Characters in Epstein Island Game: Who Lives on the Island

Characters in Epstein Island Game: twenty six named residents

The helicopter is where it starts, and after that you rely on people who were already there before you. The prototype at 0.12.0 lists twenty six such residents.

Every entry in the game data carries five pieces of information: name, role, group, age, and a description of what the character is doing right now. On top of that comes a line they speak in the game. Panu the courier is the youngest resident at twenty two, Sindre the lighthouse keeper the oldest at sixty seven, and the average age sits at thirty nine.

They sort into seven groups. Five characters belong to the island itself, four each to food and drink, the harbor, and the military, and three each to the office, the club, and security.

At the water: four people who keep the dock running

Ansgar is the captain, fifty eight years old, and decides when the boats cast off. His line is a warning: at low tide the north jetty stays closed, because two rocks sit just under the surface there. Bendt the fisherman plans around the tide instead of the clock either way; his traps sit along the east edge where the reef drops off, and high tide keeps him from reaching them.

Ruud the dockworker checks off what needs to go on the boat against his clipboard, and he sums up his rule in one line: cargo goes first, people step aside. That is why he never stands between a crate and the edge. Pepe the sailor is the youngest on board at twenty four, and he would rather splice an eye into a rope than trust a knot that gets wet.

Food, drink, and the club: seven characters between the bar and the stage

Nikolai stands behind the bamboo bar, shaking drinks, keeping count, and talking about ice the whole time: it comes from the cooler behind him, never from the sea. Bruno runs the island kitchen and talks about salt without pausing. Tarek stands in the smoke at the beach bar and waits twenty minutes for the coals to turn gray before he puts anything on the grill. Marisol carries two full glasses through the sand and remembers orders by table, not by face.

The club side is smaller and louder. Loko spins records on the beach and knows exactly that the power comes from the generator behind the bar; if it sputters, he switches to playing by hand. Bea dances in a headdress that weighs almost a kilo, and in a crosswind she only turns into it. Delia keeps the stage at the beach bar clear, a driftwood build where she only steps on the dry half on the left.

Island, office, and security: eleven characters in the daily routine

You run into these eleven most often, since their routes cross through the village and along the island paths.

• Aurel, gardener: rakes the paths and knows the salt wind eats every leaf in front of the wall within two weeks
• Sindre, lighthouse keeper: the tower flashes twice, short, then a pause
• Tova, lifeguard: the current runs west, strongest by the headland
• Emeka, street musician: stands between two walls, since it sounds twice as loud there as on the beach
• Gundi, tourist: the path behind the dunes is shorter, but floods after rain
• Panu, courier: eight minutes from the dock to the village, if nobody is in the way
• Falk, island manager: kitchen in the morning, harbor at noon, watch at night
• Hedda, secretary: log it first, then order, or everything comes in twice
• Yuki, who walks patrol: three loops of the village a day, noting every dead lantern
• Odin, bouncer: two in when two go out, the wooden deck cannot hold more
• Fero, guard: from the tower, on a clear day you can see all the way to the lighthouse

TipPanu's eight minutes is the only travel time any character actually states out loud.

The four from the military and what they reveal about the terrain

Corvin the officer stands at the training grounds, map folder under his arm, and describes his position better than any map could: the grounds sit in the lee of the hill, which is why you can hear every boat at the dock from there. Ida the soldier walks her patrol across the meadow, eighteen meters in a half circle, and steers clear of the wet hollow because her boot sinks in there.

Mirza the field medic sorts his bandages on the meadow and knows the island's typical injuries: cuts from shell fragments and twisted ankles from the loose rock on the slope. Ravenna the helicopter pilot waits by the buildings for better weather, since the wind shifts over the ridge in the afternoon.

Strikingly often these lines turn out to be terrain tips. Wind, current, ground, sightlines: listen closely and you save yourself detours, and some of it lines up with what Buildings and Locations shows on the map.

Four quest-givers with their own voice profile

Of the twelve side quests, a third comes from a named contact: Ava the mechanic, Samir the ranger, Nora the paramedic, and Jonas the scout. These exact four are also the only characters the game code gives a distinct voice profile.

The differences are small but noticeable. Ava speaks at a rate of 0.97 and a pitch of 1.05, Samir slower and deeper at 0.99 and 0.94, Nora at 0.96 and 1.03, and Jonas fastest at 1.05 and 1.01. Every other character defaults to 1 and 1.

The four are between twenty four and thirty five years old and do not appear on the island's resident list; they belong to a different part of the game. What they want from you is covered in Quests and Rewards.

How the characters sound and where else you find them

The seven main characters and the voices from the prologue, Lena Falk at reception and the driver, speak their set lines using pre-recorded clips. Those ship ready-made with the game and need no outside connection. Every other character gets their clips added over time.

Free-form answers get generated live in the same voice, once a play profile exists. No recording of a real person gets cloned for the fictional island residents. In co-op, the characters respond while you play, and you answer with a key press or your microphone.

The phone lists every resident in the Contacts app, each with a name and a role. On the homepage they show up as cards with a role, a description, and the line that expands when you tap it. What else the phone can do is covered in The Phone in the Game.