Ikonei Island: An Earthlock Adventure is a crafting adventure game by Snowcastle Games that went into Early Access on Aug 18, 2022. It entails you and your crew landing on an island where you’ll need to survive. However, there are strange creatures and pirates around, so you’ll have to form a base.
There are many aspects of Ikonei Island: An Earthlock Adventure you’ll love. It’s more than just a simple crafting game. With a touching story and adorable characters, it will have you playing for several hours. Let’s jump straight into the review so you can see what’s available during the current Early Access version.
Ikonei Island welcomes you to stay
Welcome to Ikonei Island: An Earthlock Adventure! Earthlock is an RPG title published by the same company that launched in 2018. There were also comic books made available on Steam as DLCs to go with the game, and you can purchase an entire bundle that includes everything, with Ikonei Island also in the mix.
Here’s what to expect with regards to the story in Ikonei Island: An Earthlock Adventure.
Save Ikonei Island
You and your friends are sailing on the ocean when, lo and behold, a storm causes you to crash on an island that you swore wasn’t there before. There are four characters you can choose between, but I stuck with the Hogbunny. Sadly, there’s no multiplayer available as yet during Early Access, so my children and I took turns exploring the game.
It won’t be long before you realize the reason you can see the mysterious island. Pirates and foul creatures have destroyed eight shrines, which hide the land and protect it from storms and villains. You’ll need to find a way to restore the beautiful Ikonei Island to its former glory.
Finding your way around the island
The first element of Ikonei Island: An Earthlock Adventure you’ll encounter is exploration. With nothing to help you leave the island, you need to find routes around the island that are safe. There are different zones, while you’ll start with the beach to gather essential resources. Fortunately, you have a stunning map to guide you.
The map updates every time you discover an important item that you’ll need to upgrade or repair later. There’s also key information on locations when you hover your pointer over them. You can see the name, what items are required, and the reward you’ll receive.
A froggy mission
One of the earliest tasks you’ll have in Ikonei Island: An Earthlock Adventure is catching frogs and placing them on pedestals. When you do so, they’ll speak to you and explain what happened to their homeland. You’ll also receive missions to help upgrade the various zones with tips on how to succeed.
Meeting characters and creatures
There are other helpful NPCs on Ikonei Island to meet. Some of them will join your camp and help you with crafting items. They have unique skills, but you’ll have to establish workshops for them at your base. However, you’ll need to complete an initial set of missions for them first before they’ll accompany you.
How long to play Ikonei Island: An Earthlock Adventure?
It’s surprising how much time Ikonei Island: An Earthlock Adventure takes from your day when you’re not paying attention. It took me about 8 hours to reach the final zone, and that’s not including repairing the shrine and unlocking the tameable creature. The game will easily take you somewhere between 8 and 15 hours to complete.
Making a home in Ikonei Island: An Earthlock Adventure
Running around Ikonei Island and meeting the locals is only part of the fun in this Earthlock adventure. While the game is easy to learn, there are some challenging puzzles along the way. Let’s take a look at some of the gameplay mechanics.
Learning how to play Ikonei Island: An Earthlock Adventure
Right off the bat, the game shows you how the basic controls work and what you need to do. While the frogs play an essential role with their in-game tutorials, you’ll also see tooltips and descriptions appear for items and buildings. Still, the frogs play key parts whenever there’s something new to learn.
Easy controls
The controls for Ikonei Island: An Earthlock Adventure are easy to master. As the game suggests on the main menu, it works much better on a controller than keyboard and mouse. There are no complicated button combinations, and you can quickly switch between various items.
The inventory bar
You’ll notice there’s an inventory bar at the bottom of your screen. Now, in most games that have this, you need to go into your inventory and swap items for what you’d like to see there. To save you time, you only need to press the triggers to toggle between each line in your bag. It’s a game mechanic I wish other developers had thought of.
Collecting resources and dropping items
When you first play Ikonei Island: An Earthlock Adventure, you’ll have limited space in your bag. Once you defeat pirate bases, you’ll discover chests that add lines to your inventory. It will help you collect more resources for later upgrades and farming.
If you need more space, you can drop items you don’t need on the floor or sell them at your base. The dropping mechanic asks you to choose where you want to throw the items. However, sometimes I wish there was a quick-drop system, especially when surrounded by enemies.
Buildings, crafting, and upgrades
Once you establish your base, there will be platforms to create workshops. You need them for the main NPCs you’ll meet who need the building for their crafts. They’ll provide you with blueprints, or you can buy resources you really need and don’t feel like finding them.
The blueprints are essential for crafting. With the resources you’ll find, you need to head to the crafting station, smelter, cutter, or loom to make items. Without the blueprints for these crafting tables, you’ll be stuck. At a later stage, you can upgrade the workshops for more plans.
You also have access to a tent, which serves as your home. Once you enter, you’ll have a lovely space to place beds, sofas, and other furniture you unlock along the way. While it may not seem like much, I hope Ikonei Island: An Earthlock Adventure upgrades to include a more impressive building in the time to come.
