Playa Games, known among browser game fans for Shakes and Fidget and (the by now rather dated) Bloodmoon, presented their latest title at this year’s Gamescom in Cologne. The free-to-play browser game Tiny Island offers players a pirate-themed RPG puzzle challenge.
A pirate’s life for me
Starting out as a small-time buccaneer on a remote, pirate-infested island, your task is to fight your way to the top and become the scourge of the Seven Seas. Of course, one thing any aspiring buccaneer needs is a ship, but early in the game, a good ship is hard to come by. Newbie pirates can get ahold of a basic rowboat at Honest Eddie’s Ship Bazaar, but you’ve got to win countless puzzle battles if you ever want to get behind the helm of a decent cog or cutter. But before you do anything else, you’re going to have to get your inventory up to speed. There’s a specialty shop where you can get all the sweet pirate gear you need, and at the Voodoo Outlet you can buy a variety of charms from a sexy voodoo priestess. These will help you during the puzzle battles against a series of grotesque and zany enemies, who use similar dirty tricks of their own. Enemies are constantly approaching your little island on rafts, in ships, in barrels, etc., and you’ll also have to contend with sharks and other giant sea monsters.
For each battle you win, you’re rewarded with experience points and gold, which you can also get from treasure chests randomly floating past the island. You can also sell gear, weapons, and charms that you don’t want anymore at the shops, though only for a fraction of the price you bought them for. You need hearts (there are 5 total) in order to fight against enemies, and these refill over time. If you use up all your hearts, you can use one of the precious pearls that serve as the game’s in-game currency. Each player receives 50 pearls at the beginning of the game, but every now and then you’ll get one – or rarely, even two – as a reward for defeating particularly difficult enemies.
But sooner or later the pretty little pearl diver will have you coming to her shop to buy more pearls. There’s a ton of different payment options, but I think many players will just choose PayPal when faced with such a daunting selection. You can also get small quantities of the precious stuff by doing things like completing surveys or installing and testing certain apps on your smartphone. Pearls are not only useful for entering into combat, but also for buying special magic potions like “Heart’s Blood”, which makes your hearts last twice as long for seven days. You can also use Pearls to get vendors to update their merchandise as you level up or buy out their stock. You can buy pretty much anything in the game using real money, but it’s not necessary to do so – if you don’t, however, it will significantly reduce the time you can play each day, and the selection at the shops will be pretty meager, too.
Like Candy Crush, without the candy
“Combat” takes place on an 8x8 field randomly adorned with three kinds of gemstones (red, blue, and green), skulls, coconuts, and gold coins. Similar to the gameplay in games like Candy Crush, you can switch any two items in order to create a row of at least three of the same type of item. Of course rows of four and five are even better, and they’ll get you an extra turn to boot. If it so happens that you run out of moves, the game field will reset, but this happens very rarely, and you can almost always at least make a row of three. If it takes you some time to make a move, the game will highlight pairs of items that can be switched, but it won’t always show you the best option, either. For each row that’s cleared, new gems, skulls, etc. come in from the top, which gives the game a random element. This can work to your great advantage, but it can also help your opponent. Sometimes what falls from the top of the screen is just what you need to make a sudden, game-changing move, and if pieces fall into a row of three or more, they’ll automatically be played, allowing chain attacks. “Sudden death” can take on a whole new meaning here, but you’d better hope it’s for your opponent!
Pirate puzzle
To attack, line up a row of three or more skulls. The strength your attack depends on the weapon you have equipped, proving that the game’s RPG elements aren’t just for show. The colored gems let you use the various voodoo charms you should have equipped to hurl a fireball at your enemy, poison him, temporarily hypnotize him, or even sap some of his health – some of them even help to regenerate your own health. Sometimes, depending on the enemy, these attacks might prove fruitless – for example poisonous spiders are not themselves so easy to poison. Coconuts provide experience points and the gold coins help you weigh down your own coffers, of course. Battles are also where pirates can get what is perhaps the most important thing of all for them – fame. Each player can decide whether they want to play offensively or defensively. If your health drops to 0, you’ll get one chance to use a pearl to magically fill some of it back up. If you do end up losing the battle after all, though, there is a little consolation prize in the form of gold and experience. The game relies a lot more on tactics than seems apparent at first, though, since each row you clear can set off a chain reaction that can make you rich or devastate your opponents. If you plan well, you can take out weaker enemies in just a round or two.
There are eight other islands to conquer, but the path to each is blocked by several enemies. To defeat some of them, you’re going to have to spend some time leveling your character up in the waters around your own tiny island. Depending on the level of your human, non-human (or half-human!) opponent, it might be worth your time to wait until you’re ready to fight them rather than trying to tackle them head-on. The highlight of the game, however, is competing against other human players. When a match against a human player is available, the crow’s nest on the island will hoist a pirate flag. The crow’s nest is almost like your island’s church tower, as it shows the time until the next available PvP match. Matches against human players are also made a little bit more difficult by the addition of a timer, which will damage a player if he or she doesn’t make a move fast enough. This means you’re going to have to practice, practice, practice. Also integrated into Tiny Island are in-game messages and a friends list – you can add any player character from then rankings or from your fight history to your friends list.
