islanders is a beautiful city builder of sorts, but you don't have to worry about anything other than placing available buildings where they give you the most points. it's still a good idea to think ahead a bit though.

here's how it works. you're presented with a randomly generated small island and a choice of two packs of buildings. choose one, check the tooltips to find out which buildings go or don't go together, and place them accordingly. once you reach enough points to level up (as seen in the bottom left corner), you can choose between two packs again, and eventually the island silhouette in the bottom right will fill up and you can move on to the next random island. I wish the game would tell you how many points or levels you need exactly though.

new islands tend to get bigger, but they don't necessarily form one landmass, and most likely they're in a different biome, which is only cosmetic. you can keep playing the same level until you run out of buildings to place, might as well, as it's all about high scores, and if you run out of structures, it's game over (a 'back to menu' button would be nice to have here), or if the next island has been unlocked, you can move on, keeping your points, but not any remaining buildings.

and that's all there is to it, believe it or not. it's a simple concept, does what it has to really well, but it may not be everybody's cup of tea. I don't normally play endless games or ones that only offer randomly generated levels, as I get bored of them really fast, and wasn't expecting to get more than 1 or 2 hours out of this either, but 5 hours flew by pretty fast, and I could probably play a bit more, but I've already seen all the buildings and probably every biome as well.

there's also a sandbox mode where you can place whatever you want wherever you want (including water, weirdly), and with the photo mode icon you can hide the ui (esc brings it back) and take lovely screenshots of your creations, because chasing scores can mean things ending up in weird places. a few millimeters to the left or right can give you a bunch more points, and to hell with anything else, gotta get ahead on the leaderboard (which tends to glitch out and display random scores instead of your own best).

the graphics are wonderful, plenty of settings (separate volume sliders, windowed mode, resolutions, etc.), audio is functional, meaning the sound effects aren't annoying and the music's barely noticable. it can be good in a game like this, but I would've liked something more memorable to improve the overall picture even further.

mouse and keyboard are supported and controls are intuitive and rebindable. left click moves the map around, right click rotates, mouse wheel zooms in/out (you should be able to zoom out further though), and undo is available as well.

I can whole-heartedly recommend the game, it's completely relaxing (and this from someone who shouts at solitaire), looks and plays really well, and it's ideal for playing for a few hours in one sitting or short bursts, as your progress is saved automatically. it's not too expensive either, but if you think the game's one-note nature isn't in accordance with the price, just wait for a sale.

[b]islanders[/b] is a beautiful city builder of sorts, but you don't have to worry about anything other than placing available buildings where they give you the most points. it's still a good idea to think ahead a bit though. here's how it works. you're presented with a [b]randomly generated[/b] small island and a choice of two packs of buildings. choose one, check the tooltips to find out which buildings go or don't go together, and place them accordingly. once you reach enough points to level up (as seen in the bottom left corner), you can choose between two packs again, and eventually the island silhouette in the bottom right will fill up and you can move on to the next random island. I wish the game would tell you how many points or levels you need exactly though. new islands tend to get bigger, but they don't necessarily form one landmass, and most likely they're in a different biome, which is only cosmetic. you can keep playing the same level until you run out of buildings to place, might as well, as it's all about high scores, and [b]if you run out of structures, it's game over[/b] (a 'back to menu' button would be nice to have here), or if the next island has been unlocked, you can move on, keeping your points, but not any remaining buildings. and that's all there is to it, believe it or not. it's a [b]simple concept, does what it has to really well[/b], but it may not be everybody's cup of tea. I don't normally play endless games or ones that only offer randomly generated levels, as I get bored of them really fast, and wasn't expecting to get more than 1 or 2 hours out of this either, but 5 hours flew by pretty fast, and I could probably play a bit more, but I've already seen all the buildings and probably every biome as well. there's also a [b]sandbox mode[/b] where you can place whatever you want wherever you want (including water, weirdly), and with the [b]photo mode[/b] icon you can hide the ui (esc brings it back) and take lovely screenshots of your creations, because chasing scores can mean things ending up in weird places. a few millimeters to the left or right can give you a bunch more points, and to hell with anything else, gotta get ahead on the leaderboard (which tends to glitch out and display random scores instead of your own best). [b]the graphics are wonderful[/b], plenty of settings (separate volume sliders, windowed mode, resolutions, etc.), [b]audio is functional[/b], meaning the sound effects aren't annoying and the music's barely noticable. it can be good in a game like this, but I would've liked something more memorable to improve the overall picture even further. mouse and keyboard are supported and [b]controls are intuitive and rebindable[/b]. left click moves the map around, right click rotates, mouse wheel zooms in/out ([b]you should be able to zoom out further[/b] though), and [b]undo is available[/b] as well. [b]I can whole-heartedly recommend the game[/b], it's completely relaxing (and this from someone who shouts at solitaire), looks and plays really well, and it's ideal for playing for a few hours in one sitting or short bursts, as [b]your progress is saved automatically[/b]. it's not too expensive either, but if you think the game's one-note nature isn't in accordance with the price, just wait for a sale.