Home Island

Island

Travel Port

As a general warning, **this page contains spoilers!** Don't scroll down if you don't want to be spoiled on what can be considered the 'end' point of story mode.

## Home Island

Home Island is a reward for those who managed to traverse through the most difficult islands, passing through several "locks" that must be overcome in order to reach it.

Despite being classed as a "Killer" island, Home Island is quite easy to live on - there is abundant food in the acorn trees and berry bushes, while rabbils and stagmoles spawn very often. The greatest trouble you will have is dealing with the tribe that already lives on the island...

## Home Island Tribe

   Home Island is where Adam originally lived, his family continues to live on the island. They act much like wandering Nichelings, however there is only so many of them and they will eventually die out and leave the island to you.
Unlike wandering Nichelings, Adam's family can only be interacted with if you make it to Home Island while one of your creatures still has Home Island Immunity. With it, you can invite them to join your tribe.

All of Adam's family have the Poison Fangs, two Runner Legs, the Stripes pattern, Big Body, at least one copy of Chestnut Brown Fur and Black Pattern, and one Home Island Immunity. While all will show Normal Ears, only female members of the tribe will have Round Ears as a recessive. This is the only reliable way to get Round Ears unlocked in the Mutation Menu without being very lucky with wanderers.

If you've lost Home Island Immunity, the only thing you can do with Adam's family is attack them, which is not advised - attacking one creature will turn ALL of them hostile to your tribe. They will attack en mass, and can quickly overwhelm you.

In previous release versions (confirmed up to 1.0.1), there was a bug where all of Adam's family will spawn as a single gender.

### Members

#### Adam

Adam is the starting Nicheling in story mode and was a member of the Home Island tribe before he was kidnapped by a Bluebird while away from the tribe with his sister.

#### Nara

Nara is the protagonist of the Niche Book and Adam’s sister. She does not appear in the game.

#### Tala

Tala is a Nicheling mentioned in the book. She is the oldest in the tribe at the time of chapter one.

## Achievements

   **Arrival Text**
There are two achievements associated with Home Island. "Homecoming" simply requires you to make it to Home Island, and can only be unlocked through story mode as of 1.0.1 "Family Reunion" requires you to have the Home Island Immunity in your tribe and invite one of Adam's Family to join you.

Upon returning to the Home Island, you will receive a notification informing you that you've managed to return to Adam's home. Depending on whether or not you managed to keep the Home Island immunity gene within your tribe dictates whether the remnants of Adam's family will allow you to recruit them into your tribe.

## Route to Home Island

### Traditional Method

The following is a tutorial on how to reach Home Island in Story Mode. A key tip to reaching Home Island is to always travel to the Northern port if it is available. If it is not available, always travel East. By doing this, you will eventually reach Home Island.

Below, is a specific breakdown of the possible islands you might encounter on your journey.

The islands you would see in story mode would be the following:

* 1.) Adam's Tutorial Island
* 2.) Eve's island
* 3.) Tiny Green (Travel East from here)
* 4.) Grass Adventure (Travel North from here)
* 5.) Archipelago (Congratulations, you unlocked medium islands by arriving at Archipelago!) (Travel North from here)
* 6.) Swampy Hill (Travel North if available. Travel East if North is not available.)
	+ At this point, not everyone's experiences will be the same, and the ports available to you at Swampy Hill may be different from others. These first six islands however, will always be in this order, assuming you traveled in those directions.
	+ If there is no north port, just keep traveling east. Eventually, it will be there. The north port will always be an Overgrown Jungle island. This is needed to progress and unlock hard islands. If you see a north port on any of the islands you visit while travelling east from Swampy Hill, move toward that!
	+ If you stumble into a Whale Island on the east, traverse the whale and make sure to travel to the Overgrown Jungle (a medium island) when given the choice of which island you want to visit. This is critical, as if you pick any other island, you will end up going around in circles for quite a number of islands until you find another whale or find the overgrown jungle north port.
* Overgrown Jungle (Congratulations, you unlocked hard islands by arriving at Overgrown Jungle!) (Travel North)
	+ This is the first of two challenge islands, and you must destroy 5 roots hidden and scattered across the island before the port to the north is open.
* Sleepy Reeds (Travel North if available. Travel East if North is not available)
	+ Just like how it was in Swampy Hill, again at this point, the game diverges and can show a different port on each playthrough.
	+ Continue to travel East if available and north when it becomes available.
	+ If you stumble into a whale island on the east, traverse the whale. This time, make sure to travel to Crossing (a hard island) when given the choice. Once at the Crossing island, go to the north port. Congratulations! You've made it to Home Island!
	+ If you traveled north and reached the Long Winter island, you will have to wait until the northern port thaws away (which takes about 15-25 days). Traveling to the north port in Long Winter arrives at Crossing. Travelling the north port at Crossing arrives at Home Island. Congratulations!

### Fast Method

This method is the fastest way to reach Home Island. In order to better understand how this method works, consider how the islands are set in four tiers: Easy, Medium, Hard, and Killer.

Easy islands are unlocked at the beginning. The rest are unlocked by visiting a particular island:

* Medium islands are unlocked by visiting Archipelago.
* Hard islands are unlocked by visiting Overgrown Jungle.
* Killer islands are unlocked by visiting Crossing.

Other important game mechanics to note:

* You only need to **visit** them to unlock the next tier of islands. As such, it it possible to go extinct, and the game will still remember what tier of islands you were on (as well as all your unlocked gene mutations).
* Becoming extinct in Story Mode doesn't spell a complete restart, as the game will still keep the tier of islands you have unlocked, as well as all of your unlocked gene mutations. You will also still keep your genes and immunities (You will keep Home Island immunity if you had it before dying, so don't worry about losing it!) from the few remaining nichelings you had before dying.
* When you start over, you will have 20 food, 10 nesting material, and a breedable pair of 3-day old nichelings.

Whale Island is considered a "Medium Island", so after having been in an archipelago, whale islands are unlocked and have a chance to generate to the east port of any island. Since Whales are unlocked, it ultimately doesn't matter which port you take while in Archipelago, as you simply just need to get out and find a whale on whatever island you go to. In fact, you don't even need to travel out of archipelago, you could just let your pack go extinct, and "start over". The resulting new pack when restart has a chance be on an island with a whale port already available.

If you don't want to have a "game over" travelling to the west port on Archipelago is generally the best option to quickly start your search for a whale port as soon as possible. The only rare exception to this is if the east port of Archipelago is already a whale port. In this case, traveling to the whale port takes priority.

If there is no whale port on the east on the island after archipelago, it doesn't matter if you go east or west. Pick whichever port is closest to your pack.

Once at the whale, use it to travel to Overgrown Jungle, as this island needed to unlock hard islands.

Arriving at Overgrown Jungle unlocks hard islands. Therefore, once you arrive, your fastest route is to try and get out of the island as soon as possible. Generally, the west port is easier to reach. It is not necessary to clear 5 roots and reach the north port. Having your tribe go extinct is also an option for getting out of overgrown jungle.

Once out of Overgrown Jungle, Hard islands are unlocked at the whale. At this point, your main priority is to travel between islands (east or west port, whichever is closest) to find a whale port that generates on the east.

Once you find this second whale, go on it and make sure you travel to Crossing. Once at crossing, you simply need to travel north to reach Home Island.