A farmer’s life
Another game mechanic you’ll need to become used to is farming. There are plenty of plants around Ikonei Island, which provide you either with seeds or resources. With the hoe in hand, you can basically farm on any fertile land you find. The process consists of planting, watering, pollinating, and then harvesting.
While you may not feel like performing these tasks, some of the crops are essential for upgrading buildings or completing tasks. It’s best to farm when you’re not out adventuring, though. The plants will need your attention, and they grow rapidly.
Making money on Ikonei Island
The blueprints and other items that the NPCs sell will cost you Frogboy coins. If you end up with doubloons or items you don’t need, you can drop them in a chest at your base. By the next morning, they’re sold for the price indicated, and the money ends up with you. Resources respawn eventually, so don’t be shy to sell them if you need some coins.
Time to fight
It wouldn’t be an adventure game without some pirates and fighting. There are two types of combat in Ikonei Island: An Earthlock Adventure. The first involves swinging your weapon at foul creatures you find along the way. For the second, you need to stealthily move past the pirate crew at their bases, find canons, and shoot the captain.
Creatures are usually easy to fight once you learn how they move and attack. You can hit projectiles back at them, or just keep slashing to hold everyone at bay. Just don’t be seen by the pirate crew, or you’ll have to start over.
Taming the wild
One of the most adorable aspects of Ikonei Island: An Earthlock Adventure (and the main reason my children wanted to play) is that you can tame specific creatures. Once you rescue them from the pirate base, you can tame one of them to join you. Each one has a unique ability that you’ll need, and you can upgrade them to make them more powerful.
To tell you what each one does and where you’ll need them is an entire guide on its own. The only aspect I don’t like is that they sometimes get in your way when you want to collect an item. Sure, you can send them home, but then you need to summon them again when done. Still, being able to bond with them and then play as the creature is utterly entertaining.
Games like Ikonei Island: An Earthlock Adventure
While Ikonei Island: An Earthlock Adventure is incredibly unique in its own way, there are some games that share a few of the elements. For example, the inventory bar and crafting are certainly similar to Minecraft.
With regards to the gameplay and visuals, you have something more akin to Portal Knights and My Time at Portia. I share the same fondness for these games as I now do with Ikonei Island.
PC requirements
Despite how many hours Ikonei Island takes with all the content, the requirements for this Earthlock adventure aren’t high. Also, I didn’t experience any lag or performance issues on Windows 11. Here’s what you’ll need as minimum requirements at this stage of Early Access:
- OS: Windows 7 or higher
- Processor: Intel i3
- Memory: 4 GB RAM
- Storage: 6 GB
- Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750
- DirectX: Version 10
The Roadmap for Ikonei Island: An Earthlock Adventure
The Roadmap for further development of Ikonei Island has some promising upgrades. While you can only play solo at the moment, they’re working on a multiplayer mode where the entire family can play. There will also be upgrades to the buildings and creatures. While it’s available on PC and gaming consoles, I would love to see a mobile version of it in the future.
Stunning effects and environments
What would Ikonei Island be like with bad visuals or effects? I don’t know, as I found the graphics and sound to be outstanding in this crafting adventure game. Here’s what I liked the most about them.
Beautiful environments and biomes
The various zones and biomes in Ikonei Island: An Earthlock Adventure are gorgeous. I love how the resources are linked to each region. Once you repair the shrine, you’ll feast your eyes on the beauty of the land. You’ll need to upgrade each zone to five stars to fully enjoy the view.
Gorgeous character and creature designs
Each character and creature has a stunning fantasy design that I loved. The hogbunny character is my favorite, and we need more like these during the Early Access development. I also enjoyed the effects of each tameable creature; they look so beautiful, especially when fully upgraded.
Soothing music and animated sounds
I can look past the lack of voice acting when I consider the soothing music in the background while adventuring on Ikonei Island. If I encounter trouble, the track changes to heavy drums and action. Each creature also has its own sound effects with every action. It shows how much effort the developers went to in making it a fun game to look at and listen to.
Final Verdict of Ikonei Island: An Earthlock Adventure
If I continue discussing features in Ikonei Island: An Earthlock Adventure, I fear this review will never end. It’s an outstanding game, and it’s a treasure hove for gaming guide writers like me. We could spend hours writing guides for a title like this, and continue playing for as long as our heart desires. Of course, once you save the island and built all there is to build, it’s probably best to move on to a new game. All in all, we need more games like this from Snowcastle Games.
There are some other titles I’ve enjoyed and reviewed. Be sure to check out Mirror Forge on the horror side of life, Dune: Spice Wars for fantasy RTS action, and Two Point Campus for casual strategy.
Pros
- Incredible storyline
- Plenty of fascinating creatures
- Tameable animals
- Impressive resources and crafting
- Addictive gameplay
- Gorgeous visuals and effects
Cons
- Tamed creatures get in your way sometimes
- Needs an easier item drop mechanism
Developer: Snowcastle Games
Publisher: Snowcastle Games
Game Modes: Single-player
Platform reviewed: Windows 11 – Steam
