Forest Island

 

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Take a relaxing cruise on the steamboats to: Forest Island

Today I bring to you a simple game full of animals. You start with a tiny island and you grow it by collecting light and hearts. As you expand the island you unlock more animals the rate of collection increases. There are many different objectives that pop up that give you bonuses but some of these require you to watch Ads to collect.

There is a daily log in full of bonuses. The tickets give you a time skip to gain a time skip for collecting light or hearts. The chests are the main way you get more cards of the animals you already have or have a chance to get special alternate colored animals that give you massive boost to light or heart production.

This is the main island you start off with. As far as I can tell this island is a set design and there is no randomness to its design There are several things going on here and I will break down what I can on this screen. At the top, you see several currencies. The first number with the paw is the total number of animals you have. The second is the hearts given by clicking on animals. Hearts are used to upgrade the level of your animals to make them collect more light. The box in the middle is the light you collected and this is what you use to upgrade the island. The hexagonal button on the bottom of the screen you can quickly upgrade by clicking on the red button or you can click the double up arrow to upgrade any part you want if you have enough light. Next are these green egg-like objects is used to upgrade special upgrades that I will cover later in this blog, which you can get these from the quest button under the trophy. The Trophy is a list of achievements. The last two buttons are the shop icon and a mail system which will sometimes send you updates about the game. Lastly is a rainbow gem that is used to buy extra chests from the shop menu. This is a premium currency that has very limited uses.

These tasks are the main way you gain rainbow gems for free. This game is very generous in earning premium currency.

Lastly, quests are ever-green and are the main way you collect the green eggs. These quests you can only have one at a time but this is the only way you can get these eggs.

The shop has many different things you can purchase or you can gain free chests as well here once a day. You can also buy gems as well under the next tab. 

There is an egg that shows up. Once a day you can hatch the egg for a chance to unlock a special bird that gives you very big boosts for every bird you own.

There are many birds you can collect but there is a very low chance of getting one when you hatch an egg. You do have a chance to get free chests or other rewards. You have the option to watch videos to reduce the timer until another egg appears but there seems to be a daily limit of eggs as well.

I now return to the big button at the bottom of the screen. As you progress along it takes a large amount of light to unlock a new part of the island.

When you click on the growth tab, you come to a list of very big upgrades that affect everything about your progress. These upgrades are ones you need to focus on for the most progress in this game.

When you buy a new island you get a small cutscene for each animal you unlock. This also brings you back to 'meditate' mode where you can sit back and watch the animals play and just listen to the music.

One of the quests you get from time to time is to enter into picture mode. You gain bonus light for taking pictures of the animals on the island. It doesn't seem to matter what you capture, it gives the same amount of light every time.

You access this menu by clicking on the paw button hidden at the bottom of the screen. As you level up the animals they boost the light each part of the island produces. Sadly at this time, it is very difficult to gain up hearts to level up all the animals.

The rare animal tab shows you all the cards you have collected to unlock them. Every level of the rare animal adds an extra animal that acts as the base animal per island. The more animals you have the more times the multiplier counts towards light collection.

Overall:

 4 of 5 cogs.

This is a chill game that claims to be relaxing. A lot of the time you're waiting offline to collect light or hearts. Other than waiting, there isn't much you can do but watch the screen. Sometimes you can collect coins from cleaning up bits of corruption on the islands.

Story:

 0 of 5 cogs.

This is the story you are looking for.

Amount of ads:

 optional only.

There are no ads that pop up except for the optional ads you can watch for the various rewards or advancement.

Accurate Advertising?:

💯%

I've seen this game advertised many times and the ads never really show much, but from what is shown exact screenshots from this game.

Graphics:

 4 of 5 cogs.

Graphics are very simple and follow a simple shading style like many indy games I have seen lately. The animations for the animals are well designed and look fairly realistic.

Gameplay:

 4 of 5 cogs.

The game consists of simple tap controls. There isn't much you can really do in this game but try to make the numbers grow and idle as you watch animals moving around their small sections of the island. I considered giving this game a much lower ranting for gameplay but it has some simple charms to it. I doubt anyone will play this one for too long sadly.

Free play:

💯%

This game is very generous to those that play for free. You can collect rainbow gems just by playing and completing objectives and working to unlock everything. There are some balance issues that do make the game feel bogged down a lot as you progress and soon will become stuck waiting for enough light to continue on.

Fun factor:

☃ Chilly.

Are you an indy programmer or game dev?

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