Half a decade ago, developer Mugshot Games released Digfender on mobile, a hybrid of digging game and tower defense game that was something of an evolution of their previous release Castlemine. We quite enjoyed Castlemine way back in 2013, but we enjoyed that spiritual successor Digfender even more when it released in late 2015. Now after laying low for the past few years, Mugshot is back with another interesting hybrid style of game which they call Sliding Seas. It combines the match-and-merge style of gameplay made famous by games like Threes! and Triple Town with a lighthearted city-building simulation. I feel like that mashup pretty much sells itself, and you can see Sliding Seas in action in the following trailer.

The core idea in Sliding Seas is to head out into the ocean and rescue shipwrecked survivors who you then bring back to your tropical island to help build and grow your very own utopia. I guess these survivors didn’t have lives prior to their being shipwrecked, or perhaps they’re totally down with discarding their previous lives for a new life of simplicity on a beautiful island? I know I probably wouldn’t turn that down. Whatever the case, it’s a cool setup for a video game, and that’s all that really matters. If you’re in Australia you can check out Sliding Seas right this minute as part of a soft launch, but the rest of the world won’t have to wait long as the global launch is planned for this Friday, August 27th.