Island Saver: a great game for kids and adults alike
Island Saver is an open world task-based game where you are in charge of cleaning up the island from litterbugs while saving ecosystems and learning basic economic life lessons along the way. Sounds boring right? Wrong! The game is so much fun that you will barely notice that you're actually learning as you play!
Its a quick game, I finished all three free levels to 100% within a day, so if you have a short attention span for video games (like I do with story-based games), this game is definitely for you! If you really enjoy it, you can purchase 2 additional islands from the Microsoft Store*.
The first island area you land on (I wasn't really paying attention to the storyline, I'm assuming you're some sort of space ranger out to save the world from Litterbugs) teaches you the ins-and-outs of how to play the game (i.e. tutorial mode) and then as you clear trash and wash the gunk away with your Trash Blaster it unlocks other areas of the island. As you clear each section of the area, a new and exciting animal (known as "bankimals" - you'll see) will show up, as you feed them they cash out (again, you will see) and once they're all cashed out and all the trash / gunk removed you get to move on to the next area of the island. I did find harvesting the trees/bushes and feeding the bankimals made them fill faster, than if you just let the plant naturally drop it's food and the bankimals eat as they wish.
play - in later levels you have to collect the poop to turn into fertilizer for the more exotic plants to grow (instead of just watering them like you do in the early levels).
Likewise there are some special bankimals you need to unlock in order to find hidden areas / items (20 eggs per island) and to make travelling between areas easier, unlike the other bankimals you have to befriend these ones first before you can use and summon them (with your fancy space suit arm communicator - screen capture to the right).
Like all games you have to find hidden items (in this case 20 eggs per island), and annoyingly have to sometimes back-track to get items you need to advance to the next area (usually special seeds you can only get by trading with a parrot), and you will constantly run out of storage space (even with depositing / recycling), but that seems to be common amongst most games, am I right?!
Making Economics Fun
From banking to buying to exchanging to trading to getting loans and paying the loans back and being taxed. Its tough to make those things educational but in a way that doesn't feel educational in a game. You know? I'm sure even little kids understand the concept of earning, spending, saving, etc. This game just makes it "inclusive" for kids. Example:
In this game you're basically an environmental clean-up person who gets paid to recycle and plant trees to encourage re-growth and re-population of animals on an island. Simple: You do the work, you get paid. Just like in real life, the tax man collects a percentage of your earnings (which you can use to empty your recycle bins and unlock tools, etc.).
Here you store your earnings, but in some cases you can't always afford the tools/items/areas you need and will have to borrow money from the bank. Just like in real life the bank collects interest on your loan(s) (that you automatically pay back as you continue earning in the game).
There are three (four if you count tax tokens) different currencies that I noticed, one is your standard currency (gold coin) then some bankimals use 2 other currencies that you have to go to an exchange machine to convert. Just like in real life the exchange rate is constantly fluctuating, so sometimes you'll make more coins then what you put in, other times it will come out equal and sometimes you'll get back less! C'est la vie!
The fun part is using your arm communicator thingy, to open your encyclopedia, summon animals and buy in-store goodies like hats, paint guns, blaster upgrades, seeds and other in-game tools you need. (Note to parents: you're using in-game tokens you collect / trade to make purchases of in-game items, they're NOT using real money or buying real items). Its literally like shopping on Amazon.com** - they even "verify" your purchase and send this cute little flying robot to drop off your crate to your location in the game (so you don't have to chase it down like in some other games)!
There's a pig-like creature you can exchange seeds / plant droppings (for the lack of a better word!) for coins and later in the game you have to collect items to create fertilizer for exotic plants... which you also have to collect various items to exchange the parrot in order to get the exotic seeds to plant.
Fun fact: The parrot will ask for 3 items, initially I thought you had to get a few of each of the items, but found out by accident that you can use ANY of the requested items to tip his scales. For example: if he's asking for an acorn, a chicken leg and a star fruit, instead of getting a handful of each item, you can just get 20 acorns and fill his scale for the seeds he's offering. Unlike the fertilizer machine - that you have to get 1 of each of the requested items - it'll checkmark off the ones you've collected and submitted.
What else can I say about this game? Its fun, its educational, its quick and doesn't require much brainpower, it has a little bit of humor but covers a lot of real-world topics, the controls are basic and its not JUST for kids, literally anyone can play and enjoy this game!
Try it for yourself and let me know what you thought in the comments!
*I am not sponsored or affiliated with Microsoft, the link is to where you can buy/download the game if you're interested in playing. I'm an Xbox ultimate subscriber so I got the game for free with my Game Pass.
** I am not sponsored or affiliated with Amazon, I'm just using their name as a common reference to online shopping that most of the world is familiar with.
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