Who doesn’t love bunnies? Their fluffy fur coats, soft yet alert ears, and twitchy noses… these gentle critters make an ideal pet. Jess Yu, a digital artist, took her love for bunnies into the virtual world with Usagi Shima (Japanese for Bunny Island) – an idle-type bunny collector game!
Gameplay Overview
Usagi Shima is an indie game made by just one bunny lover with a dream. Jess, who goes by the name pank0 on the web, was inspired by the real-life location of Ōkunoshima, a small island in the Hiroshima prefecture of Japan. On this island, wild bunnies roam freely and are tame towards visitors.
Armed with her digital art and game development skills, Jess set to work on Usagi Shima for three years and self-published the game on September 1st, 2023. The game’s premise is simple – you’ve arrived at an uninhabited island filled with cute bunnies, and from there, you can buy toys, build structures, take photos, interact and even befriend these adorable island-dwellers.
Decorating Your Very Own Usagi Shima
Start the game by placing down structures and toys, which can be bought using carrots. The user interface for placing decor is rather seamless: just tap on the backpack icon, then click and drag to your desired spot to place the item. You could even choose which direction to face!
For starters, you’ll be able to decorate the woods. Once you’ve earned enough Golden Carrots (which can be bought for a small fee at the store, gained from missions and spawned randomly on your island), you can unlock the beach for more decoration space.
Structures are bought at the shop with Golden Carrots and can only be built one at a time. However, you can skip the build time by watching a very short ad. Visiting bunnies can interact with these structures, for example, lounging on a floatie on the waterfall or ordering steaming hot baos at the steamed buns kiosk.
Find that your carrots reserve are always on the low end? Here’s a tip: purchase the garden at the shop for additional carrots to spawn! Some visiting bunnies may even help tend to your garden.
Interact & Care For Visiting Bunnies
Now that the structures, toys and decor have made your island look more appealing, bunnies will start hopping over to visit! When a bunny visits, you can perform up to six different interactions to strengthen your friendships.
The visiting bunnies will call out for your attention on the bottom right of the screen, and by tapping on the bun’s icon, you could either: brush, pet, feed, take a photo, dress up, or play hide and seek with it. Once you’ve perfected the care action for the bunny, your fondness levels will increase, and you’ll be rewarded with carrots. We realised that the friendship level plays a part in what the bunny may ask you to do. You can’t immediately feed a bunny that you’ve just met, and you’ll start by either brushing or petting it.
However, we found that once you’ve had a lot of toys and structures on your island, things can get quite hectic as it’s a never-ending stream of demands for attention from the bunnies (not that we’re complaining, of course). If you’re too slow, there isn’t a penalty, but we think the bunnies may have shed a virtual tear or two.
Here’s a tip: if you’ve built a home on your bunny island, you could invite your favourite wandering bunny to be a permanent resident on your tiny island!
Collect All The Bunnies on Usagi Shima
Just like how you could ‘catch ‘em all’ in Pokemon, you can collect all of the bunnies in Usagi Shima too! Check your Bunbook by tapping on the bunny face icon on the top left of your screen, and once you’ve met a wandering bunny, you can tap on it to view more details. Get to know its personality, your friendship status, the total number of visits, and its favourite toys and keepsakes.
There are a total of 36 bunnies to meet. Each bunny has a special way of getting it to visit your little island, and here’s our tip to complete your Bunbook: buy every single structure and have it placed on your island! The ramen bar attracts Panko, a prawn tempura bunny, while placing the shrine attracts Boo, a ghost bunny, to visit. Once you’ve collected all of the special bunnies, you might even be graced upon by Mugi, the rarest of them all!
Our Verdict on Usagi Shima
Usagi Shima is one of the types of virtual pet games that you can’t stop yourself from playing. With its laidback vibe, adorable art style and little to no in-game ads, it’s a true gem within the mobile game sphere that doesn’t feel like it’s trying to make a buck off you. Granted, you can buy in-game currency (Golden Carrots) to progress quickly, but it’s entirely unnecessary as the game gives you enough over time. However, we can definitely tell that the developer poured her heart and soul into this passion project, and a one-off donation of RM19.90 to remove ads isn’t a big commitment to thank her for making the game free-to-play.
Once you’ve collected all of the bunnies on your Usagi Shima, gameplay becomes mellow as there isn’t a drive to keep playing it. Yes, you’ll still receive rewards by completing your daily tasks, and bunnies will keep asking for your attention. We hope the developer may consider adding more features for the game’s replayab ility! With the game being free-to-play and giving you a warm fuzzy feel, we say just to try it, and you’ll be hooked (like us).
Where To Download Usagi Shima?
Usagi Shima is free and downloadable on the App Store and Play Store.
