Time Played: 7.1 Hours
I went into Grizzly Games' game Islanders assuming it would be too relaxed for me to enjoy. This casual city building sim, released in 2019, has the player build small cities on a series of islands. Despite simple mechanics, Islanders is surprisingly absorbing with relentless difficulty.
The player starts on a single island, with a single building pack. A building pack, when clicked, separates into two to five buildings. The player places the buildings on the island. At first, placing the buildings is fun, in and of itself. The visual effects, while simple, are pleasing, as buildings of different types cluster in small communities.
Quickly, the player transitions to considering points. To receive another building pack, the player must earn a certain amount of points. Each building earns points based on their proximity to specific other builds (or occasionally, terrain). When selecting a building to place, the interface indicates how many points neighboring builds earn. For example, an early building, the Lumberjack, earns one point for every tree within a certain distance (though there is an error, because the Lumberjack claims to earn three points for every tree). A central building is the City Center, which earns many common buildings points. A city, composed of a City Center, Houses, and Mansions is a crucial source of points. Not all buildings want to be near a City Center. The Shaman loses points if too close to a City Center. Each building has a different radius size for checking nearby features. This is clearly indicated with a translucent blue sphere which surrounds the building as the player maneuvers to place it.
Each time the player earns enough points Islanders offers them two choices. Early on the player sees the same packs, like Seaweed Pack, Lumber Pack, Brewing Pack, Shaman Pack, Fisher Pack, and City Pack. As the player uses the early building packs they unlock mid-game, and late game packs with more valuable buildings. Building Packs are not uniform. Across eight Lumber packs, I saw eight different configurations of buildings including one with a Sawmill, two Lumberjacks, and three seaweed fields, the second with a Sawmill, a lumberjack, and four houses, and a third with a Sawmill and five Lumberjacks. The cost of unlocking new packs rises to keep pace with the higher building values. If the player doesn't earn enough points, and runs out of buildings, they must start a new island from scratch. Earning a high value of points lets the player advance to a new island. Whether on a restart or an advance, the island is empty and the player deploys the starting building packs. Advancing to a new island retains the player's points. It challenges them to reach a new high score and advance again. Later islands don't differ from earlier islands. All islands are randomly generated (or picked from a pre-generated collection), and come in a variety of sizes and types. Islanders features grass islands, sandy islands, snow islands, small archipelagos, large islands, tiny islands, forested islands, and mountainous islands.
Regardless of victory or failure, once the player has left an island, they can never revisit.
The above description may makeIslanders seem like a simple game. The mechanics are, but the scoring system punishes thoughtless play. Careful planning is required to advance from island to island. First, the player must choose the superior Building Packs for their situation. City Packs, with their City Center buildings are essential to score points. Counter point; on archipelagos or forested areas focus on Fisher Packs, Mason Packs, or Lumber Packs to build a resource economy, instead of a large city. After selecting a building to place, Islanders displays a pale blue orb around it. As the player moves the building around, a number appears on the piece, indicating how many points it would earn. Buildings have different point proximity, including massive areas like the Tower or Balloon, and tiny ranges, like the Mansions, which only score points for adjacent buildings.
The placing order of buildings matter, barely. Once a building is placed, its point value can't change. A Lumberjack earns one point for each nearby tree. If the player crushes a tree with a later building, the Lumberjack doesn't lose a point. While many buildings are symbiotic, only the newly placed building earns points. For example, two buildings that want to be next to each other, like the City Center and the Mansion might earn different points. A City Center earns four points when placed next to a Mansion, while a Mansion earns eight points when built near a City Center. Yet, this rarely is an issue, as the player can't afford to store-up enough buildings to choose the order of their placement.
Despite the implicit idea of Farming Packs, Fishing Packs, and Brewing Packs, Islanders contains no food requirement. Nor do Brick Industry, Warehouses, or Gold Mines, imply a resource requirement, Shamans and Temples suggest a religious requirement, or Resorts, Circuses, or Parks infer a leisure requirement. The only matter of Islanders is points, and all buildings earn points by neighboring specific buildings and terrain.
Hopefully this explanation has dispelled the idea that Islanders is a simple game. If it still seems straightforward, consider overcrowding. This is the game losing issue in later levels. The most common source of points are cities. City Centers are the core of these, since Houses and Mansions (both common buildings) earn significant points from their proximity. Small cities are composed entirely of these three buildings. But in the middle and late game the player unlocks packs like Jewelers, Towers, Circuses, and Temples. Each of these contain buildings that earn a monstrous number of points. To advance, the player must fit them into their cities. But each of these are humongous buildings. If the player has packed their city too tight, the valuable buildings will end up on the outskirts, earning only a handful of points. This deficit will prevent the player from advancing. A skilled player must continually keep these buildings in mind as they play, leaving spacing in their city for the larger landmarks. They must sacrifice a small amount of points early on, to ensure a massive reward later. But if they sacrifice too many points they won't reach the later buildings.
Across seven hours I played sixteen islands. On my last and best attempt, I reached the eighth island, earning a peak of 13,463 points. The Steam Achievements indicate that the final level is the 21st island.
In Conclusion,
Islanders is much more than a boring tile placement game. It's a casual game that challenges the player to build a civilization in a constrained area. It's a tough puzzle game hidden in cute, unassuming graphics. It's a game that demands planning twenty turns in advance to achieve success. Paradoxically, Islanders is a relaxed experience that doesn't promote stress. It starts simply, teaching the player its concise mechanics. Failure is a learning experience. Starting anew is quick and easy. The result is always a charming island with its clusters of buildings. The variety of buildings, and the various strategies they enable makes Islanders an archipelago worth exploring.
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