If Sunday morning Lo-Fi and Good Vibes was a game, it would be ISLANDERS: Console Edition. With the portability of the Nintendo Switch, this game is best enjoyed in bed, on the couch, or snuggled up in your favorite chair with a nice drink, some calming music, and all your worries in a separate room. Developer Grizzly Games (and publisher Coatsink), has created a simple puzzle game with simple mechanics that let you stylize your world how you like and, while your main goal is to combine building elements to rack up high scores, the sandbox mode takes all that pressure away to allow the island city-builder in you to let your inspiration and freedom run wild.
Story
In ISLANDERS: Console Edition, your purpose is to construct an island that is both visually pleasing and environmentally functional. While you don’t see the impact that your city planning has on its imaginary residents, your goal is to build enough points as a city planner to take a new contract for another island, where you will puzzle through different building types and flesh out this new locale is an endless loop that only stops when you’re unable to generate enough points to purchase new buildings. You build your way to renown, allowing you to move from island to beautiful island in an endless game loop that will quickly steal a few hours from your day.
Gameplay & Mechanics
In the classic mode, ISLANDERS: Console Edition is more of a roguelike puzzle game than a city planner. Each level you are given a choice of two sets of building packs and must choose one, which gives you a random assortment of buildings to place. Each building comes with its own bonuses and synergies with other buildings that you must combine in order to increase your score. Every time you reach your Score Goal, you are awarded another choice between two packs, which contain more buildings to be placed around your island. As your score increases so does your progress to unlocking the next island. But once the next stage is available, you can still develop your current island and generate as many points as possible, because your points will carry over to the next island in an endless loop until you don’t have enough points to earn another pack.
While gameplay is fairly simple; place a hut here and a lumber mill there, you truly have to plan ahead as you can only undo your most recent placement, so if you set a city down on one side of your island, but then get pieces that would work a lot better if you city was somewhere else, then tough luck. You’ll only be able to undo your most recent placement and nothing before that. When it comes to placement, each building has its own sphere of influence. A city center, for example, has a very large sphere while a plot of farmland has a very small sphere. In order to get your synergy bonuses, you’ll have to make sure your building’s spheres of influence connect, which means Tetrising your randomly shaped houses and mansions into the tightest nooks possible, which can be a little infuriating considering pieces do not snap into place; you’ll just have to keep twisting and rotating until red hopefully turns to green.
Aesthetics & Sound
Developer Grizzly Games does a wonderful job creating a simple isometric style to their game that is both inviting and visually pleasing. No flashing lights or camera shakes. Just a simple enough color palette where you’ll always know what you’re looking at. It’s a beautiful space with soft sounds playing in the backdrop to relax you as your island slowly develops before your eyes. The buildings are recognizable-enough between one-another where you won’t have to struggle to remember if that is a house, a hut, or a lumber yard.
While this is where the game’s greatest strength shows itself, it is also its biggest weakness. There is a certain level of verticality to ISLANDERS: Console Edition where you might want to place a building on a high cliff or the side of the mountain. Due to the camera having no Y-axis control, you are forced to work with a limited view angle in certain areas and, without the ability to snap buildings into place, this can make placing some structures extremely difficult in a game where structure placement is the key to success.
Summary
Grizzly Games did an amazing job with ISLANDERS: Console Edition. It is a simple game with a simple premise and an addictive enough gameplay loop where you can easily get lost in. While the camera controls and the ability to snap structures in place are glaring shortcomings, they’re not enough to keep you from enjoying what is in front of you. Post your high scores and compete against the world, or flick on sandbox mode and just enjoy the day. However you decide to play ISLANDERS: Console Edition, you’ll find plenty of relaxing fun to be had.
8/10
Check Out the ISLANDERS: Console Edition Trailer:
For more information, visit the official website.
Nintendo Switch Review
As the (self-proclaimed) King of Casuals, I'm always seeking out new titles to play and experience across all platforms. Eventually, I have ambitions to take the many different styles of this medium to create titles that will wow the masses in fresh, innovative ways.
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