Len's Island News

It's the end of March, which means another Community Wrap-Up!

In case you missed it, we released a big patch over the weekend, which included significant balancing changes and a performance boost. You can check out the patch notes here.

Now, to kick-start our March Community Wrap-Up, let's take a sneak peek at some new content coming to Len's Island 1.0...

[h2]It's (almost) Time for Slime! [/h2]
We've been working on some exciting new areas for you to explore in the caves at 1.0, including a new slime biome. These locations are filled with slime, a valuable new crafting resource collected by mining slime piles. Always keep on high alert in this biome, as you never know what enemies are lurking in the shadows.



[h2]The Lore of Len is Coming...[/h2]
Who is Len? Why did they end up on the island? And what's the deal with no shoes? We'll be answering these burning questions in 1.0! Len has always been a bit of a mystery, so we'll be giving more insight into the story behind Len's Island, and we wanted to share some new artwork that will be coming with the big update.

What's going on in this image? Let us know what you think in the comments.



[h2]We Hear You Love Chickens![/h2]
We held a vote on X to find out what 1.0 feature you're most excited about. We couldn't list everything new, and co-op multiplayer would be the obvious choice, so we asked you to choose from Chickens, Bows, Slime enemies, or the Final Boss.

To our surprise, you chose Chickens!

Get ready to capture, raise, and gather new resources from your very own chicken farm in Len's Island soon. You'll find chickens free-roaming around the islands, and you can place chicken coops around your home base to give them places to sleep and breed.



[h2]Creator Showcase[/h2]
As developers, it'll forever bring us joy watching the community play our game, Len's Island. We enjoyed seeing 20 Minute Gamer's past stream where they explored the islands, built their home, mastered farming, and saw some speedy tree growth!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]Delacroix's Epic Boss Fight[/h2]
We're always impressed by the screenshots found on the Len's Island Discord and Steam Community. Check out this image by Delacroix - they captured the perfect moment during a boss fight, throwing a special attack that almost looks like a force field. Talk about good timing!



[h2]Show me the Stuff![/h2]
As always, if you made something cool or saw something cool, we'd love to see! Tag us on X or share it on Discord.

Hey everyone!

I have a surprise patch for you all. No new content, but some significant balancing changes, and a significant performance boost :)

As we have been getting the 1.0 version ready, we have noticed the early-game balancing being a bit off. It was a little too grindy and difficult at the start, so I have introduced some of the balancing changes we are implementing for 1.0. These changes keep the core experience and mid-late game the same, but you'll find it a bit quicker and easier to get started in a new game.

The performance changes are pretty big. We've always had some fps dips around the towns and bigger islands. We were able to double fps for most players around the towns and large islands with this update, and overall boost fps by around 30% over the entire overworld. The performance savings will differ for everyone, but overall, your fps will now be consistently higher!

P.s. We will have some more info about 1.0 and multiplayer to share in the coming weeks, so stay tuned!

~ Julian

[h2]~ Balancing Changes[/h2]

• Increased default hotbar slots to 6, removed some of the hotbar skills from the skilltree
  
• Halved resource cost for all basic building pieces
  
• Reduced resource cost for bed, workbench, and campfire
  
• Lowered blue berry sell price and doubled the blue berries dropped from bushes
  
• Slightly lowered damage for void and voidling attacks
  
• Lowered crafting cost of iron weapons from 3 iron to 1
  
• Lowered crafting cost of anvil stone and iron
  
• Made hunger drain 30% slower
  
• Made full belly healing a 30% quicker
  
• Made all stones destroy in 1 less hit
  

[h2]! Optimisations[/h2]

• Reworked chunk loading system. Overall improved fps by ~30% on most islands, and now over 50% fps boost around towns
  

[h2]! Bug Fixes[/h2]

• Fixed multiple load screen errors
  
• Fixed resource notifications sometimes being slightly incorrect
  
• Fixed the frozen status effect from the winter islands sometimes not going away after leaving the area
  
• Fixed controller navigation breaking in the menu when a user has no save files in list
  
• Fixed some errors leading to game crashes
  

Hi all!

