The Island Castaway Free to Play
G5 Games continues moving their popular franchises to social platforms – from Virtual City Playground to Secret Society to Stand O’Food Empire, the games add to the original experience while extending the gameplay to many hours. Now another of my favorite franchises – is out as The Island Castaway: Lost World is a free-to-play social game for the iPad!
Type of app: Social Hidden Object Game
Platform/where to buy: iPad; available in the iTunes App Store
Developer: Sampad Games / G5 Entertainment
Description:
* A stunning tropical island to explore
* Over 260 challenging quests to complete
* 19 types of resources to prep and store
* 13 original and engaging characters to meet
* 11 delicious native dishes to master
* Five magic potions to concoct: protective, transfer, speed, immortality and spirit protection
* Five farms to build: a fish farm, crab farm, clay pit, liana farm and quail farm
* Collections of trophies and statues to piece together
* Regular game updates to keep you fascinated for months
Major features:
When I reviewed The Island Castaway nearly two years ago I was effusive with praise, saying:
There wasn’t a single thing I didn’t enjoy – voice acting was well done, music was enjoyable, the tasks made sense and were well paced, and the game itself was fun from start to finish. I spent a bunch of hours – because I was obsessive about getting gold trophies and about picking everything up that I found. It was a blast!
You are a survivor on an island with fellow survivors and a native population. In this real-time strategy survival game you need to eat, learn recipes, work tools, plant and harvest crops, complete tasks for others and so on. Creating food takes time – which you can speed up using crystals.
The big difference in this game is that it is ‘free to play’ (F2P) – meaning that the developers look for different ways for you to pay for the game. In this case, everything requires crystals or gems, and you get some throughout the game by completing objectives. But you will often be running low on crystals and run out of inventory space – and the easy solution is to buy more space.
Ease of use/Overall performance:
The Island Castaway: Lost World feels like a hybrid of the first and second games, wrapped up in a F2P package. Both of those games offered simple and accessible gameplay options that work perfectly and only feel more refined in the new game. Controls are simple and straightforward, with everything explained and introduced in a way that makes sense.
Since you have to wait for recipes and traps, I liked how the game provided feedback when things completed and would allow you to ‘fast travel’ to locations.
Would use again/recommend?: Definitely! For me, this is entirely in my ‘F2P comfort zone’. I never felt starved for resources but at the same time the game made it clear you would always be resource constrained. It is loads of fun that is never constrained by the pay model.
Suggested changes/wish list for updates: Nothing
Source: Publisher provided review code
Price: Free download with in-app item purchase
Here is the trailer:
