items. Multiples of the same thing, like minerals, sometimes stack graphically but still count individually against your inventory limit.

Going over that limit apparently causes negative effects to your Zoi. There's a cheat code for ignoring those effects which I predict will be very popular. For a DLC focused on collecting stuff, there needs to be better item storage / management options.

I played the new DLC for about an hour or so last week, and I feel very underwhelmed at the swimming feature in general that was added.  Unless it was user error, the only way for my Zoi to swim consistently is if I told them to walk into the water, hold down shift key & click all over the ocean.  As soon as I stopped clicking, my Zoi would just sit there in the water, then eventually just walk out of it.  Very disappointing compared to our sims swimming features.

 

When swimming in the ocean (not just the pools) I switched to the shoulder view with the Tab key, which lets you control your Zoi with WASD for movement and the mouse right button to control the direction the Zoi is looking and moving. It's more like a 3rd person viewpoint game with the camera behind the Zoi. I'm frequently using the same scheme to walk around and explore the town.

Then when I'm the Zoi's home or another area with various activities, I hit Tab again to switch back to the traditional life-sim control method of clicking on the floor where you want them to go etc.

BTW, I found that the swimming skill takes forever to go up. To get my Zoi up to at least level one before venturing into the ocean I had him doing laps at the resort pool. 

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There's a Treasure Hunt every Wednesday at the Resort. My Zoi paid his 30 Resort Coins to sign up (yes, there's yet another type of currency in the game) and went off searching for treasure. Located a dozen regular treasure chests which looked like just wooden boxes and contained one gold bar each. There were two special treasure chests which looked more like the typical pirate version and contained a special reward, in this case a box of gummy bears.

You can turn in the gold bars at the resort, and 10 bars gives you 30 Resort Coins -- which was exactly what you paid to enter the treasure hunt in the first place.  Hmmm, doesn't seem like the best investment of time. Despite promises, the gummy bears were not a special treat or anything either. Oh well.

Next morning my Zoi got up early to do some fishing. Unfortunately the seagulls were up early too. Shoo shoo!

 

My Zoi's garden is coming along nicely. There are some plant varieties not available back in Bliss Bay like the mango tree in the foreground and the banana tree in the background. Yes, there are some weeds he really should clean up.

 

When crops are ready for harvesting they get little sparkles which make for an interesting nighttime shot. Radioactive super veggies! 

 

I guess you could say my Zoi has a head for horticulture (groan) .

 

The treasure hunt sounds like a scam. 

It surely does!!!!

That head of your Zoi's!!! Quite leafy!!

 If it weren't for the fact that EA/Maxis has laid claim to this name, I'd be tempted to nickname him Spruce.  

This game has done a lot of evolving. I love it.

Further info about the infamous Resort Treasure Hunt. The game adds a ticket to your Zoi's inventory to indicate that they can participate in the hunt. But at the end of the day, they don't remove it. Sure enough, the next Wednesday you can do the hunt again without paying. Score!  Just to keep it interesting, the locations of the various treasure chests change from one week to another. Too bad, I was going to draw up a map showing where I found them the first time through.

Meanwhile, my main Zoi decided to visit the Spa and soak in some green herbal soup. Hmm, those leaves look kinda like a plant which many use for its "herbal" benefits.

 

Ian is wondering why they installed a window in the sauna. Not that he's shy or anything, but …

 

 Hmh. Well. Sometimes it's like, less is more, but not all the time. Like right up to the point before The Mandalorian took off his helmet. That series was AMAZING. And then, Pedro Pascal emerged from under that glorious helmet and he's not been off screen since then. Not the prettiest picture in my opinion. The illusion was forever broken.

Here as well, I must say that Ian needs quite the workout to make his gluteus minimum into what they are supposed to be. That is, MAXIMUS. Or at least, observable, considerable, noticeable, appreciable. Until such a day-unless his penis is actually remarkable, which we may never know in InZoi, I'd not worry about any window peeping Tom or Tina.

