Raft ~ the bears of Balboa Island

The next story quest island I found is called Balboa Island, and it is just massive. It's so huge that it took forever floating around and 'round the island to find a place to park my raft and actually make landfall. That would've been a lot easier if the wind was in my favour, but alas, I had to sail against it. Twas very slow going.

But at last I found a spot to anchor and prepared for adventure.

And that's when I discovered the island was far more massive than I first thought.

Once I parked my raft, I hopped out and killed the shark so I could have three minutes of peaceful underwater exploration time. There was absolutely nothing in the water here, except for five metal deposits. Whilst welcome, I was hoping to find a few other things too. There weren't even any explodey pufferfish anywhere! It was a desolate part of the ocean.

With that quick exploration out of the way, I made myself some food and drink and started to explore the island.

I was immediately warned of bears.

Further up the path a bit, I was greeted with some signage telling me where to find relay towers and the ranger's cabin. I thought it would be best to start exploring the ranger's cabin.

Within moments of heading towards the ranger's cabin... a bear accosted me.

With my trusty bow and arrows and a lot of leaping around, I felled the bear with ease and continued on my way.

In order to get to the ranger's cabin, I had to jump down into some toxic waste and platform my way across ancient crates and lockers to at last reach my destination.

I'm god-awful at platforming and jumping games, so my poor little footsies touched the toxic waste a bit more often than I'd care to admit. xD

With the jumping puzzle out of the way, I crept towards the ranger cabin. There were signs with scrawled writing out the front, newspapers glued to the windows, and a makeshift man guarded the entrance. Whoever had stayed there had clearly gone crazy.

Investigating the little house, I realised that I required a few things. A lightbulb and a saw. Perhaps I should have visited the ranger cabin last instead of first.

Either way, I activated the nearby relay and prepared to visit the other relays.

It was while I was travelling towards the next relay that I saw something. Something that had eluded me for quite some time.

A llama.

The quest I was on didn't matter anymore. All that mattered was catching that llama and bringing it back to my boat. I caught it with ease!! But... I had lost my boat. The island was so huge, and there's no map available, and I didn't know where to go or where I had already been. I tried following signs back to the ranger cabin since I was sure I had parked my raft near there, but the first bear I had killed had respawned and started chasing me and my llama.

Freaking out, I ran in circles around the island, the bear hot on my heels, I'm screeching, my partner's laughing, I couldn't pause the game because I was holding a llama and apparently you can't pause whilst carrying creatures. Finally my partner took pity on me and googled up a map so I could work out where I could've possibly parked my boat.

Finally, with many bear bites upon my backside and thirst overcoming me, I found my raft and dumped the stupid llama into its enclosure.

The hassle had been worth it.

I sheared a chunk of wool off it's butt and researched it. I could now make armour! I could now expand my backpack! That insane screeching bear chase had proved fruitful. And so, I stayed on my boat for a while, shearing my llama every few minutes, until I had enough wool to make a backpack. I was going to get enough to get my first set of armour too, but thought I'd wait til I have a bit more of a stockpile up. Might even find another llama to double my collection. On a different island not beset by bears.

With my new backpack created, and more inventory space to indulge in, I returned to the puzzles of Balboa Island, and the bears. This time with two bows at the ready and two spears.

They respawn just as often as the mutated rats did on that luxury cruiser I visited. I needed as much weaponry as I felt like filling my inventory with!

Using a bunch of berries I found, I was able to lure the giantest of the bears away from a cave and hurried inside to see what loot was within. Turned out that there was a machete in there, the blueprints to make the machete, and a bunch of goodies.

I noticed vines around the island earlier, when I was dashing around with my poor llama, so I went and found the vines and used my new machete on them.

With the vines removed, I followed a cave and found another relay tower and activated it. Inside the relay tower was a dude who had been mauled by the same bears that chased my llama and I! My person invited him back to the raft and now, if I so choose, I could play as him instead of my lady.

I have now unlocked two other people! Hooray!

Finally I activated the third relay tower and a new set of coordinates flashed out at me.

My next destination.

But I still hadn't found a lightbulb for the makeshift man outside the ranger's cabin. I had found a bunch of tools that were required, but I was still missing the lightbulb.

It didn't elude me for long, however. This island is massive and I'm still getting lost. While there are signs that tell you in which direction the towers and ranger's cabin are, there is so much empty space in between it all.

While navigating the empty space, I found some bees and honeycomb, more bears to kill, and then this weird creation. Inside a rusty old birdcage was the lightbulb I sought. It was time to return to the ranger's cabin!

I followed the signs back, got a bunch of achievements for doing all the things here on Balboa Island, then got lost trying to find my damned raft again. xD

If I never have to come back to this island, it'll be too soon.

Grargh.

 

Until next time! :)

 

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_{Raft.All screenshots in this post are courtesy of me, @kaelci and are from the game:}

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Posted from Kaelci Games with Exxp : https://kaelci.games/2022/08/02/raft-the-bears-of-balboa-island/

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