Captain Planet (Island Saver)

Game: Island Saver
Platforms: Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Windows
Played On: Xbox One
Price: Free!! (There is an extra level available for £3.99 if you want it)
Available on Xbox Game Pass or PS now: No

Have you ever wondered what would happen if a British bank wanted to make a kids game about recycling and the environment all while teaching the importance of saving money and the risk of loans?? You did?? Well then I have a treat for you, this is Island Saver, a 2020 release developed by Stormcloud Games and published by NatWest, yes that NatWest. I came across this game thanks to watching a twitch streamer (Brownman) playing it and it peaked my curiosity, and as it cost me nothing I thought why not, it’s something free in these harder times. Plus it gives me something to write about.

Some of you may be aware of a little game called Slime Rancher, and if not, this game has a very similar mechanics in that you have a sucker/blower gun and you suck up rubbish like plastic bottles and can and blow them into the relevant receptacles. You also pick up water and clean away grime from the island. Whilst doing this, wildlife will start to reappear and it’s your job to find their food and feed them to restore them to their colourful glory. Your reward for all this, money, or doubloons as their known in this game. This helps you unlock different areas and buy seeds to grow the food, but in this game you’re encouraged to save your coins.

In fact you have to open up an account (with a PIN number) for you to start putting your cash away but you do earn interest on your savings. Sadly the game decides to give you harsh life lessons and you have to pay tax, 1 coin in every 10 will go to the ‘Taxbot’ but on the plus side your ‘tax’ goes to helping improve the island your on so again, teaching younguns about where there tax goes, sadly it still doesn’t fix any potholes.

It raven has a loan system involved within the game, like most loan systems you get money and pay it back with interest. You can pay it back early for a smaller fee and if you’ve not saved enough money, you will miss payments. Paying early even give you the benefit of better loans in the future and missed payments means penalty fees and maybe not as good deals going forward. So again, teaching not to borrow what you can’t pay. There’s even an exchange policy as some animals give you a different currency that’s not doubloons, and it’s up to you to get the best deal. There is even a pert about the importance of charity. It’s quite impressive from a game by a bank.

There are enemies in the game, these are called litterbugs and aren’t too much of an issue but offer more of an inconvenience and can be defeated with the water very easily. But they do add an extra element to the game. They will if unattended create more mess so you’ll have to deal with them as and when they pop up. The only real downside is at times, the game puts the machines you need are a bit sparse or far away from what you’re doing so can mean a bit of going backwards and forwards. Also the jump controls leave a bit to be desired but nothing too frustrating

Overall, Island Saver is actually a very good game. It teaches very good life lessons to a younger audience and even as an adult it was a very chilled game to play. Of course if you’re stuck with a child at home during these times, it’s a free game to play through with them. It’s colour scheme is bright and graphically it’s solid. It is short but as I said it’s free so it’s going to be a good deal regardless. Yes we don’t have a game of the year contender on our hands here but we do have a solid few hours of fun, and all for the price of nothing.

7/10

As always let me know your thoughts here or follow me here or on Twitter @Peterlinsdell to throw abuse at me and keep up to date for all posts