Coral Island

All other video games not related to the main farming series - Pokemon, Stardew Valley, My Time at Portia, and other indie-developed games.
Velvet
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Kikki wrote: Nov 11, 2022 2:13 am While I also find the guys unattractive (too samey...largely black-haired, brown-eyed, and scruffy)...it's not Western. It's Indonesian. The same was true with Portia; they managed to do some very cute girls but even the prettier guys, like Gust and Arlo, were still rather goofy looking. (Portia is made by Pathea, which is based in China.) I think it's just plain easier to make girls attractive, while what makes guys attractive is more subtle and easier to screw up. It's an equal problem worldwide, as far as I can tell, particularly when a game has only one character designer, or if all designers are male. It was a problem long before Stardew and will continue to be a problem unless character design comes from balanced sources, imo. Otome games are the same, though their imbalance is in the opposite direction. They're designed for women, and the character designers are usually women as well, and they make FANTASTIC looking men...for women's tastes. Which is fine in an otoge, but not good for an RPG where you also have to appeal to a bunch of guys, who often complain if the male characters are 'too pretty', like Link in Twilight Princess...and he wasn't even all that pretty.

Should add here though that Pathea really upped their game for Sandrock. Fang is gorgeous, and several others are looking quite decent, too.
I'm very late in replying to this, haha. But what you said is so true, and it's exactly why I prefer to play games made in Japan, China, and other Eastern countries rather than the West. They usually have really great male characters (not only in otome, it's true for any game), often with long hair, too, and their male players historically have no issue with the concept of male beauty. It's really dumb how in the West men are culturally proud of being as ugly as possible and think that ugliness is 'manly'. (And then they wonder why we (women) are so picky and it takes a lot to make us consider going to bed with them... because sexual attraction is visual, after all)

But isn't Indonesia in the East? I could swear. I guess this is why Gust has long hair, which would never be the case in a Western game, and Aadit is rather attractive, too, which I feel would never be the case in a Western game. So I guess these two designs betray their historical cultural habits.

What I'll never understand about Portia is that 'flower boy', I can't recall his name, the one who's always talking about make-up and stuff. Why is HE so ugly? I swear that they've made him to be as ugly as possible on purpose. It cannot be a coincidence. But in the game he's presented as the one who fusses over about his appearance the most. So maybe it gives away the fact that game designers despise men like that. That's the only idea I have for why they ridiculed his character with such a design. I felt really bad while playing for that reason, it's just horrible how much they've ridiculed the character who wanted to be beautiful by making him the ugliest, despite his best efforts I presume. I don't understand how that can be funny, it's too poignant of a cultural issue to make a joke of. It's like ridiculing women or gays.

Then again, the fact that the company is Indonesian doesn't mean that only Indonesians work in it. That might explain a few things.
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Kikki
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Indonesia is in Southeast Asia. I was pointing out that making unattractive guys isn't really a West/East thing. They make plenty of unattractive guys in the East as well, and I used Portia and Coral Island as an example of two Eastern-made games that have guys that look way more unattractive to me than the girls in their game do. I was (and still am) disagreeing with the whole 'the west makes ugly guys and the east makes good-looking ones' idea. I think the East has plenty of trouble making good fellas, too. The one genre I can think of that always has at least a couple guys in it that are absolutely beautiful is JRPGs, but I'm not really sure why there are always a couple of male beauties in JRPGs. I haven't noticed much difference when it comes to farming sims in whether east or west makes the best-looking male candidates.

We already know who the character designer for Coral Island is, and he is, indeed, Indonesian. (His name is David Ardinaryas Lojaya.) This idea that 'Eastern devs do good-looking guys and the Western ones do ugly ones' just isn't one I agree with, and Portia and Coral Island are examples, to me, that Eastern devs also deal with the fact that it's easier to make cute girls than handsome guys. Stardew Valley actually has attractive guys, in theory, it's just that Eric Barone did the game entirely himself and isn't necessarily a good artist just because he's a good game dev, so they can't be presented in their best light, at least as far as I'm concerned, which is why that game is so much better with mods. He gave a good variety, though, in looks and personalities.

There are so few Western-made farming sims already in existence that it's really rather hard to get up a good sample. All of the ones I know of that are upcoming in the next year or two...most of them are Western-made, and they have some pretty great male options, though I maintain that it is simply easier to design cute gals than handsome guys.

