In order to make great friends with everyone in Coral Island, players will want to give the gifts that all the villagers love the best.
Coral Island is a farming simulation by the developers Stairway Games and published by Humble Games. This sim includes many concepts that fans of the genre will find familiar, from changing seasons, growing seeds, upgrading homes, and more.
One of the most popular parts of any farm or life simulation game is the romance and the interaction with the other villagers in their new home. Friendship and love are usually obtained by interacting with NPCs and giving them gifts, and this is also true on Coral Island. But in order to give the best presents to everyone, players will first need to learn everyone's preferences.
Friendship and love are both driven by the same scale, which is called the Heart Gauge in Coral Island. The more an NPC's hidden gauge is filled up, the closer friends they will become with the player. Also, the Heart Gauge will occasionally unlock unique friendship-only events while players are wandering around town. These are things like a simple stretch with one of Coral Island's romanceable characters Noah and his mother to being able to marry and have children with an NPC.
In order to give someone a gift, players need to walk up to them with the item in their hot bar. Select the item to hold it, then right-click on the character. If a weapon, tool, or other non-giftable item is selected, players will talk to the NPC, but if an item is selected, that item will be given as a gift. This means that players cannot gift an item in their Coral Island inventory without moving it to the hotbar first.
While chatting with the neighbors and attending events during the year will get players closer to all the NPCs in this Stardew Valley-inspired game, the fastest way to get someone to be better friends is to give gifts. There are some rules to gift giving, however, and one of the most important is universal dislikes. Players should avoid giving these as gifts to anyone at anytime.
There are a handful of items in the Kickstarter success called Coral Island that are almost universally loved by everyone in town with minimal exceptions. These items can be given to anyone at any time and earn the player a good section of the heart meter without having to worry too much if the NPC will love it or not.
The best way to figure out what kind of gifts an NPC might love is to chat with them every day. The characters of the Animal Crossing-like Coral Island have no problems stating their likes and dislikes out loud. Players just need to listen; for example, Mark often talks about his love of tomato soup when he's not talking about the shelter animals he cares for. Here are a couple of items, on top of the universal likes, that players can get for each romanceable character in Coral Island.
While players cannot romance these characters, they may still want to get close to them in order to witness their events and have some great friends around the island. Thankfully, many of these giftable items are either inexpensive, easy to make at home, or one of the many crops Coral Island players should be growing anyway.
Sadly, Coral Island players cannot yet give any of the animals on the island any presents. There are four friendly critters that hang out around town, including the cats Butter and Peanut, as well as two dogs named Taco and Bon Bon.
Coral Island is available for PC, PC Game Pass, and coming soon to Nintendo Switch.
Source: Kickstarter, Coral Island Official, Wiki, Official Art Tumbler
Mina has been devoted to playing video games for more than 30 years. She loves Magic: the Gathering, writing, reading, cats, board games, long walks, her PS5, and her local LGS. She lives in Richmond, VA, USA with her husband and fur-child Kaalia.