ISLANDERS

This game is a casual, low pressure puzzle game, where the goal is to place pieces (buildings, etc) on a procedurally generated island to score points, and try to score as many points as possible before running out of pieces. You start by drawing a few pieces. You can place them freely, and you have to meet a certain amount of score before you can draw more. As long as you keep hitting that score, you can keep drawing more pieces. If you run out of pieces, it's game over. The points you score depend on the synergies with other buildings and features of the island (trees, etc). For example, a lumber mill will score one extra point for each tree nearby, but will lose points if there are other lumber mills nearby. There are dozens of buildings and synergies to explore. After a certain number of points, you can leave the current island and a new empty one will be generated. This game compares well with Dorfromantik (also a great casual game, btw). Islanders is slightly less polished and the graphics are more basic and controls are a little bit clunkier, but that does not detract from the fun. There are only two real downsides to Islanders, IMHO, but these are minor. First, sessions tend to be very, very long, because if you "play to win", you can aggressively leverage placement mechanics to score massive points and stay alive for ages, and then strategically bail out of the island once scoring becomes hard. This resulted in multi-hour sessions for me (thankfully, you can save the game and continue later). The other downside is that your creations are ephemeral. Because they don't persist, so you will probably care less about aesthetics. I found myself making ugly clumps of buildings just for the score, whereas in Dorfromantik I cared (probably way too much) about aesthetics. It is not bad, just different. Islanders is still a solid game on its own merits: a unique and nice casual game that won't wow you, but will put a smile on your face.

It's cheap and fun. It's one of those games, like townscaper, that will allow you to pass the time pleasantly. The soundtrack is relaxing, the graphics gentle and the game itself chilled. You go from island to island, placing items. You place them to get the maximum number of points each time. Placing a brewery next to a field gives more points than placing the brewery with no fields nearby. You can also get negative points if it's close to something else. If, after placing all the items, you don't meet the minimum number of points on the island, the game ends. Replayability is high. Very high. For those of us who want to while away half an hour in peace, with a mild challenge, this is a game that will suit.

A light city builder with 2 game modes: sandbox, to build whatever wherever, and Highscore, whicl asks you to place buildings strategically to maximize score. Both modes are very fun, easy to understand and hard to master. Sandbox islands can be saved and there is a decent photo mode. It was all very relaxing, as I love the building aspect of city builders more than the economics.

Oh my goodness, what a neat and elegant little game! It's a procedural puzzle game that looks and feels like a town-bulding strategy game. You place buildings closer or further away from other already-placed buildings to maximize the number of points you get. It's simple to get into, but there are really nice strategic layers as you learn the possible relationships between buildings and learn to plan ahead for what you may or may not be able to do in the future if you put that thing right there right now. For example, one interesting wrinkle is that order of placement matters; and moreover, that's the only thing that matters. It's good to place a wall next to things, but it's bad to place things next to alread-existing walls. It's OK if your town clears out all the forests next to a lumber mill, because you already took advantage of the forest when you placed the lumber mill (less OK if your town plan involves buildings that don't like lumber mills, of course) What I really love is how these relatively simple rules basically pull you into being part of the procedural generation. By the time you're done with an island, you have procedurally generated a neat and organic looking town just by trying to optimize for points. The constraints of the map shapes and the building shapes work together to introduce slightly different quirks to your towns (for example, making sure that it's usually not optimal to keep all your building orientations to a rigid grid). It does get a bit same-y after, you know, 20 hours and a bunch of islands... I probably will never actually get through the 21 islands that the "high score" mode suggests, just because it would take sooo long. But for a tiny puzzle game like this, I am totally fine with that. I would definitely buy the developer's other games if they ever come to GOG!