The player is a small character/creature. The job is to deliver things. "You" just have moved to the island and got hired. Things you deliver can be postcards, letters, parcels, whatever. You can also pick up orders for other people. For example, someone wants the main character to pick up a clock that they brought to a clock store for repair.
The location is a group of islands (inspired by Scandinavian houses and fjords). There is going to be one main big island, with streets and shops and houses and smaller islands with 1 to 3 houses on each. The main island has stores and services facilities on it and the biggest amount of buildings.
There is going to be one post office on the main land where you get some part of the things to deliver. After completing all deliveries (that the player has on hand), the player has to go back to the post office for more packages and letters, and also addresses where the player have to pick up ‘orders’ (some other things to deliver).
The time to deliver certain letters and parcels is limited. When delivery is successful, the player get reviews (star stamps). A higher rate can will be received after the delivery of those limited-time parcels. With those reviews the player will get the boat upgraded, so the delivery process will be a little faster.
Some of the small islands are going to be locked. To unlock them, complete a number of tasks and get a certain rating.
There is going to be a locked(Foggy) path to outer waters. The player cannot swim further than the territory of that group of islands. That path to outer waters is going to have a gate on the water (so it is visible and the user will not forget that there is this interesting outer waters that are locked)
The parcels will have addresses but the way of getting to those addresses is intuitive. The locations are going to be unique and distinguishable.
After unlocking 2/3 of the small locations you get a water scooter as a reward (it goes faster)
After unlocking the last small island, the character who lives in the last island will send the player on a special delivery, to the queen of the land (the queen of that country). It is a delivery special challenge. If the challenge delivery is successful, the player will get promoted and become a royal delivery man.
So the player has to go on that special journey to deliver to queen and come back.
Change of seasons / Transportation challenges
Transportation: boat. At first it is going to be a bit slow. Also there are going to be small rocks in the sea, they have to be avoided, or it will slow down the boat even more.
There is going to be a change of a season. After 15 deliveries, a season will change. But first change of season is going to be after 20 deliveries so they player is comfortable enough playing and knowing routes.
Summer: Boat. Can be upgraded to motor boat and later to a water scooter.
Autumn: strong winds. Winds appear randomly but have a pattern. Winds tilts your boat, and it is harder to go and avoid the rocks in the sea. If bump more than 4 times, a package is lost, thus minus rating.
Winter: Ice skating. Can be upgraded to an iceboat.
Spring: can only use motor boat or something faster (because of melting ice swimming around).
Side tasks: random lost things around locations can be found.
When delivering and picking up parcels the player is going to interact with non playable characters. Some of them are going to complain that they have lost some things, so if the player found them, they can be brought to their owners. More reviews will be received as a reward.
To get to the queen the player has to pass through another group of islands. The way to that group of islands is a long way of passing rocks on water. Eventually the player will get to the first small island. Since there will be no map or zooming out enough to see all of the islands, the player will have to stop by on each island to interact with characters to ask for directions. (and even if the player wont ask for directions and will decide to find her on their own, the player will fail to do it. The queen’s castle island appears only after a special honk from a horn, that a certain character has).
So the player will be forced to ask villagers where to find the queen. But the villagers will only agree to that if the player delivers something for them, or run an errand. It does not matter which of the villagers the player will ask first for the directions. Because each of them will have a function, that if the player has already asked one of the other villagers about the queen, then they will not repeat the same thing.
After the player has asked about how to get to the queen, they will get an answer that there is this special place, called a royal portal, where it si required to pay 7 coins to pass through. Those coins can only be given by the villagers of those surrounding islands, because in a way they are all guarding the queen. Now the player will have to be going around talking to villagers about the coins and whether you can do any deliveries for them in order to get those coins.
The villagers will have different personalities and some of them will give 1 coin, some of them 2, and some of them zero because they are just grumpy and greedy.
