When you start this mode, you get three choices to be your main character:
- The preset male character, David Bennet.
- The preset female character, Jessica Knight.
- Make your own Sim by clicking on the Create-A-Sim icon in the bottom left of the screen. This allows you to create every feature of your Sim, including hair colour, style, skin colour, tattoos and clothes. you can also choose their starsign, aspiration and Turn-Ons and -Offs.
As soon as you have chosen your character, you will see a cut-scene in which the ship, The Solomon Queen, is shipwrecked. You are lucky and float away on a steamer trunk, away from the burning wreck of the ship. Another cut-scene follows this, where your character will float ashore and wake up on Felicity Island.
Chapter 1: Almost Paradise
Your character will say something and then (s)he spots a hatchet lying on the ground. Your first task is to pick this up. The hatchet is now added to the Story Rewards section in the Rewards tab on the HUD. Then you must head over to the far right side (from sea) and dig out the steamer trunk that you floated in on. You can store food in here and write in your diary. This also is added to the Story Rewards tab.
Now that you have picked up the steamer trunk, it is in your Inventory. You must place this on the beach, as a small tutorial will explain. It is a good idea to lay it on the hard rock right next to where you found it, but you can put it elsewhere. Here, your character needs a drink, so go to a nearby coconut tree and select 'Drink Coconut Juice'. After this easy task, shimmy back up the tree to collect more.
The camera will now pan around the beach stopping at bits of wood, which you must now chop up. try to chop every piece to save time later. Now go into Barter Mode (F2) and click on the Survival tab. then buy the camp fire and a Lean-To. Your next goal is to start a fire. Go to the camp fire and select 'Light Fire'. Then, select the Lean-To and select 'Sleep'. This will trigger another cut-scene, where some monkeys wreck your camp, and end this chapter.
Chapter 2: I Will Survive
Unless you have more than 25 resources, you must chop up some more wood. There is also some bamboo which you may want to pick up, and then you must buy a trash pit. You must then clean up camp by clicking on every single piece of rubbish and then clicking on the trash pit and select 'Light fire'. Now you must swim in the ocean, to clean off all of the muck. After a while, your Sim decides that they are hungry, and tell you to spear some fish. Go to a shallower part of the ocean, and click here. Then, select 'Spear Fish'. When your Sim has fish, they ask you to cook it, so direct your Sim to the camp fire and select Have Breakfast/Lunch/Dinner ... and then Poached Cod.
After all of this, you must examine the debris near where you found the bamboo. Your Sim makes this into the base of a raft, and then lay the bamboo over it. This is the end of this chapter.
Chapter 3: Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
Click on the acid sand and select 'Dig in Sand'. On your first go, you will find a machete (Story reward) which allows you to cut through the bamboo blocking the exit. Cut all of the bamboo to make more resources. You can now travel to Broken Wings, where you can find a map which allows immediate travel to-and-through places that you have already been to. Click on the Simian City link.
Her you will find all of the monkeys who wrecked your camp. Click on their idol and select any action. A fight will commence and you will lose. You run away and contemplate about the fight.You decide to lure the monkeys away with bananas. Pick bananas off the nearby tree, and click on the two monkeys on the tree and select 'Give Banana' then do the same for the last one. You can then take the idol without a threat.
Return home to finish the chapter.
Chapter 4: Idol Hands
Travel to simian city. Possible fights with orangutan. Offer banana (from nearby tree if you don't have some already) to right one in tree. Then offer to left one in tree. Last offer to mean one on ground. Social needs improve with orangutan interactions. One may follow you home. Adopt it.
Career choices offered, pick whichever you prefer. You may also assign career to your new pet, to accumulate resources faster. As soon as orangutan has a career, game will prompt you to Find Bindings to continue building raft. If you're playing for the first time, exploring the wreckage at Broken Wings is your best option. You may find additional items, like the idol's missing eye gem, too.
Chapter 5: The Eye that Binds
Replacing the eye gem releases a gas that makes your sim ill. You must now find a cure. Return to Broken Wings and find a new map portal, by a lightning-struck tree. This will take your sim to Shady Lagoon. Go to thatch hut. There is a med kit on the porch. The cut-scene will show your sim drink from a bottle from the med kit, pass out, and awaken cured. Yay!
When you're cured, enter hut and let story progression dialogue boxes in corner of screen progress until they suggest picking up parachute cords that are on the floor behind the door. Pick up cords. Game will suggest going back to home beach. You might collect resources (wood, food, spare parts, etc.) before you go, if your sim has enough energy.
Return home to start next chapter.
Chapter 6: A Brand New Day
When your sim returns to home beach, wait for goal/aspiration to show Bind Raft before clicking on raft. There is a known bug wherein binding raft does not cause progression of story (your sim is stuck with nothing to do next). You are less likely to encounter this bug if you wait for the game to prompt you for everything, when to travel, when to build, etc. Successful task will give message: "Not bad for my first raft if I do say so myself." and "I still need a few more parts before I can set sail though." This means it's time to move!
You will be given the goal of moving to Shady Lagoon, click on the goal for hint how to do this. Yay! You unlock another story reward, and take over the lovely abandoned shack, with the expensive household water system already in place (the reward), all the furniture you probably can't afford yet, the extra cook fires and storage. Yum...
The next goal is to furnish your hut with three new items. (cannot be from inventory, or from deleting (selling) stuff you already have. check goal hint carefully.) Fulfilling this starts new chapter.
Chapter 7: The Shady Lagoon
After moving in, a goal called Explore with the Idol comes up. Go through the new portal (look for the green arrow by what looks like a bamboo path). Be sure to still have the idol in your inventory. Upon arrival at the Primeval Shrine, a short cut-scene tells you the ruined shrine has an alter for your idol.
Placing idol unlocks secret passage and new goal to explore beyond the wall. Go through portal (unlocked passage in wall) and your sim comes out at Barren Banks. Look! Five people are on the beach! They are also survivors of the wrecked Solomon Queen. They are briefly happy to see you but quickly drift off because you have no food or video games for them...