There’s more than one way to save the islands.
In Island Keeper, your goal is simple: clean up the archipelago and stop an environmental disaster. But how do you do it? That’s entirely up to you.
Explore, collect, build, automate, and experiment with different systems to find your own way of restoring the islands.
The game offers a variety of tools and systems so you can restore the islands your way. You might focus on exploring, try out different mechanics, set up your own resource networks, or just look for ways to make things easier. Automation is a big part of this freedom. Special stations let you hand off repetitive tasks to robots and drones, so they can collect trash, transport, and process resources for you. This way, you spend less time running between locations and more time exploring and making decisions.
The Robo-Assistant Station is a key part of the automation system.
After you build it, the station gives you a robot that picks up nearby trash and brings it back. When its battery gets low, it goes back to recharge on its own before continuing.
You don’t have to watch over it or give it every task. Just set up the station and let your assistant work while you explore somewhere else on the island.
There’s no limit to how many stations you can build.
If you have enough resources, you can build several stations and let a whole team of robots handle the cleanup.
The Air Drone Station is probably my favorite new system. I added it recently, and it could really change how you manage resources.
Let me explain the problem it solves.
Imagine you have several Robo-Assistant Stations constantly collecting trash. At the same time, you're exploring another part of the island and collecting resources yourself.
Sooner or later, you have to stop, go back to an outpost, unload your items, process them, and then head back to keep exploring.
This method works, but doing it again and again can get pretty tedious.
So, why not let automation handle it?
The Air Drone Station gives you a delivery drone that can follow a set of tasks you choose.
You choose what the drone picks up, where it gets it, and where it delivers it.
For example, you could set up a simple chain like this:
Pick up trash from your station.
Pick up trash from the Robo-Assistant Station.
Deliver it to the outpost.
Store treasures in the storage.
Send the remaining trash for recycling.
You don’t have to keep running back and forth or move every resource by hand. The drone follows your instructions while you focus on other tasks.
The system works with many commands and stations, so you have lots of options for building your own logistics networks.
You can keep things simple or set up more complex chains as your island gets bigger.
Build your chains, experiment with different setups, and create your own automation empire.
Automation isn't only about trash and transportation.
We've also expanded the crafting system with new types of resources. They can roughly be divided into two categories: underwater resources and ores.
I covered underwater resources in the last devlog about the underwater world. Now, let’s look more closely at ores.
Caves now contain deposits of new resources that can be extracted almost indefinitely using the Drill Station.
With this station, you can get quartz, rare minerals, and sulfur, which opens up new crafting and progression options.
And, of course, the Air Drone Station can work with the Drill Station too.
This means you can automate moving resources from your mining sites too, so resources are always being extracted, moved, stored, and processed with little effort from you.
Island Keeper has been in development for more than two years, and the project is now gradually approaching its final stage.
During this time, the game has grown a lot and needed many different skills, from programming and technical work to game design and creating gameplay mechanics.
At this point, I have a pretty clear picture of what still stands between Island Keeper and release.
Improve the AI and add more realistic behavior for NPCs and animals.
Implement story questlines and characters.
Finish polishing the main map and underwater world.
Add smaller mechanics and quality-of-life features.
Global testing, optimization, and bug fixing.
The next devlog will probably focus on AI. There are a lot of interesting things to share about it.
Thank you for following the development of Island Keeper, leaving comments, and sharing your feedback.
Your feedback really helps me make better decisions, improve the game, and get the project closer to release.
With love, Artyom