I personally think the key is to get more women in as character designers, or perhaps to at least not have ALL characters designed entirely by one person...have a team of artists on that task. All the games I know of that are upcoming and have at least a couple options I think are really good-looking are made by female designers. Otoge character designers are frequently women, as well.
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Kikki wrote: Dec 05, 2022 3:31 am I personally think the key is to get more women in as character designers, or perhaps to at least not have ALL characters designed entirely by one person...have a team of artists on that task.
Then there's a problem of Western men complaining that men in games are too pretty. It's good that we have more female designers these days, but men are still complaining, and game devs often try to cater to them.

I get where you're coming from, but I've played many Eastern games, and as a rule men are quite attractive in them. Not necessarily to my taste at all, but attractive. It's a cultural thing: in the East, e.g. Japan, literature was created and written predominantly by women for centuries, and they've imported some of their 'female gaze' into the culture this way. In the West, writers have been historically male, women weren't considered fit for writing literature until much later. So there are real cultural differences, it's not just some kind of prejudice. But I agree that even Eastern devs can make Western-looking men: sometimes it's just bad art, sometimes they're influenced by Western games or want to sell to men in the West.

My fiance has a beard and long hair (down to his waist), and people stare at him in the streets (likely in shock). He is a mathematician and likes to bake cakes. Completely straight, too. That's the type of men I like in video games, too: men who're free in expressing their true selves, both in appearance and hobbies, rather than trying to be another short-haired unkempt guy who chugs beer and watches football to be manly.
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I think lots of guys watch football because they actually like it. :) (I've also heard that many legitimately enjoy beer whether manly or not, although having tasted beer with my very own tongue, I cannot imagine this to be true.)

The problem with really UNIQUE characters is that their attractiveness is often limited to a more select group who happens to like that type of uniqueness. The more unique they are, the smaller their fanbase tends to be. I'd love to see a game that had largely really unique characters AND somehow managed to make them appealing to a reasonably broad number of people. (Not necessarily as broad a group as the bland pretty boys that simply have nothing about them to object to, though.) Otoges often manage to make even characters I'm not personally into still look good, but then, otoges are designed for girls and women, so I guess that's not a surprise, and not really comparable, since most new farm sims now are supposed to be equally for everyone, regardless of gender or orientation, and preferably also for any race/ethnicity/nationality, too. That's probably a lot to ask. I can't complain too much if Coral Island just turns out not to be for me, because they're at least trying something that has a different cultural feel than what we've gotten so far.

Coral Island's guys don't look very unique to me, in that they all look very samey with each other. Now, they DO look unique if you take any one of them out of the game and plunk them into Trio of Towns. But lump them all together and they're just scruffy, strangely hairy (what's with belly hair and armpit bushes and the single straggly hair poking out of the merman's chin? I don't want to see that! I can't deal with any extra body hair on women OR men. That's my thing, though. But does anyone find bushy armpits attractive? I don't really get it.) and they look like a refreshingly not-Caucasian-dominant yet still too samey group of Disnified fellas.

But maybe their personalities are so staggeringly different that they don't feel all that samey in-game. That's not something I know. For my tastes, the one named Theo looks okay, though I'd like to see his hair loose, since it appears to be long, and that's my preference. Wakuu might also be okay (again, based on looks only, as I have nothing else to go by.) Fortunately, really great personalities that show through daily dialogue can win you over even if the looks don't sweep you off your feet. I don't know anything about their personalities. I'd love if the character designs appealed to me, but that they don't won't mean I won't buy this...if the gameplay is shown to be great and the landscape art is pretty, I'll probably still want it. But I'll definitely be waiting for the game to be fully developed before I decide.

