I've been sleeping for five days with nothing else to do while I wait for my corn to grow. I could be enjoying new adventures in gardening and sailing right now, but I'd better get started on my new farm in Stardew Valley.

Summer In Mara's protagonist Koa was raised by her grandmother Haku on a small, uninhabited island. (The trick to planting crops and trees is learned throughout Koa's childhood, during which Haku teaches him that he should always replant what he takes from the island. If you cut down a tree, you have to plant a new one.

After the tutorial, none of that matters. Years later, the cocky young core is left alone, watched over by Haku's gravestone in the center of the island. Apparently, the lessons of childhood had not been learned, and she had wrecked the entire island, from the chicken coop to Haku's boat.

As a child, Grandma Haku never let Koa leave the island. Now that she is gone, Koa's only motivation to finally do so is a little alien who cannot speak and an old letter from her grandmother that says nothing interesting. It has the name of the person to whom Haku was writing the letter. Koa and Pink's new friend Napopo fix up Grandma's old boat and sail to the nearby island town of Queris.

Sailing was my first sign of serious trouble in Mara. Sailing is like walking. All you need is forward motion and steering. There is no wind to manage, no erratic encounters at sea, nothing that makes sailing an adventure. There is a fuel gauge, but fuel is free. Eventually, I can scavenge the barrels and get craft materials. Still, I found myself checking my cell phone as I pointed the boat straight north or south between the island of Koa and the hub city of Kelis.

The second sign of trouble was the prescriptive quest that occupied the first four hours or so in Keris. Each of the first few NPCs I encountered would make the same request. So I drove Koa's boat to her island and planted a seed in her garden, hoping to find joy in the voyage itself. [Of course, it takes a few days to grow. I could water it, but the well has run dry and I don't know when the rains will come. I could do other quests in the meantime, but often only one at a time. I look around my island and there is nothing to explore. I could pick an orange and eat it, but I'm not hungry yet. I could plant more trees, but for no particular reason. So I decide to sleep for four days until the carrots mature. After harvesting the carrots, another Keris tribe asked me for a quest. He wanted me to plant cotton seeds. No other work yet. We plant seeds, sleep, and repeat.

This continues for a few more hours; NPCs do not walk around. Trees will not blow in the wind. Buildings cannot be explored inside. Aside from a few stray dogs that can be fed apples (yes, they can be pets), the city is lackluster despite its colorful seaside architecture.

Even when Summer In Mara opens up and allows for multiple side quests at once, there is no friction. Aside from a vague core desire to explore the ocean, I have no overarching goals. Money is rarely an issue, so I have no motivation to plant a particular crop; if I run out of energy on Koa, it just energizes me for the next day. Koa's hunger meter is never a problem, as she always has access to the orange trees and berry bushes that grow wild on her island.

Eventually, the locals in Kelis became my motivation. One needed scarves, so I planted cotton seeds. One wanted help with a new recipe, so I planted lettuce and onions. A cat cub adventurer named Onzo said he had never seen a pumpkin, so I planted a pumpkin to show him. Their portraits are lovely, from Cuido, an aquatic creature with a rainbow spectrum of colors, to Elit, a blue alien, to the extroverted and fluffy Catchild. Their quirks and quests are not gripping, but they are better than sleeping while the wheat grows.

After a few hours of directed planting and harvesting, we are finally able to visit our new island. The first of the newly accessible territories was disappointing. Some of the islands showed signs of visitors, but there was no one to talk to; they were not as lively as Qälis; and the islands were not as well known as the other islands. Other islands are nice to look at, but there are no interesting secrets to explore, side quests, or other rewards for curiosity. Some have abundant metal mining, but that is hardly necessary.

The second new island was unlocked about 10 hours into Mara. One is an eerie island surrounded by storms and topped by a haunted tree. The other is a colorful volcano inhabited by bipedal beetles. But like the first islands, these islands have nothing to inspire you to explore or come back to after wandering around and saying, "Oh, neat. [Because] there's no pressure on Mara. There is no calendar to make the crops wither. There is no debt looming. There is no need to stave off impending doom. The biggest threat is a pair of aliens called the Elites, but their story is not particularly climactic either. Not every game needs an impending catastrophe, but Mara lacks even a small threat. All I have is a fistful of errands for everyone.

Summer In Mara lured me in with its colorful characters and charming seaside town. I wanted to find in it the thrill of sailing through The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Tact or the excitement of acquiring new cutscenes with the locals in Stardew Valley. But neither of those are present. There are songs on the soundtrack that are particularly uplifting, with groovy drums that give you goosebumps and the urge to ride the waves if sailing wasn't just a chore.

Summer In Mara has the basic elements of a farming or town simulation (crops, crafts, fishing, townspeople), but it lacks any of the competing priorities or tension that might have kept me engaged.