Starsand Island Extended Demo: Overview and Key Thoughts

Did somebody say MORE Starsand Island goodies?

I certainly did, and a huge thanks goes out to Seed Lab and Renaissance PR for the opportunity to explore up to day 10 in game. In this demo, we pick up our game from where the previous five-day demo left us. Standing in our house, partially re-decorated with walls covered in stickers, but ultimately ready to take on day 6 for the first time!

During the Steam Next Fest demo, we explored character creation, began learning basic skills and professions which will aid us on our journey, visited the Moonlit Forest and gathered resources, and crafted our skateboard. From there we also unlocked a number of new recipes, the Workpedia app, attended the Splendid Wonderland Blue Tears Fantasy event and took in everything that Starsand Island had to offer.

You can read the full break down of my first five days in Starsand Island here.

What We Know About Starsand Island So Far

Starsand Island is the upcoming cosy life simulation game that’s set on a truly charming island. Leave the hustle and bustle of city life behind and swap it for days of farming, fishing, raising animals, getting to know the local residents and more!

The game is planned to release in early 2026 on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S. This one of a kind experience, with a gorgeous Japanese inspired art style, is one to certainly keep an eye on over the next few months in the run-up to its release!

However, that’s not all!

The Seed Labs team have also revealed recently that Starsand Island will also be launching on Nintendo Switch 2 at launch. This is excellent news for Nintendo Switch 2 owners looking to pick up a new cosy life simulation game in the new year.

Alongside the news of the game coming to Nintendo Switch 2, information was shared about the game’s mystical, ruins area. A place where players can experience third person combat while taking on various foes and utilizing a variety of weapons such as a slingshot and bow to domesticate the creatures. Not to mention, there are bosses and other challenges players will need to overcome on their journey while exploring this area! It’s also important to note that this can be done solo or by teaming up with friends to take on the cosy dangers that lay ahead.

Speaking of friends, you can also invite them to your island to help build their idyllic lives on the island. Harvest, fish, construct your dream home, become friends with the animals and enjoy every aspect of island life.

Lastly, it has also been revealed that there will be a number of advance features players can unlock to help them in their day-to-day island life. These include the addition of smart robots to help with automation of tasks, such as farming and harvesting. Additionally, players will be able to craft a hoverboard and even create custom-built greenhouses using the game’s DIY mode!

Starsand Island Journal: Demo Days Continued

As previously mentioned in my last Starsand Island demo post, I wanted to continue with this miniseries of the Starsand Island Journal with a new entry. Again, this is a fun way to document and share my own experiences with the games with my community and the internet in general.

So without further ado, let’s dive into the next five days of Starsand Island starting on Day Six!

Day Six: Rediscovering the Island

The first day, is always the hardest. In this instance, it’s been a little while since I last played so it was a task of re-familiarizing myself with the game’s controls and features. This was actually a lot easier that I thought, and I was instantly working on the last quest I had up. My task was to craft a slingshot. So, let’s get to work!

I also had a quick check of my character’s mobile phone, where I collected some of my Stars in Star Notes for completing various tasks, both daily and longer term ones.

I also checked my progress with the Workpedia app in game to see how I was progressing with the Crafter profession, and it seems I’m doing well for the time being! Anyway, that slingshot isn’t going to craft itself now, is it?

Next thing I knew, I had become an Apprentice Explorer and started to learn more about combat and how to work on my skills. Something that will be useful for when I take to the ruins at some point! In the meantime, I found myself taking on some smaller expeditions to practice these new skills.

Now, you’d think this would be easy and straight forward to do. Well, it is, however I soon discovered my Gathering knowledge was not high enough. This meant for the time being retreating and working on that momentarily. While my time in the Moonlit Forest was magical this time around, and it did allow me to harvest some more resources, a second trip back would be on the cards in the next day or so.

Day Seven: Gathering Knowledge

Day seven may have started off with a fair bit of rain, but a quick update of the wardrobe, and it was time to set off. There was a mission and it was time to get it done!

I did have one minor setback, which caused me to start over day seven again, however, this was unrelated to the game demo itself and rather my Discord crashing momentarily. Yes, I have now learnt my lesson, and it very much remained closed after this happened.

The first stop was the Moonlit Forest again. Just quickly to gather a couple of things and to see if we could complete our current quest without needing to try and level up the Gathering skill at this moment in time. Luckily, I was able to do this and now the rest of the day was free to continue progressing through this current quest line.

With the quest complete, it was time to claim some rewards from the Island Life app on the in game mobile phone. My next task was to craft five pieces of furniture, which, at the time, I needed just one more to complete this task before moving onto the next one. This being selling items in a shop to earn gold. Should be straightforward, right?

In fact, it was incredibly easy. I just went to the nearest shop, for me this was Zerine’s General Store, headed over to the tablet and started selling items in my inventory. Doing so would unlock the next task of becoming a Junior level in any profession of my choice.