I'm glad the game has a different cultural appeal, anyway, so that's why I have to just shrug and accept that it's okay if this roster of guys isn't for me. I would really like if most games used multiple designers, though. Even just two...one man and one woman, and split both the male and female characters between them so they're doing some of each...I think that'd work out with the best balance for me. But that's probably asking a lot in terms of the budget of an indie or smaller dev team.
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Kikki wrote: Dec 05, 2022 12:46 pm The problem with really UNIQUE characters is that their attractiveness is often limited to a more select group who happens to like that type of uniqueness. The more unique they are, the smaller their fanbase tends to be.
Right now I'm replying RF4, a popular game as we all know, and the characters are unique. None of them represents a trope of masculinity or another trope, and there are enough details to them like their hobbies. Although Dylas I'm not sure about, but even he doesn't feel like a trope later on, despite his fishing hobby (makes sense story-wise) and despite being an obligatory tsundere. 2 of the bachelors have long-ish hair, and to be honest some of them look really weird, what's with the ears and the tails. If these characters were not unique, they'd be off-putting indeed, just shallow tropes, like in otome games. This is the reason I dropped otome games, really. At first it was a novelty, but I couldn't find any good ones with characters that weren't one-dimensional anime tropes. Except one, that is, but I'd never seen another one like that. Imho the otome genre's issue with shallow tropes instead of good characters is exactly what happens when you create characters with a goal to appeal to the broadest audience. Fans wouldn't tolerate such characters in HM or RF, funny enough farming sims have higher standards of dating than actual dating games :P
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I'm afraid I can't reply to this here, as this is a Coral Island thread, and we were still talking about Coral Island mostly, but now there's 0% of it in there, lol. I don't want to derail the thread from its intended discussion, and my reply wouldn't concern anything that is actually in Coral Island itself.
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I finally dived in and got Steam. I've bought 2 games: My Time at Sandrock, which I 'm struggling a bit with as it only partially supports a controller and Coral Island.

My first download of CI crashed 5 times so I deleted it and re- downloaded it. Knock wood, it's running pretty well. I have a Galaxy Pro Book 360. I'm really enjoying the game, lags and all. The different personalities you interact with are interesting.

Does anyone know how to separate items when you put them in the bin to sell, like I want to sell 5 out of 10 turnips? I've pushed every button but nothing works.
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K8sMum wrote: Dec 31, 2022 3:58 pm Does anyone know how to separate items when you put them in the bin to sell, like I want to sell 5 out of 10 turnips? I've pushed every button but nothing works.
If it didn't change the last time I played, it was supposed to be the left click with the mouse but I can't remember the button for the controller layout though. I'll check it out once I get back to my PC.

Edit: Found it. You need to push the X button to Transfer 1 and hold it for faster transfer of items.
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Can anyone share a source with pictures of hairstyle and clothing options for the MC? I totally understand if this is not doable yet due to the game still being in early access. I’m just so curious!
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Coral Island is launching next month!! This was such a surprise to me; I really didn’t expect it to come out this early.
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JustABeautifulGuy wrote: Oct 17, 2023 9:32 amCoral Island is launching next month!! This was such a surprise to me; I really didn’t expect it to come out this early.
November 9, hmm? I don't have time for it! Not then. So won't be getting this one on release, anyway. I'll no doubt still be playing Sandrock. Tales of Arise DLC expansion is coming out on November 9, too. Coral Island is one I'm interested in, but not enough to jump on it first day anyway. Besides, I don't use any of those consoles. At best, I could get it on Steam Deck, but I don't think I want to.

Nice that they've hit 1.0, though. But I'm betting this is just like a lot of other early access type games that hit 1.0. It's probably not actually done, and I don't want to play until it's really DONE.

EDIT: Yeah, checked out their info page and there is a HUGE list of basic features that won't be in the 1.0 release and are just slotted for '2024'. (The merfolk storyline and dating the merfolk and all the merfolk stuff won't be in the 1.0, for example.) No thanks! I'll have another look when it's genuinely complete.
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Kikki wrote: Dec 05, 2022 12:46 pm
Coral Island's guys don't look very unique to me, in that they all look very samey with each other. Now, they DO look unique if you take any one of them out of the game and plunk them into Trio of Towns. But lump them all together and they're just scruffy, strangely hairy (what's with belly hair and armpit bushes and the single straggly hair poking out of the merman's chin? I don't want to see that! I can't deal with any extra body hair on women OR men. That's my thing, though. But does anyone find bushy armpits attractive? I don't really get it.) and they look like a refreshingly not-Caucasian-dominant yet still too samey group of Disnified fellas.
I don't know that having body hair present in a character design is meant to be attractive necessarily (although there are definitely people out there who appreciate it), so much as it's more realistic than the hairless wonders we see in so many video games/anime series (and I appreciate that idea of beauty as well, don't get me wrong).

