Starsand Island by developer Seed Sparkle Lab released in February 2026 and immediately made waves as a not-to-be-missed cozy game of the year. But as of writing this, Starsand Island has been removed from Steam. Luckily, the dev team was quick to explain the disappearance on Twitter. @IslandStarsand wrote: “Drea Islanders, Due to an oversight during the planning phase, certain core visual elements from a classic title were used without proper authorization within our mini-game section. We sincerely apologize for the mistake.”
The team didn’t point to exactly what “core visual elements from a classic title” were the offending party, but Reddit netizens speculated that it was an unapologetically Tetris-like minigame found within the game.
The delisting of Starsand Island is temporary, and the Early Access title remains up on the Xbox game store while they resubmit on Steam.
What is Starsand Island?
Starsand Island is a Steam farming sim with a heavy emphasis on crafting, building, and customizing. Begin the game as a generic protagonist suffering through her capitalism hellscape job in some corpo high-rise. Bombarded with memories of summers spent on the family farm, she gives it all up for the idyllic life she once knew.
There is a healthy spectrum of character customization options, and the graphics are super cute. Your old friend Solara will be waiting to greet you by the cabin in the woods as soon as you get your look just right. She’ll remind you that it’s been ten years since you last visited, and then put you to work.
Collecting resources is central to the game, so you’ll spend plenty of time exploring the island environments and picking up sticks, stones, flowers, and anything else you stumble across. As you probably guessed, you can use a crafting table to create tools, starting with an axe, which then help you gather more materials.
From what I’ve seen of the game so far, it’s a blend of:
- My Time at Sandrock’s building and resources focus
- Fantasy Life i: Girl Who Steals Time’s job/career system
- Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life for aesthetic
The mechanics will be familiar, starting simple and ramping up as you are able to build more crafting tables and access new resource types. You’ll inherit a huge plot of messy land, be able to decorate and arrange it as you see fit, and can even expand the space you own. Starsand Island leans hard into customization. They let you pick from several house types before you move in: grey brick crawling with flowers, boxy-flat modern, or expansive ivory manor. Then, you can buy furniture and decor to make each room your own. Right off the bat, you can craft potted plants, a trellis, a firepit, and other odds-and-ends.
There’s a sprinkle of modernity to keep things fresh in Starsand Island. You have a phone, use island apps, and get around on a motorized scooter. This helps it stand out from other similar titles that are clearly meant to represent some unspecified pre-technological past.
You also follow little sparkling stars on the map from quest-to-quest, which is incredibly endearing but also demonstrative of the developer’s artistic flare. The whole world of Starsand Island feels quaint and sunny and charming. It’s genuinely a pleasure to explore top to bottom.
Hopefully Starsand Island will come back online soon so that more people can experience it’s cozy game charm!
Stay cozy, gamers!