Update, July 2025: Umi appears to have closed. The SLurl here have therefore been removed.
It’s been a fair while since I’ve written about any of Paradox Ivory’s region designs; the last occasion was following a visit to Cravone City in 2021 (a place which itself appears to have expanded mightily since then). Paradox has also in the past been responsible for a location called Umi, which shared a region with her Tokyo Street Subway Entrance, locations I wrote about in 2019 and 2018 respectively.
Both of the latter vanished into the ether sometime after 2019, and to be honest, at that point I lost track of Paradox’s work. So I was pleasantly surprised when Cube Republic poked me about Umi’s return – this time on a much larger scale.
Once again occupying a Full private region – this time leveraging the Land Capacity bonus – and with an adjoining Homestead (currently under construction, UMI is expanded well beyond its 2018/9 form, offering a lot to see and the promise of more to come, given Paradox is in the process of expanding it into the adjoining region.
Welcome to Umi, where serene rural rhythms blend with vibrant urban energy amid a captivating fusion of Japanese and Korean cultures. Here, each street corner tells a tale, every café beckons you to linger, and every encounter promises a journey to joy. Don’t forget to say hello to Umi’s beloved resident cats, who add their own special charm to this enchanting island experience. Welcome to a world where every purr and whisker brings a new adventure!
– From the Umi About Land description
The Landing Point for Umi sits at its southern end, where the setting meets the sea, the two separated by a stretch of rocky, shingle beach which may not avail itself overly well to sunbathers or swimmers, but is certainly appreciated by the local populace of seagulls.
Taking the form of a ferry quay stretching a makeshift-looking pier (wooden planks and iron grating welding on to sealed oil cans for floatation) out into the bay, the Landing Point gives the impression that one has literally just stepped off the ferry on arriving (an if you listen, you will hear the ferry’s horn away in the distance and it (presumably) chugs off back to the mainland.
Once through the gates of the ferry terminus, visitors have a choice of routes: along the raised causeway road (presumably elevated to keep it clear of high tides!) and thence up into the town proper. For those preferring a wander along the not entirely attractive beach, it is possible to turn east or west and do so, either extremity of the shingle and rock waterfront having a stepped footpath leading up into town as well. Of the two, the walk to the west also offers the opportunity to visit the Seaside Café, which is doing its best to remain happy and sunny, despite the aging drabness of the beach!
Umi itself is neatly tiered, rising from the waterfront as set of linear elements. The first of these, bracketed at either end by the steps rising from the extremes of the beach, as well as being reached directly from the steps rising from the end of the causeway road, is a walled water channel, complete with narrow footpaths to either side and with little bridges periodically spanning it.
Behind this is a small residential district, complete with a playground and what looks like a nursery school. Another waterway (a storm drain?) separates this area from the uppermost part of the town, pair of contented Buddha-like stone cats guarding the central stairway leading up to it.
This upper area mixes businesses with apartments and residences, footpaths and streets combining to form an engaging little maze to encourage visitors to explore. Within this area one will find the first warnings of on-going construction, but these are easy to avoid without risk of coming to injury. There’s also a traditional shrine awaiting discovery and further little park spaces.
A point of note here is that there are a number of private rental residences within Umi (four easily identifiable within the upper district, numbered as they are, with four more in the middle-level apartment blocks to the east side of the setting); so do be a little wary of trespassing people’s homes. There are also a number of small business premises available for rent in the setting as well.
The overall attention to detail is one of the many things that make Umi so attractive. Paradox has worked hard to give the town a sense of being a living, breathing space. Houses are furnished, window boxes and planters are cultivated; the general clutter of life can be found everywhere; there is a feeling that much of the town has grown organically, rather than being neatly planned, birds sing in the trees and can be found making the most of garden spaces and the like.
Paradox has also made great use of sound surfaces as well: iron gratings cover drains and form the walkways on bridges. When you walk on them, they will ring with the sound of your heels passing over them. There are also plenty of places to sit and pass the time – such as the Café Umi.
And then there are the cats. As much residents here as anyone, they are to be found everywhere, all of them doing typical cat things: stalking, walking, looking cute, sleeping, making it clear whether your attention is wanted or not, and offering the occasional snippet of conversation.
Even with all this said, I’ve still only scratched the surface of Umi’s treasures. To appreciate them in full, I recommend you hop over and pay a visit for yourself! My thanks, again, to Cube for the hat-tip.
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