Revision 3

Overview

The building system in Starsand Island has drawn comparisons to The Sims, and that comparison is earned. You do not just place furniture in a pre-built house. You redesign walls, change room sizes, swap roofs and windows, modify terrain, and build across multiple property types. Seed Sparkle Lab built a custom engine from scratch specifically to support this system.

Three camera modes

Building uses three different camera perspectives depending on what you are doing:

• Free-view -- Overhead camera for planning layouts and placing structures. Best for large-scale design work.

• Character perspective -- Third-person view from your character's position. Useful for checking how things look from ground level.

• Local view -- Close-up view for fine-tuning placement of individual items and decorations.

Switching between modes is seamless. You can plan a room layout in free-view, drop to character perspective to check the sightlines, then switch to local view to adjust furniture positions.

Property types

Homestead subplots

You can own up to nine homestead subplots spread across three different environments:

• Blue Beach -- Coastal plots with ocean views and beach access.

• Cloudrest Lake -- Lakeside plots surrounded by trees and rolling hills.

• Windflute Island -- Elevated island plots with open sky and wind.

Each environment has a different feel, and you can build different styles in each. The nine subplots mean you do not have to cram everything onto one property.

Houseboat

A boat you can live on. The developers call it a flagship feature. It unlocks through the main questline. You customize it the same way as a house: walls, floors, furniture, the works.

Private island

An offshore island you can eventually own and develop. Accessible by boat.

How building works

The DIY building mode gives you full control over structure:

• Move, add, and remove walls

• Change room sizes and shapes

• Swap windows, doors, and roofing

• Eight texture types: wood grain, brick, stone, plaster, metal, tile, concrete, and glass

• Customize colors and patterns on nearly every surface

• Place objects anywhere within your property zone

• Build block-by-block or use prefab buildings

There are over 300 furniture pieces and hundreds of decorative items. Serena's furniture shop is the main source, though you can also craft items yourself.

Terrain modification

Beyond buildings, you can reshape the land itself:

• Create hills and elevated areas

• Dig waterways and moats

• Build cascading terrace gardens

• Add ivy and flora decorations to structures

Your farm does not have to be flat fields. You can create a terraced hillside farm with a moat around your house if that is what you want.

Ocean Park

One of the Kickstarter $100K base goal features. You can build water slides and waterpark attractions on your property. Once built, you ride them in first person. Preview coverage compared this to Planet Coaster 2's ride-building. It is a side activity, not a core progression system, but it is one of the more unexpected features in the game.

Blueprints Library

A Kickstarter $250K stretch goal that was reached. The Blueprints Library lets you save your building designs and share them with other players via ID codes. This means you can download someone else's house layout and build it on your own property. The system is planned for the full release.

Photos as decoration

The Camera App on your phone lets you take photos that can be printed and hung on walls as decorations. You can photograph your farm, animals, the island scenery, or anything else and turn it into wall art.