The Farming System in Starsand Island is the Quirkiest Thing I Have Ever Seen in a Farming Sim
Makes you wonder if you just want to let those big crops stay there.
Starsand Island has a cute farming system that lets you plant and grow about as many plants as you can manage. However, there’s one quirky mechanic that really surprised me – their Gmax plants.
As you progress through the farming mentorship, you’ll learn more farming mechanics and eventually learn how to make Gmax harvests. Gmax is exactly what it sounds like – a freakish crop mutation similar to Pokémon’s Gigantamax, making it an absurdly large plant.
The Gmax is a rare mutation that can only spawn when you plant crops in a 3×3 plot. When the Gmax triggers, it’ll turn into one large crop that you’ll have to harvest with your hatchet. While it does combine nine crops into one, you still get value and exclusive freebies like tokens.
At first, it felt weird having this randomness, especially when making farm plots that may have several 3×3 grids in them. There’s also the nuisance of these Gmax mutations triggering and losing your tilled plots, and you have to till the soil again. Since energy is hard to manage early, it takes a lot of energy to till the soil again. However, you get used to it fast – mostly because of how easy it is to make money when you put a little effort into making everything efficient.
When you start getting a bigger and bigger farm, sprinklers will do their thing anyway. Things will get easier and easier, giving you more and more freedom to improve relationships, discover secrets, complete your collection, explore the forest, fight bosses, and design your dream island.
The farming mechanics feel like the game really respects your time and lets you focus on customization, which is one of the game’s main selling points – its DIY revolution. Starsand Island feels relaxing from the get-go and unleashes your creativity like you have the whole island as your canvas.
I still wish the Gmax mechanic were more thought out, as there are a lot of nuisances involved, as mentioned before. Even weeds that randomly grow on your crops that stall their growth may cause some crops not to all grow at the same time, giving you fewer chances to get a Gmax harvest. Rabbits help you manage these weeds, but not as efficient when you have an extremely massive farm already.
The game is in early access, and I love how Starsand Island explores ideas that you have never seen before in your typical farming sim. There are tons of new features planned for the game, and if you aren’t sold on the game yet, it’s definitely worth a look in the near future. These gigantic mutations were a big shocker, but I’m all for it!
