Dinkum is the latest in a long line of games inspired by Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing. This game takes players to an island inspired by the Australian outback, tasking players to build a thriving community from the ground up.
While Dinkum has plenty of NPCs to interact with, the game also allows players to meet up and visit each other's islands. Four different players can be in the same session: three visitors and one host.
Players can't immediately start Dinkum in multiplayer, however. There's a pre-condition they have to meet first.
Accessing Dinkum's Multiplayer
When the player starts up Dinkum, they'll see an option for multiplayer dead center of the start screen, right below New Game. If it's the first thing the player clicks, however, they'll get an error message: "You don't have any characters to play multiplayer with!"
Whether the player wants to host or visit, they first need to create a single-player file and go through the first in-game day. Once the player has fallen asleep, they can rest easy that both their character and their island have been saved.
Now when they click on the multiplayer button, they'll be sent to the proper multiplayer menu. Then they can either choose to browse public islands to visit or choose to make their own session: one that's either public, invite-only, or friends-only. Since the game is currently PC exclusive, the friend lists and invites will come from Steam.
Limits of Dinkum's Multiplayer
As with most laid-back farming games, Dinkum's multiplayer is pretty freeform. Players can fish, fight wildlife, race through the outback, and do whatever other activities Dinkum offers. Visitors can even bring their inventories to other islands and take items back to their own islands.
There is an important restriction placed on visitors, however. In order to keep griefers from damaging meticulously built towns, only the host can move or place buildings.
Similarly, the visitors can't try and sell any of the hosts' farm animals, possibly harming their resource generation. It's not exactly "Take only photos and leave only footprints," but it does encourage a sense of conscientiousness from visitors.
Of course, at the time of writing, Dinkum is only in early access. Future updates may change how multiplayer works, such as upping the number of players who can visit one island or changing the rules for visitors.
If there are features that players want to see, they should contact the devs and let their voices be heard.
Dinkum is available now for PC.