Len's Island Review - Kick Off Your Boots And Enjoy
Len’s Island is a fantastic low-stakes take on a cozy-survival setting, where farming, fishing, mining, crafting, building and combat all go together. There’s even great exploratory elements as you go spelunking through caverns, or sailing across a wide ocean.
There is a little challenge to it from the outset, but ultimately the experience is completely customisable for whatever level of clash or comfort you desire.
It has an interesting approach to the lore, and the initial scene that plays as you first enter the world has the hallmarks of epicness to it, and hints a little that the complications of Lightstone, both a source of power within the world, and the source of conflict. You find lightstone throughout the world, very scarce in the early stages of the game, and collect its maligned counterpart, dark essence. The way of the world is that there is an irrevocable tie between the light and the void, and the remnants of those still in the world are the last holdouts against monsters from the void.
You explore, unlock the language, finding new levels of resources and items. Each of the tool interactions uses a particular rhythm, presenting a glowing circle on your tool after a swing or hit. Pressing again with the right timing gives you a precision bonus, making your tools and weapons more effective on subsequent well-timed strikes. This drastically increases your efficiency with mining materials, chopping wood, and combat.
The fishing system is simple once it clicks, but it’s easy to miss the instructions on how to interact with it. Like every cozy or survival game in existence, Len’s Island does its own thing with the fishing mechanic, and reaction time is not as important as recognising when not to react. The fishing rod uses the same interaction method as the other equipment, where you click a bright circle element appears on the screen – where it differs, is it also uses a red circle to denote an interaction you should not click. It was not intuitive directly, and up until looking up about the fishing system, I had interpreted it as my being too slow to interact with previous. If you take the plunge, keep it in mind – it’s a vastly more enjoyable experience once you have that element of clarity, and it opens up another range of resources to work with.
There is a series of weapons to craft, armor to collect, and many more processes to work with. You can build refinery objects in the world and use it to process meat, skin, rock, wood, cotton and more, which provides additional materials for all kinds of crafting. There are also additional crafting options that allow you to create potions, cook meals, water crops automatically, enchant tools, weapons and armor, and even teleport across the world.
There could be some benefits to having the game guide you to your goals, or a way to track additional progression. As one of the bigger goals of unlocking everything in the game is to level up each of the towns to the point of being able to use portals, it would be beneficial if you could track the resource requirements needed. There is a juggling act with progression, as next level tools require both more resources and stronger materials, but to carry more requires deeper pockets (which require stronger materials too).
For exploration itself, as the world is a vast ocean surrounded by a wall of ice, you can build a boat to sail around, taking advantage of faster currents in the water to take you to your destination. This is one of the ways to travel between the islands, many of which differ in climate to the original forested island you begin with. Aside from seafaring, there is a vast underground cave network separate to the game’s dungeons, which allow you to traverse the vast distances between the islands while staying below the surface.
The caverns are filled with their own challenges, some being the enemies you encounter within the dungeons, but unlike the dungeons, the build system works here as well. You could set up your home far below the ground and eke out an existence there, slowly building up a vast city to hide away from the troubles of the surface world.
While I was not able to try it, Len’s Island also has multiplayer. You can already create a number of characters and world saves, but there is the ability to share that world with others. You can also use different characters in the same world (one at a time),
There are a few minor quibbles with occasional camera issues, some issues with the resource grind, and the pace of progression in the final acts, but the latter two are easily cushioned with tweaks to difficulty. The only other criticism is that the starting lore implies a negative consequence to using lightstone, which doesn’t materialise directly for the player.
Overall, Len’s Island feels surprisingly polished. There are a lot of games that try for the genre, either steering directly into survival, into combat, or even skirting that line between. There have been oh so many that feel like a first cut, but that isn’t the way of this one at all. Everything about the game flows well and feels satisfying to play. Where some games tread like honey, making you aware of every minute you’re spending in their world, Len’s Island feels like a bare-foot beach break, and not a second spent with it feels wasted or lost.
