In a few days, I will be releasing v0.6. One of the new additions will be the game's first "island scenario"!

I wanted the game to give you choices on what to do. When I built this game during the game jam, I had no time to create NPCs and dialogs, so I added a simple randomized event that appears through the UI. Once in awhile, you'd see an event appear and you can click it and choose. Would you spend resources to save survivors, or sacrifice them to get extra food? 

It was rather crude, but it sold the idea. Not only can you choose to save them or not, but you can even pick what items to use. Now that I am developing this game further, I think this mechanic can be made more interesting!

I think islands in this game could perhaps do a lot of things.

1) Treasure, protected by pirates or wild animals (basic combat?)

2) Find unique resources to harvest (eg sand pile, you need a shovel) (eg tree, you need an axe)

3) Meet NPCs.

Here, I am exploring option #3.

On the first major island, you meet Alf. You can pick one of three things to build: Watchtower, Windmill, or a Plane.

The dialog choice will actually influence the world, such as stopping time (and thus, lengthening the peaceful duration). The game will become harder in the coming updates, and extra time will be invaluable. When time is stopped, the world changes colour - thus why you see it's very 'magical' looking above.

Visually, you will also see your watchtower or windmill or plane on that island after selecting that choice, which is pretty cool. The music will also change when time is stopped, changing the mood immediately.

In future, islands could be one way to gain settlers, or unique NPCs that have specific skills that buff your settlement or work well when you have a specific building for them. With the settler revamp coming up, settlers will become highly sought after.

One problem I foresee with dialog choices is it becomes very predictable what the choices do after the first three runs, and it loses excitement. Then it becomes repetitive once you know the best choice to take every run, and you'll never really change them.