How I learned to stop min-maxing and embrace serenity in Coral Island

destructoid.com:

I’m an efficiency monster. Min-maxing, goal-setting, and achievements — they’re all part of my milestone-driven playstyle in most games. My quest for powerful builds or ideal stats often adds a layer of challenge that games don’t demand, but I rarely deviate from the strategy. Coral Island makes optimization impossible though, and I think I love it.

The only things I really knew about Coral Island were that it involved farming and had extensive romance options. I went in with a few specific goals: romance a certain villager, create a profitable farm, and beat the game. Get in, get out.

Right off the bat, I realized my to-do list wouldn’t be so easy. I needed to speak to the carpenter, but their store was closed for the night. Okay. I tried to visit the general store instead. Nope, it’s also closed for the night and closed on Wednesdays. Who closes their store on a Wednesday? So, I decided to return home and get some farm work done instead.

I opened up my map, looking for a way to fast travel to my farm from the town. Failing to find anything resembling fast travel, I looked online to see if I was just missing it. As it turns out, the feature unlocks by performing specific tasks that activate waypoints. For the time being, I would be hoofing it. I trudged home and went to bed.

The next day, I resolved to meet as many villagers as possible to find the one I was looking for. In Coral Island, villagers you haven’t met yet are marked on your map as question mark icons. I found myself chasing down each question mark icon, periodically opening my map to see where a villager had gone when I failed to find them. There were dozens of them, and they appeared to wander quite a bit. I hadn’t even unlocked any waypoints yet, so there