As I was in the town centre of the island, I took the time to make my way around some of the stores. The town felt busier now compared to when I played the demo previously. It felt more lively and was nice to see so many more NPCs bring the world to life.

I ended up working on my Apprentice Rancher profession. Setting up a Rabbit Hutch and having my first animal to look after at my home. This ties in well with the Exploration profession too!

Now, I just need to level up the profession skill and work my way up to a Junior Level!

Day Eight: Progress is Progress!

For most of day eight, my plan was to spend my time gathering more resources from around the world and working on completing a few odd quests. I also planned on obtaining Junior level as an Animal Rancher! However, upon going to my mailbox, I discovered a mysterious letter. In turn, this gave me a new quest to complete. I was curious, and my intrigue put all other plans on hold. All I can say is this letter mentioned great explorers and great ruins!

Well, it was not quite what I thought it would be at this time, but still a fun and quick side quest to complete. It did however lead me onto another bit of the Explorer’s profession, which I’ll save for later.

Now, I went back to working on becoming a Junior Rancher. I talked with Pastelle at the ranch and, she gave me some helpful advice and direction as to what I needed to do next.

The next thing I knew, I went from having one rabbit hutch and one rabbit to two rabbit hutches and eight rabbits. It seemed like a good idea at the time, as I needed to acquire rabbit fluff for a quest with limited time remaining with this demo.

Meanwhile, as I was waiting for the correct number of pieces of fluff to collect, I made my way down towards the beach and the coast in general. There certainly were some new places to explore, which I don’t recall from being in the previous demo.

I did get somewhat carried away with exploring and ended up with a long swim back to the shore before resting at the end of the day.

Day Nine: Tying Up Loose Ends

One last full day before we reach the end of the demo. I started off the day collecting resources from around my home and finally got those last few pieces of fluff that I needed for a quest. Next mission, complete the Junior Animal Rancher quest.

With the end of the requirements for this profession quest in sight, I set to work. I also had a run in with an angry chicken called Rocky, who clearly didn’t like being pet.

However, on my path to becoming a Junior Rancher, Pastelle, who is the expert Animal Rancher on Starsand Island, threw me a curveball. I needed one of my rabbits to age up into an adult. While they said it was only one day until ageing up, I was running out of time with the demo.

Knowing I was taking a chance, I let the rabbits do their thing and wait for them to hopefully age up before the demo time ran out. In the meantime, I carried on with gathering more resources, visited the Moonlit Forest again and knocked out a few small side quests. Such as, returning lost items to characters.

I was also sporting a new Summery look, although it was still rather gloomy for Summer thanks to an earlier quest reward.

With that, my ninth day on Starsand Island was coming to an end.

Day Ten: The Final Day, For Now

Day ten came around quicker than I thought it would, however, knowing this would be my last full day for now had me reminiscing on the game experience so far.

While the rabbits did age up to adults, I had just one more task for the quest to complete to become a Junior Animal Rancher. Sadly, I didn’t have enough demo time remaining to complete this. However, I may have to revisit this again, when the game launches in full if save data carries over. If not, I know what I need to do next time around.

Although, with that being said, I wanted to make the most of one last day. I started by just taking my time, re-exploring the island one last time. I rented a Punk Llama to help me travel around the island, collected more resources than what I certainly need at the moment and talked to some more of the NPCs I bumped into.

I visited Chrono Arcade, spent too much in-game money on game tokens and Gachapon, the Starsand Lottery and just chilled for a little bit. Needless to say, I didn’t win much at all.

Then, I discoverd the Pet Haven next door where you can adopt a cat or a dog for 15,000 coins. This is adorable and something I’ll certainly be doing in the full game!

Finally, I headed up to the hot springs and just spent some time taking in everything that Starsand Island has to offer and has shown me so far!

Starsand Island Extended Demo: Overall Thoughts

Having five additional days to explore Starsand Island has been wonderful and so much fun!

There was so much that I discovered and rediscovered along the way that has me even more excited for the game’s full release early next year.

While it’s only been about six weeks since I explored the Steam Next Fest Demo, there’s certainly been a lot of improvements and additions to the game since. I know I still have so much more to learn and discover about the game too.

I truly can’t fault the Seed Lab team for the hard work the team are putting into the game to ensure it’s exactly what they want it to be. The regular updates on social media and YouTube give you an even better idea as to what to expect upon the games launch. The addition of the Nintendo Switch 2 edition of the game will open up the Starsand Island world to so many more players. I can see this being one of many must-play cosy life simulation games launching next year!

To find out more about Starsand Island, be sure to follow the game on Steam but also over on the game’s Kickstarter page!

That’s everything for now for Starsand Island and this extended time demo. I’ll be making sure to share more about the game in the run-up and once the game launches next year!

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Are you thinking of playing Starsand Island when it launches next year? Let me know in the comments below, or on social media. Additionally, why not check out the Steam demo which showcases the first five days of the game right now!