Our very first Dev Diary on the Len's Island YouTube channel is out now, and it sure is a big one!

I talk about everything we're adding to 1.0 and show many new features and bits of content. I won't give anything away in this post, you'll have to watch the video below for all the spoilers!

- Julian

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Hello, everyone!

It's our first community wrap-up of 2025, and it's great to be back! To kickstart February's wrap-up, we have some great news!

[h2]Dev Diaries Coming Soon![/h2]
We know many of you enjoyed watching the original Dev Diaries of Julian creating Len's Island back in the day. So we thought it's fitting, seeing as we're close to 1.0, that we take you on the journey with us in a new Dev Diary series! The first video will be released on the Len's Island YouTube channel this week. Don't miss it, as we'll be revealing LOADS of 1.0 spoilers!

[h2]New Content Alert![/h2]
Here's a little sneak peek of something exciting we're bringing to 1.0... Introducing chickens! Any ideas on what their purpose will be? While we're keeping this under wraps for now, we'd love to hear your thoughts on how these chickens could help you on your adventure. In the meantime, here's a first-ever look at Len chasing these new feathery friends:



[h2]Tiny Homes Build Challenge[/h2]
Over on the official Len's Island Discord, we held a Tiny Homes Build Challenge where we asked players to get creative with limited space. We absolutely loved this oceanic homestead, and crowned Shay the worthy winner! We'll be hosting more competitions soon, so watch this space.



[h2]Creator Showcase[/h2]
Your health is sure to take a hit when venturing through the frozen lands, but FightinCowboy has a solution! We loved watching their past stream where they overcame cold damage by placing down campfires to keep warm. We also thought it was funny that they were then able to get ahead in the game by acquiring Tungsten much earlier than they were supposed to!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]Multiplayer Playtests Continue[/h2]
We've been making progress behind the scenes on our upcoming multiplayer mode, and we wouldn't be where we are without our fantastic playtesters! Thanks to everyone who has played and left us feedback, more playtests are on the horizon. If you'd like to participate, make sure to join the official Len's Island Discord for more information!



[h2]Incredible Fanart by Myke Van Dyke[/h2]
Every game developer loves seeing fanart from their players, but we feel particularly lucky to have such a talented community. Imagine if Len's Island were a hotel chain, what would that look like? Well, it'd look something like this fantastic postcard created by Discord member Myke Van Dyke!



[h2]Newest Member of the Flow Studio Team[/h2]
No development team is complete without a furry companion, so we thought we could do with an extra pair of paws! Introducing Tony (also referred to as Rigatoni), Flow Studio's new Office Manager! Tony will be overseeing our day-to-day business, as well as ensuring we hit our quota of belly rubs for the year.



[h2]Show me the Stuff![/h2]
If you made something cool or saw something cool, reach out! Tag us on X or share it on Discord.

That's all for now, folks! We'll be back very soon with our next Dev Diary, with more exciting news to tell you...

Thanks for all your continued support!

Hey everyone!

It’s been an exciting time getting the multiplayer ready as we run alpha tests and inch closer and closer to the big 1.0 release.

Great things do take time, and as we’re a tiny development team, Len’s Island has certainly been a labor of love for the past 7 years - we can’t wait to reach the 1.0 milestone and share everything we have in the works with you all!

It's been difficult for us little devs to do everything on our own for so long, and we've had to sacrifice areas of the game because of this. When we started work on multiplayer last year, we quickly discovered that we could make the game a lot better if we got a helping hand.

With that being said, we have a big announcement to make!



We’ve teamed up with indie publishers, Fireshine Games, to support us with the 1.0 launch so we can guarantee to bring you the best version of Len’s Island possible! We're big fans of their work with other Early Access games like Core Keeper, so we're thrilled to have them on board as a publisher to help us co-launch Len’s Island.

There's a lot more to share just around the corner, be sure to check out our Twitter and Discord as we share sneak peeks of what’s to come!

If you want to join the next round of closed Alpha testing for co-op multiplayer make sure to join the official Len’s Island Discord for more information.

Thanks again for all of your support.

~ Julian