There used to a way to advance in the game on the first island by mining for gems, building a quarry for crystals to build a shrine, and getting hide using a wizard scroll. Have they made it impossible to gain gems on your first island? I've tried finding update notes/logs but the devs haven't posted anything that I can find since 3.0.0

Before anyone tells me to just do the single island challenge, I don't like the timer at the bottom, and I don't like the spawn rates for it. Not to mention landfill is disabled in single island challenge mode. I'd rather just play on hard mode without buying any islands. But if they've disabled gem drop chance without buying an island then there's no point. I just want to know if I'm wasting my time.

EDIT: I found the update notes through steam. They're just hidden underneath the v2.0.0 update log as a mega-thread. I also finally got a gem. I just have abysmal luck apparently lol