A cruel and beautiful new world
When I first entered the game, the exquisite pixel painting style of "Lonely Island Survival" was indeed an excellent visual experience, and the beautiful music also added momentum to this survival journey. As the raft ran aground on the beach, we came to this unknown island. Just like most survival sandbox games, we should first use the existing resources to establish a foothold and make tools to find food and struggle to survive.
Only from the perspective of survival, in fact, this design is relatively simple. Although the hunger value is consumed faster, it is easier to get food, and you can get help from monkeys soon (the following will focus on monkeys). And even better, except for some monkeys who need to provide a special monkey food when they meet for the first time, all monkeys will not consume food. As long as there are no serious mistakes, it is not difficult to have enough food and clothing on this desert island.
However, simply supporting yourself obviously cannot solve all the survival problems. Like most survival sandbox games, Lonely Island also has many threats from outside. When we go out to explore, we often encounter wild animals and small orcs to attack us without saying anything, and bats will attack us at night or in dark caves, so we should be prepared before going out.
However, when you are ready to explore with weapons, tools and food, the problem comes. The list of items in Survivor of the Island is very limited. People can only carry 1 1 with them, and there are many kinds of resources to be collected. Obviously, these different kinds of resources cannot be placed in the same grid. Press the Attack (Y) key at the same time to use the operation design of the currently selected item, and also to let the player sort out the item column.
At this time, the role of monkeys is once again reflected. After the storage box is built, we can let a monkey carry the storage box and follow it. If you find valuable materials or props, you can stuff them directly into the box. Do you find it convenient? But in fact, there is still a problem, that is, the operating logic design of this work is really unreasonable, especially on the Switch.
First of all, when we open the search interface of storage boxes or some wild relics, our operation becomes to simulate a mouse with a joystick, which is really unfriendly. At the same time, picking up the items on the ground, giving the currently selected items to the monkey, and even opening the storage box are all the same interactive (A) key. When going out in the middle and late period, I often take a few monkeys as helpers, especially when cleaning up the site and collecting resources after mining and cutting trees, I can't automatically pick up the items, so it is easy to squeeze the items onto the monkeys and even open the interface of the storage box, which makes this supposed happy harvest experience very painful.
In addition to threats from the wild, every once in a while, the orc attack team will attack our camp. Considering that the early camps are often simple and close to the original birth point, it is easy to be banned and beaten at the birth point. However, after establishing certain defensive measures, you can basically ignore the attackers and take risks. Interestingly, the exploration of this work is not only to find resources, but also to encounter more surprises. Island survivors joined the dungeon system. Each island will have multiple cellars to explore, and there will be some enemies and reward boxes. Each cellars can meet a monkey that can be taken away in the first exploration. At the end of the game, you can also repair artifacts and equipment in the cellar. When you defeat the enemy or open the treasure chest, you can also get gold coins, which can be used to trade various items in mysterious merchants.
Pseudocapitalist simulator
Of course, regardless of survival, construction or exploration, the game experience of "Lonely Island Survival" can not be separated from the help of monkey partners. The role of helper type is rare in the survival sandbox game, so what about the monkey in this game?
In this work, there are basically only two ways to get monkeys. Either you meet a monkey in a cage in the wild, or you meet a monkey in the cellar, you can break the cage and rescue it and let it become a helper. Either you meet a wandering monkey in the wild, give it a monkey food and make it willing to work for us.
However, although monkeys can carry out our instructions without complaint, they are still monkeys with limited IQ. When we hold down the call (ZL) key, we can call all the monkeys nearby to give orders. At this time, the operation will also become to simulate a mouse with a joystick. We must manually choose each monkey to give orders. The most common method is to press the imitation (X) key and let the monkey imitate the player's actions. After issuing this password, a banana icon with countdown will appear on the heads of these monkeys, and these monkeys will imitate the player's first action before the countdown is over. In other words, if we cut down trees, all monkeys will start cutting down trees. If we knock on the mine, all the monkeys will start digging. Of course, we have to press the attack key (Y) in advance and throw it to the monkey's corresponding tool. There is another exception here. Don't press the table yet.
I was very happy when I first discovered the method of training monkeys. Although I want to teach them one by one, their work efficiency is really high, most of the operations can be done for players, and even an automated production line has been realized to some extent. However, Judge Jun soon discovered that all monkeys can only accept one task at a time, which is a bit of a headache. For example, now we need to build a row of fences, and we need battens, ropes and wood. If all monkeys are used, we need at least one tree cutter, one to transport wood, one to transport long grass, one to process wood into strips on the workbench, one to process long grass into ropes on another workbench, one to transport the strips to the fence under construction, one to transport the ropes to the fence under construction, and one to transport the wood to the fence under construction. You need 9 monkeys to complete a whole process! This "capitalist simulator" is really not as beautiful as it looks.
In addition to the working state, we can also attack the training dummy when pressing the imitation (X) key, so that the monkeys on standby can enter the fighting state. It turns out that these nuclear-powered monkeys who don't eat or drink are much better than me. When going out to explore and visit the cellar, players can basically paddle all the way and watch monkeys kill the quartet. Moreover, regardless of whether monkeys can be upgraded or not, they can accumulate experience in work and combat, and after upgrading, they will have higher work efficiency and combat effectiveness. At the end of the game, the judge also found that these monkeys were more reliable as bodyguards.
However, although the monkey bodyguard is very powerful, the problem of operational logic has brought trouble. As mentioned earlier, holding down the call (ZL) key can call all the monkeys nearby, which means that the monkeys will stop working at this time. If the selected monkey presses the cancel (b) key and gives the "Cancel Action" command, it will start wandering around by itself. If it wants to gather again, it may need to travel all over the island. If you just let the monkey follow, it will return to the problem that pressing the interactive (A) key is easy to plug items.
It is not difficult to see that Survival on an Island has a lot of ambitions in game design, but in the end it failed to deal with the problem of operational logic. It can be said that success is also a monkey, and so is failure.
Limited sandbox experience
In addition to its survival experience, the experience brought by sandbox is also the key to attracting players.
In terms of creation, Survivor of the Island contains 58 kinds of finished products, 20 kinds of gourmet dishes and 33 kinds of construction blueprints. This number is neither too much nor too little. For players who like building very much, it may be possible to build a good home. However, I believe that there will be players who, like Judge Jun, only build a set of basic fortifications and try to make a copy of everything. As a result, after unlocking all the drawings, it seems that this content is not rich.
At the same time, our original island will not produce important metals, gold and precious stones in the later period. We also need to build rafts to other islands to obtain these scarce resources. It can be seen that the developer intends to urge the players to go out and explore. The area that can be explored outside the island is indeed considerable, but it is not difficult to find it after several turns. In fact, these places are not much different from the original islands except for mining, and the game content is slightly repeated.
Generally speaking, the low survival difficulty of "Island Survival" can easily make players have the desire to explore, but the content that can be explored is not very rich. On the other hand, this design also makes this game more friendly to players who have never been exposed to survival sandbox games before, and the online mode of up to four people can bring a lot of unexpected fun. Take your monkey to practice!
Open mode:
As a lightweight survival sandbox game, the exquisite pictures and music of Survivor of a Lonely Island, coupled with the unique monkey system, are really attractive to players, but it is difficult to reach a higher level due to the limitation of operation logic and game depth. If you want to start an interesting journey of survival, Lonely Island Survival will be a good choice. However, the game experience of 25 yuan is a matter of opinion.