My opinion on starter islands

[PopsicleNinja]

I'm currently doing two mountain challenges, a winged challenge and a "no wing rule" challenge. I personally recommend Summer Mountains as a mountain starter, because it's a lot easier than First Snow, but it's not so easy that it's boring. Honestly, when I tried to start at First Snow, neither port led to Summer Mountains or Long Winter, and it's too easy to starve because you don't have any room to prepare for the mountains.

When I'm done with the mountains, I'll move onto the jungle. My experience with (failed) jungle challenges is that it's best to go to the savanna first and then use the jungle port on the right, because that's the only way to get vital genes like Big Ears and Lean Body. But if you try to start directly at the savanna, you starve within ten days. Start on another island, get a decent pack and a decent amount of food, and then go to the savanna. Hint: Most of the big grass islands (basically anything but Tiny Green or Archipelago) have a savanna port.

I haven't made it to the real "water" part of water challenges because I decided that I'll wait for more content, but I will give the tip that starting on the archipelago and then heading to the grass port is a WONDERFUL way to get most of the helpful water genes and a reasonable stash of food. Crack a lot of nuts to get Cracker Jaw (or pick a lot of berries to get Nimble Fingers if you'd prefer that) and attack the bunnies and stagmoles to get Claw. Just having your creatures cross between "islands" is enough to give you all of the swimming genes by the time you reach the grassland port.

Now, here are the two starter islands I dislike:

I hate Tiny Green. That island gets so boring, it's too easy to overpopulate it, and you make the rest of the game too easy if you stay there too long. In Story Mode, I leave Tiny Green when Adam dies and treat the next two islands (large grass island and Archipelago) as my starter islands. Both islands are easy without being boring. I don't like starting at Tiny Green in Sandbox because it takes too long to find the biome I want, and it honestly feels like cheating.

Similarly, I've stopped using Whale Island as my starter because I feel like the ability to go directly from your starter to your challenge biome is cheating. (Yeah, guess what happened when I encountered Whale Island in Story Mode.) Also because it's far too easy to starve on Whale Island.

[Jojo]

If you want a challenge start out with your starters on the oasis but make sure at least one of them has a claw, it is really fun

Also you can manage to survive in the burning savannah for +50 days (I managed that exactly one time) it is a mix of being clever and lucky. So if you are really up for the challenge and possibly frustration burning savannah is your place to go.

Killer jungles and frost island pretty impossible to survive on as starters. Deadly hills is fun though.

Grass mingle is fun if there is no ape spawn tree and especially good for roleplaying, not as easy as grass adventure

Can't stand the archipelago. Way to cumbersome to get from one island to another and no healing fruits to heal damage taken from drowning. Tine green and big meadow are good for newcomers to the game.

Thought I'd add my two cents on some other starter islands

[PopsicleNinja]

Honestly, I don’t like the Archipelago either. I like it as a water starter, but I always dread having to pass through it in Story Mode.

It’s actually fairly easy to survive Burning Savanna for 50 days once you’ve done it a few times, and yet it’s always fun to survive in it. I just hope the savanna gets more content.

[Jojo]

1 hour ago, PopsicleNinja said:

Honestly, I don’t like the Archipelago either. I like it as a water starter, but I always dread having to pass through it in Story Mode.

It’s actually fairly easy to survive Burning Savanna for 50 days once you’ve done it a few times, and yet it’s always fun to survive in it. I just hope the savanna gets more content.

More savannah content would  be awesome We still don't have anything to pick from the cacti (except defense but that it not what I mean). Currently cacti are the only food source in game that cannot be safely picked, which is kinda odd