Island Game

Island Game is a cozy castaway crafting game. You wash up on a small desert island with empty pockets, and your job is to get home. Gather coconuts, driftwood, stones, palm fronds and vines, catch fish, search the tide pools, and work your way up a recipe tree from simple cord to a seaworthy raft or a hilltop signal fire. Play Island Game free online in your browser, with no download or sign-up, on desktop or on your phone.

How to play

Pick a small, medium or large island, or the story island. Every island is generated from a seed and checked before you start, so every recipe can be made on every island.

• Move: tap or click any spot and your castaway walks there along the shortest path. Arrow keys or WASD move one tile at a time.
• Gather: tap a palm for a coconut and a frond, a rock for stone, a bush for vine, or a dead tree for a log (it needs an axe). Walk over driftwood to pick it up. Each spot holds a little and regrows overnight, and rain makes it regrow faster.
• Tide pools: at low tide (05:00 to 09:00 and 17:00 to 21:00) the rock pools give shells, flint and crabs. At high tide they are under water.
• Fish: once you have a rod, tap the sea. A marker sweeps along a bar; press Action when it is inside the green zone to land the fish.
• Craft: recipes are added to your recipe book as you collect their ingredients. Open the book and tap Craft. Some things must be built at camp (campfire, shelter, cooking) or on the hilltop (signal fire).
• Escape: build a raft from a frame, a sail, a paddle and provisions, then launch it from the shore in daylight. Or build a signal fire on the hilltop and light it while a ship is passing.

Energy, food and the day

Walking, gathering, fishing and crafting cost energy, and your food bar drops as the hours pass. Eat coconuts, crabs or fish to refill it; an empty stomach drains energy too. Sleep at camp after 17:00, or whenever you are tired, to wake at dawn with your energy restored. A palm shelter and a campfire at camp let you wake up with more.

The game is gentle: you can’t die. If your energy hits zero you faint and wake at camp the next morning, having lost a third of your raw materials. Your tools and finished raft parts are always safe.

Each island has its own weather pattern for every day: clear, cloudy, rain or storm. Storms make walking slow and tiring, but the morning after a storm the beach is covered in wreckage: sailcloth, a tangle of rope and sometimes a message in a bottle that explains a recipe you haven’t found yet. Ships only pass on clear days around midday, starting on day 3.

The recipe tree

Fronds or vines twist into cord. Cord, wood and stone make the stone axe, a shell turns cord into a fishing rod, and flint gives you a fire kit. With fire you can build a campfire to cook fish, and logs and fronds make a palm shelter. The raft needs a log frame, a sail, a paddle and provisions; the signal fire needs driftwood, fronds and logs on the hilltop.

Your recipe book, your current island and your fastest escape for each size are saved in your browser, so Continue picks up where you left off.

Tips

• Make the axe first. It unlocks logs from the dead trees and splits each piece of driftwood into two.
• Plan around the tide. You need a shell for the rod and flint for the fire kit, and both only come at low tide. Be near a pool at dawn or in the early evening.
• Save your coconuts. Provisions need three, so eat crabs and spare fish first.
• Sweep the beach after a storm. Sailcloth makes a sail for one cord instead of eight fronds and two cord.

FAQ

Is Island Game free to play?

Yes. It’s completely free with no account and no install.

Can I lose?

No. There is no death and no game over. Fainting just sends you back to camp with fewer raw materials, and every island can always be escaped.

What is the story island?

It is a hand-picked island where an earlier castaway left five diary pages in bottles. Each one tells a bit of their story and adds a recipe to your book, so it’s a good first island.

Does it work on a phone?

Yes. On a phone the map zooms in and follows your castaway. Tap to walk, tap resources to gather, and use the Action button to fish, reel in, sleep or launch. Touching the map doesn’t scroll the page.

Want more time on the water? Captain a ship in Pirate Game, or settle into the slower pace of Farm Game.