THIS POST CONTAINS POSSIBLES SPOILERS WHICH IS WHAT THE SP IN THE TITLE MEANT READ AT YOUR OWN RISK OF SPOILAGE

When I first entered my village with all my high expectations, I was quite excited. Here's what went through my little head as I opened the puzzle board, read tech descriptions and looked around

Woohoo, orange birds and what is this a picture of an arrow on the puzzle board. Cool, I learn how to hunt.

A piece of the gong in the pond? Woohoo, I guess later I could get some rope to fish it out or maybe find some bamboo for breathing apparatus. Hmm, sitting by the pond fishing will be nice.

Oh, a raft picture! (I found out later this was the dam )
Yay, so they build a raft.

Writing on the wall? Hmm, that must mean that I need a teacher combined with some culture and maybe there'll be something in that crate that will help decipher it....
And when I decipher it, I can find out more about the island.

Wooohoooo this IS exciting.

Coconut trees and new ways to farm mentioned in tech? GREAT! And arrows in a circle? Cool, I get to learn sustainable farming and crops rotation, yay, hopefully that means that unlike the berries my coconuts will grow faster. And what other new ways of farming do they mean? This IS intriguing!

Cool! Collections? Yay, maybe later they'll build a Museum of something. I guess the Museum could be a part of the writing puzzle, that would be cool. And when you've discovered the translation you could be that (and the collections of course) in there.

Hmm,culture. Maybe there'll be weddings or something, and hopefully now that we have family history, there'll be no hillbillies running around.

So, those were some of my intial thoughts and what I thought the puzzles could be before I played.
The rest of the puzzles I figured out pretty straight away or didnaturally like build the sewing hut.
I know someone mentioned to me that they thought the vines could help with climbing the trees, which is basically how a lot of people do climb trees.

What were other people's first impressions?

Hi Lady Emz!

When I saw the crate I thought it was a dock. I thought perhaps one of the new engineering techs would allow my villagers to build a boat.

I think the "S.S. Minnow" would be a good name for a boat.

I thought that they would use the shells and the sticks to make arrows and go exploring to hunt. I figured the box had some tools in it. I also assumed that the vines would be used to get the gong piece out of the pond, or that they would make a diving board to go deeper. The area by the ugly herb was interesting to me, and I thought it would have more purpose than just the dry grass.

I thought upon seeing my village for the first time that the gong piece in the water was a fossil of some kind.

I thought the crate was a raft of some kind so they could deep sea fish or something to catch unusual fish or the whale meat some of them like.

You've never lived around coconut palms have you, Emz? You can't use a vine to climb them. Ropes are for hardwoods (and even then you have to know how to shimmy up like a coon hunter, or use spikes, to get a start. Then you can use the rope to belay down). A coconut palm you shimmy up, just like our villagers do. Wear rugged clothing though, because it's a rough ride down!!

Nope, can't say I have. Though I am aware that mostly they are climbed or shimmied up, the only time I ever saw someone climb a coconut tree was in real life, in Hawaii.

Similar to this: http://eecevents.tripod.com/album/various/palmclimbthumb.jpg or this one from India: http://www.benbeall.com/34staffclimber.jpg

EDIT: Not sure if the first link works, but I just talked to be boyfriend who lived in Sri Lanka for nine years and he said they use ropes there too, just like I mentioned.

Oh, another thing I first though while collecting the firewood right at the start is that it would run out and that the villagers (perhaps builders) would have to cut and/or find their own firewood. Of course, there would have been no problems with lack of wood as I thought they'd learn sustainable farming

That is exactly what i thought...a fossil to be retrieved later on...boy was i wrong

The first link isn't working... I see what you mean though, using the rope for a harness. Or usually, those are Nylon Straps now. Those are generally used with spikes on the shoes, and can get you up any kind of tree safely and easily. You can probably shimmy up quicker if you're good, but if you're doing it for a living you probably don't want the skinned up shins and forearms that go along with it. Plus, the harness is about the only way to get up a large trunked tree, if there are no low-laying branches.

I thought you were talking about a long length of climbing rope, which is usually taken up with the climber, so you can tie off at the top, belay down, then use it to pull the tree when falling, or for lowering branches you've cut. You could also that rope to climb up the tree again, if you're not falling it.

I worked as an arborist in South Carolina, trimming hardwoods, and that is how we climbed trees most of the time, with a harness and spikes. I was never that patient though, so I would just shimmy up small trees without equipment, like a 'coon hunter, is how people described it.

When I moved to the Islands (the Florida Keys) though, I never saw anybody climb a coconut palm with a harness. They are slimmer trees, so shimmying up just seemed the natural thing to do. Of course, coconuts aren't harvested commercially there. We just grab 'em to make drinks out of, and sell to tourists.