 

It's the lighting.

Too subdued to highlight Ian's superb cheekiness. 

Uhuh.

*goes back to check Ian's inglorious behind*

*zooms in shamelessly*

Nah. Accept it, @Klinn. Ian's butt is pitiful.

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With a heavy sigh, Ian gets his butt to bed:

I never imagined this thread would turn into a debate about butts.  

Why would you think it would not?? 

 

 You see?!?!

When he tightens his gluteus minimum to lean down to get on the bed, it looks slightly better!!!! There might yet be hope for your Ian, @Klinn!!!!

I wasn't sure where to post this so I decided here was good enough. 

If you have Discord, they have quests that pop up now and then. Right now the one that I am completing is for this game. I don't know if you can choose what quests to do on Discord or not. I might find out and come back with more information. But ANYWAY!  Complete the quest and win a swimsuit! You only have to "play" for 15 minutes with Discord open. This also includes just sitting idle like I am doing right now. I had to update the game and then it optimized. That took about 8 minutes alone. So I will let you know!

ETA:

Yes, you can look through discord to find that quest. On the left side of the discord app, there is a "button" that looks like a compass. Click that and then click "quests". It should be in there. Claiming the suit is pretty easy as well.

Thank yuo, @Kimi!!!

Thanks Kimi! I don't use Discord but it's good to know what's out there. Presumably your Zoi will want to take advantage of the new spiffy swimsuit while frolicking in Cahaya. 🏊‍♀️

HAs Ian had a chance to actually frolic in Cahaya? 

Earlier on he did a bit of frolicking because I was chasing that Ambition to reach Charm level 10 (no problem) and to have 5 True Love companions. But something is screwed up with the latter. Looking at the list of relationships, Ian has 4 at the True Love stage. But the game sometimes says it's only 3 and sometimes only 2. So I doubt it will ever trigger the way it's supposed to.

Besides, Ian is now hiding his inadequate posterior under the covers in bed. 

Well, now. That won't do! 

You tell your otherwise handsome Ian to move his inadequate behind off that bed and get to the gym, or better yet, go swimming in Cahaya. 

It is known that swimming can help develop the gluteus maximums into what it should be. 

  I'm so disappointed that our male Zoi's were pretty much left "behind" in being able to have true "grab me" a**es, unlike the females.  Yes they've tweaked it some from beginning, however the guys still get the short end of the stick

I'm feeling grumpy tonight. Here's why:

1. There's a fireworks show typically at 8:00pm near the Resort beach. A show you can't actually see since you can't look up far enough into the sky. If you're far away on the opposite side of the map you might be able to get a glimpse of a bit of it but if you're anywhere closer, you're out of luck. Dumb.
2. You can rearrange the UI to some extent but your preferred layout is only used for that game. Start a new game and it's back to the default arrangement. Obviously if you take the time to figure out a configuration that's better for you, you want to use it for ALL your games not just one! Very dumb.
3. Many of the more valuable minerals can only be mined while your Zoi is feeling "concentrated". But the game never tells you this. It's only if you happen to get one by sheer fluke and look at it's description in the collection book, then you might notice the restriction. Without that unlikely sequence of events, you'll have no clue why your Zoi's mining isn't working. Seriously dumb.
4. Let's say your Zoi has reached the top level 10 of the fishing skill. He's crafted the most valuable fishing rod in the game. He's stocked up on bait for fishing. Despite all that, your Zoi will fail at fishing 40% to 60% of the time! They end up flat on their butt, then stumble to get up and stand around for a while shaking their head. Presumably wondering how the devs could code something so ridiculously dumb. 

I mean, it's bad enough that your highly-skilled and equipped Zoi fails the majority of the time, but then you have to sit through the overly long animation of the Zoi failing. Each bloody time. Dumb dumb dumb.

 

 That all seems pretty frustrating.