Let's play Dinkum! — [pt.2]

about 2 years ago

Just over a week ago, I started a new playthrough of the early access game Dinkum.

Dinkum is an "Animal Crossing"-esque life sim that I've written about before HERE and HERE. It may be in early access but it actually feels like a polished game and from what little I've experienced of it I am really enamoured with it.

In my last post we met my character — funnily enough, she is named "Kaelci" — and we followed her as she left the grey cities and arrived in colourful Astana. The land of her dreams.

I'm not feeling overly story-telly today, but I wanted to share my progress in this latest playthrough of this wonderful game. 🙂 SO! In a basic fashion:

After awakening after the glory of her first day in this new land, Kaelci met with Fletch and discovered that someone had followed them to this place.

His name was John, and apparently he was an ex-crossdresser and wanted to give Kaelci his old dresses. She had no money to buy it though so she declined his offer.

John had a lot of tools for sale, which he wouldn't sell unless she had the appropriate licences. Luckily she was able to procure a couple of these so-called "licences" from Fletch.

Kaelci was utterly exhausted just a couple of hours later. Who'da thought that chopping down trees took so much energy? Who'da thought that becoming exhausted would drain the colour from this otherwise vibrant world?

Unfamiliar with the food sources in this strange place, Kaelci found some bananas and proceeded to cook them. Then ate them, peel and all.

Soon she had enough energy to continue running around the islands and finding nifty things. She picked more fruit, captured more bugs, and found a few seashells all of which she sold to John.

She didn't sell the bananas though. Nope. Those things were delicious so she planted a few around the tents and hoped that they would procure more bananas for her to eat.

The next day, Fletch had a cunning plan. She wanted Kaelci to convince John to stay on in Astana and be their shopkeeper forevermore. That sounded good. Where else would Kaelci be able to sell all this stuff for money? MONEY!

She cleared an area for a more permanent residence, an act which took most of the day.

Then, as she was cooking more fruit to eat, she stumbled into the fire! Ablaze, she had to race to the water's edge and douse herself. It was a good thing she had decided to set up this base camp in an area surrounded by water.

In the days that followed, Kaelci learnt the horrors of the cassowaries as they chased her and pecked at her and slowed down the gathering of resources required to start building up New Astana, the city.

But she soon had enough to finalise a new permanent shop for John and to start paving some roads, despite the damage of those evil birds.

Those aforementioned evil birds inspired Kaelci to learn how to hunt and so she crafted a spear with which she could use to protect herself whilst she was out and about.

A bush turkey got in her way and she jabbed it a few times. It dropped some feathers and a delicious looking drumstick. Oh yes, this was great indeed. Some meat to go with her fruit!

It wasn't long before she spied one of those evil cassowaries and hurried over to it with her new spear. It would learn the taste of pain just the same as that which it had wrought upon her!

She stabbed it and jabbed it and next thing she knew the great bird exploded in a shower of GIANT drumsticks.

After a long day, these giant drumsticks were a very, very welcome indulgence. This food would energise her for days to come!

John thanked Kaelci for dealing with the evil cassowaries by giving her a hat. While she would've preferred some money, the hat was a welcome addition to her attire and protected her scalp from becoming even more sunburnt than it already was.

Outfitted with her snazzy new hat, she decided to start up a fruit tree farm. John seemed to buy a lot of fruit to sell at a markup back in the cold, grey cities, so this fruit tree farm would be a profitable venture for the both of them.

Now, if only they could convince yet another person to move over to this colourful place who would also give her money for things.

Grinning, she asked Fletch to send word to the mainland for more interested shopkeepers. There was a killing to be made over here in Astana, surely they'd want to be a part of it.