Islanders Review
A lot of the games that people talk about are huge. Between special editions, season passes, and always-on live-service games, the games that are at the forefront of the discussion are going to cost you a lot of time and money. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, but sometimes you don’t want to have a huge meal. Sometimes you want a little snack. Sometimes you need a change of pace, and that’s where fantastic indie games like Islanders shine.
Islanders is the latest release from the Grizzly Games, a three person studio out of Germany. At first glance, Islanders looks like a colorful city builder game, but it quickly reveals that it’s also a unique puzzle game with interesting twists on the two genres, making it something much more enjoyable than either of the two would be on their own.
As soon as you start playing Islanders, you see how it sets itself apart. At the start of each new game, you are given two things. The first thing you get is an island. The islands in Islanders are all procedurally generated, meaning that behind the scenes some arcane and unknowable math formula decides what the features of the island are. You could get a verdant island in the middle of a calm sea or a snowy island made up of massive cubes of stone or a series of small islands barely big enough to hold a few houses. This process of island creation gives players a wide variety of spaces to play in and develop strategies for.
The second thing you get is a choice. When you start a new game, you have to pick between one of two “packs.” These packs contain a handful of buildings that you use to begin building your new city. The packs are typically based on a theme or industry, one might have a few lumberjack tents and a sawmill, while another has a city center and a few homes. As you place these buildings onto the island, you’re awarded points. How many points you get is decided by how well that building works with its surroundings. For example, a lumberjack tent is worth an extra point for every nearby tree. Other buildings get points from being near associated buildings, such as a sawmill receiving points for being near lumberjack tents. Almost every relationship between different buildings is immediately understandable, meaning you spend less time stressing about strategy and more time getting more points. Once you get enough points, you are given another choice between two more packs of buildings. You play those buildings, you get more points, you unlock more advanced packs to play with and eventually you unlock new islands to play on. When you unlock a new island, you aren’t forced to leave your current one right away, but you are able to move on whenever you like. Once you move to the new island, your total points score is saved but everything else is lost, starting you back at square one with the basic buildings on your new island. Eventually, you’ll run out of space or make a bad decision, and you’ll play your last building without reaching the points threshold. This is where the game ends. Your total score is uploaded to the global leaderboards and you can start again.
Playing Islanders is delightfully simple. Though it’s dressed as a city-builder, you don’t necessarily have to make a functional city. As long as you make sure each building is vaguely near the features or buildings that increase its point value, you can do almost anything you want. When putting houses near the city center, you can cram them together like Tetris pieces. A house with a front door that leads off a cliff is worth exactly the same number of points as any other. Because Islanders ignores these details, you can have more fun spending time creating cities in broad strokes. Additionally, the relaxing game play lets you focus on the interactions between buildings and come up with stories for your various districts. Several times, I didn’t realize I had unlocked a new building pack because I was focusing on the fun of creating a narrative around parts of my cities. It was fun to imagine the normal citizens celebrating the arrival of a new carnival or tavern in their neighborhood, while the distant nobles who reside in mansions turning their nose up at the raucous joy as they strolled through quiet parks and shopped for new jewelry.
Unfortunately, Islanders isn’t a perfect game. The simple play style that makes it fun and relaxing to play for even the shortest play session also makes it lackluster if you play it for longer stretches. Because you can get points from placing buildings in a wide variety of areas, you don’t have to worry about strategy, meaning your mind can wander to other activities. This is made worse by Islanders’ other big problem: though there are a wide variety of building packs to unlock, the most interesting and challenging ones are saved for later in each island. You’ll see 20 lumberjack tents before you see one temple or tavern, which is unfortunate because these later game buildings have connections and point bonuses unlike the earlier buildings. I think Islanders would be better if you could get these buildings earlier, especially because they take up a lot of space. I would also like a gallery where you could look at all the buildings you’ve unlocked so far and see all of their interactions with map features and other buildings.
Islanders will almost certainly never reach the same heights of popularity as traditional, big-budget games. It doesn’t have revolutionary graphics, thrilling gameplay or an excellent story. But that’s OK. The developers set out to make a fun and relaxing game and they succeeded spectacularly. There will always be a time and place for wonderful little gems like Islanders. Plus, it’s only $5, so how can you say no?
Buy this game at full price
It’s worth every penny they’re asking
