Islandville: A New Home

[i]Islandville: A New Home[/i] is a time management game developed and published by Best Friend Games. You take on the roles of Captain Jack and his wife Mary. They're setting off on an oceanic journey to discover new lands, only to end up on a tropical island. The couple decides to help the inhabitants on the island by building homes (like huts) and resource production buildings (like sawmills). Along the journey, they may meet other characters, such as pirates who demand gold and such. That's the basic gist of the story. As for the gameplay, there are a total of 60 levels, which include both story and bonus levels. You can choose from among three difficulty modes: relaxed, normal, or expert. (For review purposes, I chose to play on normal mode.) In each level, you're given a number of tasks to complete (like building homes, repairing bridges, freeing workers, etc.), and assuming that you play on timed mode, you can earn up to 3 stars, depending on how quickly you complete all of the tasks. In each story level, there is a hidden puzzle piece where, upon gathering all the pieces, you can assemble them to complete the puzzle. Also, there are Steam/in-game achievements although at the time of this review, they won't count towards a user's global total until the game is out of "profile features limited". Now that I've gone over the story and gameplay, I'll move onto my critique. Time management games are one of my favorite genres (probably, my second favorite after visual novels), so [i]Islandville[/i] caught my interest when I saw it was available on Steam. First, I enjoyed the story. It gives off that fun, adventurous theme going on, and Jack and Mary are great main characters who want to help the island's inhabitants. Since there isn't anything really surprising about them, they might be considered a bit on the bland side. However, the story gives off a light-hearted vibe. However, the core of this game is its gameplay, so I'll move onto that. I didn't find any technical issues, and as I played through, I found the levels to be very doable to complete and earn 3 stars. (On expert mode, this might be different, but as I haven't played on that mode, I can't comment on it.) The strategy guide is a good reference if you're struggling to get through a level, but I did initially find it a bit difficult to locate on the level itself (and it doesn't help that the game doesn't explain where it is). For the most part, the puzzle pieces are doable to find although I found that if you inadvertently build in places near where the puzzles pieces are, you may no longer be able to click on them. I found this a bit frustrating and felt that the puzzle pieces should be placed where they'd be far enough away from building areas. Steam achievements are very doable to obtain, so I didn't struggle with them. As for the art style, [i]Islandville[/i] has a slightly cartoony style, which tends to be the par for TMs. I liked the use of bright colors (but not overly bright), and the backgrounds and sprites were well done. In regards to the soundtrack, there are only a couple of tracks, so there isn't much variety. However, the tracks present fit well with the tropical island theme of the game. Overall, would I recommend [i]Islandville: A New Home[/i]? If you like time management games and want to find one that is doable to complete, this one is worth taking a look. It is the first TM from this developer, and I feel like they did a good job of making it fun and enjoyable. For the asking price, I'd recommend holding off for a bit of a sale, as it took me around 8.5 hours to obtain all of the achievements. However, it's worth considering. ^^ [quote]Flying free and writing reviews solely for [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/44702020/]The Introverted Gamer[/url].[/quote]