Shipwrecked: Volcano Island Android Review

For this week’s #freemiumfriday, we take a look at RockYou Inc.’s Shipwrecked: Volcano Island. This game is part of a series that was purchased from Kiwi in 2015.

Shipwrecked: Volcano Island is an adventure game. You wash up on a beach and must find friends to help you build your new life on the island. You do this by building shelter, quarries and mills, and other buildings. Every time you open the app, there will be debris on shore for you to clear away (thereby harvesting wood, stone, coins, and other useful items). You will build houses, farm crops, and gather supplies by tapping buildings when they’re ready for harvest.

Leveling up is fairly simple. Large XP gains happen when you complete quests, but clearing away debris or growing 30 second crops will give you small boosts. Each new level brings new crops, buildings, and other items to the store. However, there is also a system in which courage points are awarded and you aren’t able to see how many you have or what prizes you will receive at the next level.

  

The characters are not customizable. You start out with Benjamin Robbins and must free the other helpers, Miss Violet (sometimes referred to as Lady Violet), Sir Squidbane, and Tad. There is also a store in which additional helpers can be purchased for gold. As there is no way to queue tasks, the characters will be idle after completing tasks.

 

The game asks you to place several buildings and plants as part of the quests, but it will let you move them. You may also store them or sell them for coins. If you are getting rid of a building that you were unable to complete during a limited edition challenge, you must wait until the challenge disappears from your list.

 

One bright spot is the ability for the player to decide what type of island they will have. A dojo, a sushi cart, and a doghouse for a shiba inu? A lavender-covered cottage, a fromagerie, and a French bistro? Players could also go medieval, all-American, Spanish, or other aesthetic possibilities. 

There are multiple forms of currency in this game. Swords are the rarest form of currency and are needed in all of the quests. Spirit is used to quickly complete actions or speed up the time needed to harvest from buildings. (For example, 200 bottles of spirit are needed to speed up 50 minutes.) Gold bars are used for some items in the store, including additional helpers. Be careful that you don’t accidentally tap away gold bars while viewing challenges! 

The game has several elements that might turn off casual players. The biggest frustration by far is that every quest requires you to use swords to clear the jungle (occasionally referred to as the forest), yet swords are very difficult to come by unless you purchase them. Most forays into the jungle leave you empty-handed, unable to advance in the quest. Multiple ongoing quests, including limited edition quests, can leave the player feeling especially annoyed when the jungle returns nothing. If the quest has expired without the building being completed by the player, there is nothing you can do but sell the partially constructed building. Multiple buildings in progress (those with the hammer logo below) are an eyesore.

 

Another frustrating area is the game’s social widget. You must add neighbors, but you have to choose them from a list populated by RockYou. It isn’t immediately obvious that users have new neighbor requests, so you may languish in the inbox of a user you have no way of contacting. The game limits how many neighbors a player may add at once—good spam control perhaps, but who is spamming a mobile app? Players may buy additional friend slots. The app will also refuse to allow you to add people who request you if you have made too many friend requests. In the opinion of this reviewer, this element would be vastly improved if the game utilized Google Plus.

 

You don’t really expect the dialogue found in freemium games to be brilliant, but the characters in this game tend to speak in ways that are stereotypical, even racist in some cases. It truly detracts from the enjoyment of the game.

 

Finally, the team challenges feel like participating in a school group project. These challenges generally take place on the weekends, which may be why so many team members are unable to perform the tasks in the time given.

Overall, the game feels like a knockoff of similar Zynga games, made purely for cash with very little craftsmanship. Volcano Island is not enjoyable as a free game due to the rarity and low success rate of the swords. If more swords were given for leveling up, the game might be a better time. As it is, this reviewer has uninstalled the game.

Shipwrecked: Volcano Island at a Glance

Category: Adventure

Developer: RockYou Inc.

Last updated: 15 February 2016

Is it worth playing? The difficulty in obtaining swords means that the game isn’t fun unless you pay. If you don’t mind that, then it is worth playing. Prices range from US$2.99 for 15 swords to US$99.99 for 1000 swords. The success rate of swords finding quest objects while clearing land has been about one in three in this reviewer’s experience. Extrapolating, a player may spend 60 cents to find an object from any of the quests they have been assigned at any given time.

What is the time commitment for this game? 10-15 minutes at a time. Because there is an element of the game that requires you to work on projects lasting several hours, this is a game that needs occasional checkups throughout the day. 

How long does it take for buildings and trees to be harvested? This ranges from 30 seconds to a day or more.

How intrusive are the ads?  There are frequent pop-ups for purchasing in-game currency, but no ads from external vendors.

How is premium currency earned? You receive one or two swords each time you level up, although there are occasional specials such as sword-bearing trees. Swords are sometimes received from the daily gift box. Other than that, there are the same shady-looking Tapjoy surveys that other games proffer. 

Top tip: Spend your swords wisely, because you won’t be seeing many more of them.

Does the game utilize Google Play Games? No. 

Does the game grant achievements? No.

What permissions does the app ask?