Just don't go to the beach in summer in Coral Island - you'll really get an eyefull lol.
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Guest wrote: Oct 17, 2023 3:32 pmI don't know that having body hair present in a character design is meant to be attractive necessarily (although there are definitely people out there who appreciate it), so much as it's more realistic than the hairless wonders we see in so many video games/anime series (and I appreciate that idea of beauty as well, don't get me wrong).

Just don't go to the beach in summer in Coral Island - you'll really get an eyefull lol.
Personally, I doubt that it's about realism. EVERY male candidate except Wakuu has facial hair (not just the brown guys but the beige guys, too, and even the merman, so presumably different cultures are being represented) and that's not realistic at all. Way more men are clean-shaven than sporting goatees or beards or mustaches, at least where I live. So having something like 93%...13 of 14, if I counted right...of the male candidate characters have facial hair seems like it's just the artist's preferences. (He looks like several of his designs, imo, so it seems like it's just his style. Unfortunately for me, his style and mine don't match up at all.)

Though it was a lost cause for me anyway. He modern-Disneyfied all the designs and I hate male character design in Disney movies. (Coral Island reminds me very much of El Dorado.) He said himself that Disney was one of his inspirations, though I can't remember what the other one was, now, but I recognized that broad-faced Disney look right away. Female designs in Disney are nice but I never like the male ones, and the same is holding true for Coral Island. Meh, you like what you like and there's not a lot you can do about it. (Well, in real life you can, since circumstance and personality take over, there, but not for video games, ime.)

As per my most recent post, I may not end up getting Coral Island at all. It's not just about character looks, though; it's more that the whole game is not really standing out to me, and I have so many other games to play, plus I lowered my budget, so only most-desired games end up being purchased by me, these days. Something about it would have to be really special (in a way that appeals to me) before I'd commit to buying it. Plus I plan to wait until it's on Switch (or Switch 2, perhaps) for long enough to have gotten reviews that tell me how it functions, there.

Seems like it'll be a successful game without my support anyway, even if I don't end up getting hooked by it. :) I haven't heard how good the story is, mind you. I haven't heard anything about the story, for some reason. Perhaps it was only just added with the fall update, or even the 1.0 update? Seems like the latest blog entry was saying something like that but I'm not sure if I understood it correctly.
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I've heard that the plot and dialogue are both lacking. I haven't played the game yet, so I can't comment much, but it would make sense for the dialogue to be poor... given that there are about 30 marriage candidates and a lot of villagers to begin with. There are simply too many of them for them to flesh out individually. But I'd love to be proven wrong.

This game might be a great hit; I can see it appealing to the majority of the SDV crowd. The game has an easy-to-digest westernized Disney-esque style to it, and it's in 3D with good graphics. In a sense, it feels like SDV's true successor. I would be sad if this game doesn't go big.
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JustABeautifulGuy wrote: Oct 17, 2023 5:31 pm I've heard that the plot and dialogue are both lacking. I haven't played the game yet, so I can't comment much, but it would make sense for the dialogue to be poor... given that there are about 30 marriage candidates and a lot of villagers to begin with. There are simply too many of them for them to flesh out individually. But I'd love to be proven wrong.
I believe that's because all the dialogue and main story quests aren't even added yet. They're only being added with 1.0, as well as the final romance events and marriage. Ah yes, here it is:
Stairway Games wrote:Coral Island v1.0 features a questline to revitalize the town, introducing more content and exciting new features unavailable in the Early Access versions. Here is the list of things you’ll be able to do in this version of the game:

- Storyline to revitalize the town.
- In-depth interactions with NPCs, including heart events and dynamic dialogue.
- Marriage and the ability to start a family.
I cut the remainder of the list...there's more of it at their most recent Steam Community post announcing the 1.0, if you want to see it, but right there at the beginning of the list should be the reason why plot and dialogue were lacking...they hadn't been added to the game yet at all, afaik. (Maybe there was a little, before? I don't know, I haven't heard about that.)

So, so far there was no story and lackluster dialogue, but after 1.0, perhaps those things will be good. No one has gotten to play that content, yet.
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