A game world cannot save everything. It has to choose which facts make the next visit feel like a continuation of the last one.
IslandLab learned that choice in public. V1 remembers nothing. V2 remembers what happens during one visit. V3 writes important progress to the browser. V4 turns that save into a versioned notebook for three islands.
V1: the place resets
V1 is a landscape study. The same math can rebuild the terrain, but there are no residents, quests, or player choices to preserve.
V2: memory lasts until the tab closes
Six residents move among twelve places. They carry needs, relationships, routines, facts, and recent events while the world is running. The current version keeps only ten recent events. Reload the page and a new visit begins.
V3: progress survives a reload
V3 stores the four ordered repairs, cleared debris, visited landmarks, story-card progress, and Field League state in localStorage. Weather and resident assignments are rebuilt from the important progress instead of saving every raindrop and every footstep.
Stable IDs connect saved debris and collectibles to their records. That keeps the meaning of an old save from depending on where an item happened to sit in an array.
V4: the archipelago keeps a journal
V4 stores campaign, expedition, player, unlock, ecology, and Drift Log state. Four ecology readings belong to each island. When the game loads after time away, those readings can move toward their defaults for up to seven elapsed days.
The daily currents are not invented each morning. They come from 48 authored entries, with twelve for each island and twelve for the whole archipelago. A repeatable daily selection picks the current entry.
What is not saved: individual raindrops, exact wildlife positions, and an invisible second ecology simulation. Weather, light, and animals rebuild from the active island profiles.
How the save format works
V4 accepts schema versions one through three and normalizes them into the current structure. Interrupted guardian and door states return through approved entry states while completed repairs stay complete.
The Drift Log keeps seven open expedition days and up to 32 completed records. A V3 save can unlock a Storm Scout legacy reward, but V4 does not import the V2 or V3 residents, quests, story cards, or full League state.
Ecology readings persist. Weather and light come from the active scene profile. Wildlife comes from the active fauna profile and its worker simulation. These systems do not read the saved ecology readings.