Life is beautiful but lonely on the island of Len

Len's Island is a game of survival / crafts / agriculture taking place on a bucolic heavenly island. What is the hook, ask yourself? After all, there are nearly a billion (according to my calculations) of genre games. What distinguishes Len's Island, it's literally what is under the surface.

At the top, the island is peaceful and lush. You do the types of manufacture and construction common to all these games. There is a cut of wood and transporting water, as the Zen say. Or you can extract stone, harvest seeds and plant crops. Each centimeter can be recovered to be recovered. Then you build an established, a forge and all other types of workshop things you need. You build a house, and it can be pretty beautiful and elaborated.

In general, Len Island facilitates construction. Everything is modular. Picking, agriculture, wood cutting and everything else is painless and streamlined. There is no work overload, and you can accelerate the collection with a small mini-game. The first minutes of the game go quickly, and you feel almost immediately productive, even without direction.

By exploring deeper, you have seen signs of dwelling and mysterious warnings. Shortly after, you find a cave.

The danger and drama of Len Island are underground. There, monsters and deadly creatures are hiding in the shadows and at first, you are poorly equipped to face the fight. Finally, you manufacture a torch and better weapons. Unfortunately, you can not just play safety and stay on the surface, then you go to the dungeons because it is there that there are many materials and important weapons. In addition, it can become a bit boring when all you do is play happily on the island.

Most games of this kind are not known for their stories, and Len's Island is no exception. Although there are secrets to discover and even other people, there is not really intrigue, especially at first. The developers hope that you will fall on the mechanics and that you will understand things. Anyone who has played this kind of games will have no problem.

Len's Island is designed for controlling the mouse or keyboard. In theory, it can somehow be played with a controller, but there is no way to remap the assignments of the buttons. It's a shame that the game does not better impress the control of the controller, because it is a perfect and relaxing game to relax. The fight would also be more intuitive with a controller. The game user interface is simple and little intrusive.

Although his character creator is pretty rudimentary, the island of Len is charming. Above the ground, it's colorful, caricature and relaxing to watch. It is dark and threatening in the dungeons. Visually, it's an easy game to enjoy for long periods. It is not yet fully optimized and there was a little jitter in the shadows. There are not many graphical settings to adjust.

The music is subtle, melodic and so soothing as the artistic style, fading during exploration. Sounds of the ambient nature are sober but effective. The effect is relaxing... maybe a little too much.

Whether by design or not, Len Island looks like a lonely place. To be able to share the collection and construction of resources with friends in cooperation would make the experience richer and less repetitive.

With so much captivating survival / craft games, why should you play Len's Island?

Len's Island has a magnificent and inviting artistic style, simple controls and ease of access to mechanics. Adding combat-oriented dungeons that are somewhat optional allows players to choose their approach. Although it is a bit lonely, the process of exploration, agriculture, crafts and construction is relaxing and fun. The island and dungeons are interesting to explore. As early access, the developer plans to add multiplayer, more history content, quests and NPCs. Len's Island is worth looking now, and I'm even more interested in seeing the project with two people develop in the final game.