🧭 RAR Islands - Post IV - Pre-Registration!

Hello, Explorer! ⛵

Intro#

It’s been a while since my last update (back in April!), but for a good reason: I’ve been pouring an enormous amount of time, focus, and energy into RAR Islands this past year. On top of the years of work already invested, the last months have been fully dedicated to bringing the game to the point where it finally feels complete.

Before diving into the news, I want to share my appreciation for the people who helped me during this stage of testing.

Without them, I wouldn’t be writing this post today. 🙏

Thanks to the Testers#

• MrDaGrover (Zeke): Always there on Discord, testing tirelessly, reporting bugs, sharing ideas, and even jumping on a few (very fun) videocalls that kept me sane 🤪. If Archison and/or RAR games became a real studio one day, you’d be my first hire!
• Cansu (my wife): Çok teşekkürler aşkım 💙 Even though you’re not a gamer, you’ve “stolen” my phone more than once to test the game for hours: your feedback has been invaluable.
• Marc’s daughters (Laia i Francesca): Moltes gràcies! Possibly the first Explorers to ever complete the Atlas!
• Kily, Manu & Rafa: Gracias, amigos! Thanks for the kind words and highlighting little things like the minimap, amongst others. Sometimes even the small encouragements make a big difference!
• The G&D crew (Maksim, Rafael, Angelo): Guilty of the ZZZ improvement (and more tweaks). Curious to see how far you’ll go into the Void Rifts 😏
• Lukasz: Your eye for detail in the first testing days (navigation, UI issues) saved me so much time. Dziękuję!
• Victor: Gracias, tío! An old manager and early tester: your sharp feedback and bug reports helped a ton.
• André: Muito obrigado! Thanks for your thorough list of ideas/issues: your fresh perspective really helped.
• Sofiakaos: Muito obrigado! The only tablet tester, thanks to you, tablet players will have a smoother experience (🤞 hopefully!).
• Scott: A RAR I & II veteran. Your encouragement and feedback inspired me to create the new Explorer’s Guild Mentor starting tutorial. Can’t wait to hear your thoughts about it!
• Don Dan: Your feedback alongside Scott’s convinced me to expand that tutorial system: thanks for the push! (Also waiting to hear your final thoughts about RAR II!)

I hope I didn’t forget anyone!

Each of you helped polish RAR Islands into a much stronger game.

Thank you. 🌟

RAR Islands#

So… how’s the game doing?

The short answer: it’s basically finished.

The main story is in place, the world is explorable, and the systems (exploring, gathering, crafting, sailing, requests, main story, and more!) are fully playable!

I still need to hard-test a few final details, but I’m confident that RAR Islands is very close to release. The past months were all about polishing, balancing, and fixing (many!) issues, and I’m really proud of the shape the game is in right now.

Until I’m able to put together a proper gameplay video, I’ll share some fresh screenshots to give you a taste of the current build:

The next ones are from my real test-playthrough on my phone (SPOILER ALERT):

Pre-Registration#

Now for the big announcement: RAR Islands is officially available for pre-registration! 🎉

If you’d like to be among the first explorers to set sail into Islendari, you can already pre-register:

👉 Google Play Pre-Registration Link

This will help me a lot, and you’ll get notified as soon as the game launches.

Afterword#

This journey has been long, intense, and more often than not: overwhelming. But seeing the game come together, and seeing some people liking the game and getting hooked to it in the testing phase, has already made it all worth it.

I can’t wait to finally share it with you soon.

Thank you once again for your patience, your feedback, and your support. You’ve helped shape RAR Islands into something I truly believe in.

🌊 you soon,
Luis

PS: Just to clarify: the game will be a one-time purchase (no ads, no IAPs). Same approach as I did with RAR II 🤗