Islanders Review

I can honestly say that strategy games where you are building towns, farms, parks, fields etc aren’t usually my genre of choice. Most of the time they stress me out. So for the most part I usually avoid them. But once I started playing Islanders, I had a totally different experience. I am shocked that I am so addicted to this relaxing and zen-like puzzle building game. 

Islanders has two play modes available; high score or sandbox mode. High score has you competing with other players online to get as high as you can on the leaderboard, or if you are like me, competing with members of your own household to see who is the best builder/city planner around. If you just want to build and expand to multiple islands, Sandbox mode is for you.

You start with a random island, it could have tons of trees, beaches, rocks or snow. Each island is different and shows up at random. At that point, you are presented with a choice of two things to build. Could be a city, or a type of industry like a farming pack, lumber, mining, just to name a few of the options. I recommend choosing this based on the type of island you have. If it’s full of rocks and snow, choosing an option that requires sand will not be a fun time for you. Once you have chosen it is building time.

To be successful in Islanders, you have to meet the goal score on the left-hand side of the screen. While placing your buildings and objects you will get points based on its location. As you move around the island you will be able to see how many points you receive if you were to place it right there. Each object has a base score that it is worth, but if you put it near a house, city centre, trees or one of the other objects listed it can be worth more. But be sure you don’t place it near the items that will take points away from you. When you hit the goal, more buildings and packs will be available to choose from. So it’s worth strategising based on what you have placed already, which of the industries and buildings will work well with the ones you have. Not much use getting into the lumber industry if you’ve destroyed all the trees or if there aren’t any to cut down. It will be hard to get the necessary points needed to get to the required goal. If you don’t manage to reach the goal before you run out of buildings your run is done and you will have to start over again.

After you have established multiple industries and have gotten the required number of points, Islanders gives you the option to jump to a new island to build on. You don’t have to jump over as soon as it pops up. You can continue to place the other buildings and items in your pack that you have available to get more points. As a warning, because I have done this multiple times, make sure you jump over to the new island before you place your last structure if you know you aren’t going to make the point goal. If you don’t you will game over and you will lose all the progress you have made so far. Hopping to the new island is a way to start building something new and keep adding to your score. 

Once you start playing Islanders you realise how simple the game looks and how easy the gameplay really is. Some of it is based on luck on what packs and items you are randomly offered, but the majority of your success will depend on your placement of these structures. It is worth the time to move around the map to see exactly which location will give you the most points. One spot might give you five points, but if you move over a few inches it will jump up to 15 points. Since there is no time limit, I highly recommend taking your time to explore the full island instead of plopping it down in the first spot that it fits. You can use the shoulder buttons on your controller to rotate the object to make it fit in the space better. Plus this helps you take advantage of structures like the tower or fountain to make more room for buildings to fit in it’s radius. Plus not to mention it makes your settlement look a lot nicer.

Islanders is easily the most addictive game I have played this year. If you are on a good run it could take a couple of hours before you get a game over, but it could also end very fast depending on your strategy or lack-there-of. Islanders does let you save the game if you need to quit, so you can continue on your island the next time you are able to play. So far my high score has been 2048 which has me ranked at 608 on the online leaderboard, and unfortunately second in my house. I have to keep trying to capture the high score once again and travel to more than five different islands.

I am looking forward to returning to the island to build and plan my settlements with the chill and relaxing soundtrack the game offers and I highly recommend this game to anyone who loves strategy games, who wants a relaxing game that doesn’t require a big time commitment and love trying to get a high score against others.