Coral Islandis a farming simulation by the developers Stairway Games and published by Humble Games. This sim includes many concepts that fans of the genre will find familiar, from changing seasons, growing seeds, upgrading homes, and more.
One of the most popular parts of any farm orlife simulation gameis the romance and the interaction with the other villagers in their new home. Friendship and love are usually obtained by interacting with NPCs and giving them gifts, and this is also true onCoral Island. But in order to give the best presents to everyone, players will first need to learn everyone’s preferences.

How Friendship and Love Work On Coral Island
Friendship and love are both driven by the same scale, which is called the Heart Gauge inCoral Island. The more an NPC’s hidden gauge is filled up, the closer friends they will become with the player. Also, the Heart Gauge will occasionally unlock unique friendship-only events while players are wandering around town. These are things like a simple stretch with one ofCoral Island’s romanceable charactersNoah and his mother to being able to marry and have children with an NPC.
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In order to give someone a gift, players need to walk up to them with the item in their hot bar. Select the item to hold it, then right-click on the character. If a weapon, tool, or other non-giftable item is selected, players will talk to the NPC, but if an item is selected, that item will be given as a gift. This means that players cannot gift an item in theirCoral Islandinventorywithout moving it to the hotbar first.
Giving the Worst Gifts
While chatting with the neighbors and attending events during the year will get players closer to all the NPCs in thisStardew Valley-inspired game, the fastest way to get someone to be better friends is to give gifts. There are some rules to gift giving, however, and one of the most important is universal dislikes. Players should avoid giving these as gifts to anyone at anytime.
Giving the Best Gifts on Coral Island
There are a handful of items in theKickstarter success calledCoral Islandthat are almost universally loved by everyone in town with minimal exceptions. These items can be given to anyone at any time and earn the player a good section of the heart meter without having to worry too much if the NPC will love it or not.
Best Gifts for Coral Island’s Dateable Characters
The best way to figure out what kind of gifts an NPC might love is to chat with them every day. The characters of theAnimal Crossing-likeCoral Islandhave no problems stating their likes and dislikes out loud. Players just need to listen; for example, Mark often talks about his love of tomato soup when he’s not talking about the shelter animals he cares for. Here are a couple of items, on top of the universal likes, that players can get for each romanceable character inCoral Island.
Best Gifts for Coral Island’s Friendship-Only Characters
While players cannot romance these characters, they may still want to get close to them in order to witness their events and have some great friends around the island. Thankfully, many of these giftable items are either inexpensive, easy to make at home, or one of the manycropsCoral Islandplayersshould be growing anyway.
Sadly,Coral Islandplayers cannot yet give any of the animals on the island any presents. There are four friendly critters that hang out around town, including the cats Butter and Peanut, as well as two dogs named Taco and Bon Bon.

Coral Islandis available for PC, PC Game Pass, and coming soon to Nintendo Switch.


