Ikonei Island: An Earthlock Journey instantly stood out with its eye-catching announcement trailer, and its fascinating mixture of thriller, exploration, and crafting, so we reached out to developer Snowcastle Video games to seek out out extra.
We chatted to Snowcastle Video games’ lead artist Fredrik Dahl, who was type sufficient to reply all our questions on upcoming journey crafting sport Ikonei Island: An Earthlock Journey!
What’s Ikonei Island: An Earthlock Journey?
Ikonei Island: An Earthlock Journey is an journey crafting sport set on a magical island, which mixes collectively parts of exploration, constructing, and crafting, whereas additionally tasking you to befriend the island’s creatures. It’s in improvement from and printed by Snowcastle Video games.
When does Ikonei Island: An Earthlock Journey launch?
We don’t but have an Xbox launch date for Ikonei Island, which first arrives in Early Entry for Steam, however the devs at present plan for the total launch to happen in 2023. We’ll maintain you posted!
What’s it about?
“Ikonei Island is a sport about rebuilding a abandoned island and making a life for your self, and to your mates,” Dahl begins. “The primary characters are down on their luck children in a port metropolis attempting to eke out a residing enjoying music on the road when a mixture of alternative, dastardly hog-pirates and a sure boy in a frog go well with (however don’t inform him it’s a go well with) finds them and needs them to have an journey.” Together with that greater than intriguing premise, we’re informed, “The Amri is one thing that may be very a lot an undercurrent within the universe we’re creating in our video games right here at Snowcastle. I suppose it may be greatest described as our most potent pure pressure. It’s naturally benign, serving to vegetation and animals get bizarre skills. Whether it is exploited, nevertheless, it could additionally trigger fairly an quantity of chaos.” That is what’s gone flawed on Ikonei Island: in accordance with the sport’s Steam web page, “an overabundance of magical amri is corrupting the flora, turning vegetation into harmful monsters,” whereas “pirates are capturing and buying and selling wildlife for revenue.” We’re thrust into the midst of this chaos, to attempt to restore order and steadiness to the island.
What’s the gameplay like?
We’ll be saved busy throughout our journey on Ikonei Island: exploring, gathering sources, crafting, constructing workshops, combating pirates and releasing trapped creatures, taking good care of our farm, and constructing our house. “There are additionally some enjoyable little puzzles to determine,” Dahl provides. “I’d additionally say that after you rescue the creatures they’re glad to assist out too! They could know a factor or two the children don’t — each serving to you to new locations and pay money for stuff you would have a tough time getting by yourself.” It appears we’re not completely alone on Ikonei Island, both: “With out spoiling an excessive amount of,” Dahl says, “I can reveal that it’s not solely pirates round. There is perhaps another folks round that may fill in some blanks, and probably be of some use each in rebuilding and making the island house.”
So, we all know pirates characteristic fairly closely on the island, and that we’ll must face them to free the creatures they’ve captured, nevertheless it appears they’re not the one menace. “The hogbunny pirates are maybe not the perfect pirates on the market (they do strive although), and after they bought grasping and tried extracting amri out of the bottom issues may’ve gotten just a little out of hand,” Dahl says. “So they’re definitely not the one menace, and I’d wager they’re actually not the largest both, regardless of how robust they view themselves as.”
We’ll even have our personal base, that we’ll must construct up from its ruins, and we puzzled whether or not this base may also increase to incorporate the island’s locals. “Yeah, you’ll get to know the locals and a few people who are also discovering themselves on Ikonei Island. Some very fascinating ruins present an excellent base for constructing a roof over your head,” Dahl explains. “As soon as folks get previous the primary hurdle of getting a spot to remain, they’re inclined to wish to do what they’re good at. I’d positively say you is perhaps properly off lending them a hand or two.”
We’ll be armed with instruments for farming, crafting, useful resource gathering, and constructing, nevertheless it appears we gained’t simply need to depend on these. “Properly, you may craft your method out of a variety of conditions when you’re intelligent after all,” Dahl says, “however the animals have been there a very long time and positively have a trick or two up their…fur? One instance could be that one thing that has a set of horns, or an axe beak, may for certain be an efficient assist once you’re attempting to get by means of a rock, or there’s a very large tree stump in your method. We’ve seen faculties of fish within the rivers and lakes across the island too,” Dahl provides, “and I’m wondering if there is perhaps a four-legged good friend that might assist out with issues like that too… they’re a diverse bunch and I feel there’s rather a lot they’d show themselves helpful for.”
What’s the world like?
“Ikonei has grow to be a reasonably sizable place as we’ve been constructing this sport,” Dahl says. “When the gamers first arrive, it’s perhaps not the perfect place to dwell. It’s very wet and drab, there’s a variety of stuff that wants clearing out and the slimes and different monsters do not make it any simpler. However I feel all of the fascinating stuff you’ll discover whereas exploring, and battling the monsters will make it price it!”
We’re informed that Ikonei Island was inhabited by an historic folks often called the Onurasi, however that “they’ve been dormant for an excellent whereas. However frogs and magical forces are nonetheless round and will help get in contact with them.”
Ikonei Island is a mysterious place, and sees a variety of range between its areas. “As you get into the sport, you’ll span the whole lot from lush inexperienced areas by means of deserts, swamps and to the chilly aspect of the island the place the solar is hidden behind a mountain ridge,” Dahl says. “We’ve tried our greatest to create a richly diverse place for the gamers to discover and expertise! There may even be a couple of secrets and techniques to be discovered within the nooks and crannies round our little world.”
Any information on the Ikonei Island: An Earthlock Journey achievements?
We don’t but have the Ikonei Island: An Earthlock Journey achievements, however Dahl gave us a couple of hints on what to anticipate! “We would like an excellent mixture of issues which are very concrete objectives for the participant (story progress for instance), and issues that can reward the participant for perhaps considering a bit outdoors the field,” Dahl explains. “Our sport is fairly numerous and we’ve discovered multiple method to make use of our gameplay mechanics in-house, so we’re attempting to leverage that as properly. We’ve tried to make one thing the place the gamers are allowed inventive freedom and we’re hoping that our achievements can reward and mirror that.”
Ikonei Island: An Earthlock Journey seems to be packed stuffed with secrets and techniques and mysteries — out of the whole lot the sport presents, what’s Dahl most excited for gamers to expertise? “There’s a LOT of stuff I’m very excited to see folks check out and do in our sport. As a completely biased and subjective reply; as lead artist I can’t look ahead to folks to see all of the stuff we’ve made and put collectively for everybody to see,” Dahl begins. “I feel we’ve made a handsome sport, because of my beautiful artwork crew who retains knocking it out of the park, and that’s positively a giant one for me. It’ll even be tremendous enjoyable to see how folks will use the issues we’ve made for them to craft and enhance with too! I’m optimistic our gamers will do issues we’ve by no means considered! I’m into the fight in our sport too, even at this early stage of it. Throughout early entry, it’ll be very thrilling to get suggestions from everybody about what they like and work to increase these techniques collectively.”
What do you assume? Will you be diving into the magic and thriller of Ikonei Island when it launches for Xbox One? Tell us within the feedback!
