I would very much advise against spending money on this game. Not because I'm an evil heartless jerk who wants the developers' kids to starve, but simply being pragmatic - no purchase will give you the value you expect. Even at its best, the only way to play this game is changing your expectations. Think of it like a book you pick up between work, school, or other obligations. You know the story will be there for you when you return, but you'll have to wait until you're back home to see it. Again, I can't stress how much like a tamagotchi this is - you have to expect it to be progressing on its own, with you only shaping the direction it's taking. Zero-player RPGs had a similar idea. (The ones where your character adventures on his own and gives you a journal to keep track of their progress) Then, if you're happy with the game, only then you should spend some money as a thanks, because whatever you buy - it won't go far.
Second Impression: Well, I spent the weekend playing Tinker Island and I'm still enjoying it. My worry about the timers only getting longer and longer mercifully turned out not to be true. But to be clear, my worry was that all of the timers would get really long. Some of them did (I have one or two 6-hr timers), but most of them did not. As you continue to explore the island, more and more choices open up as to how you want your survivors to spend their time. There usually isn't a problem finding one minute or five minute timers. Heck, I had a few timers that were 10 seconds long. But this does seem to be the kind of game that you do not play for long stretches at a time. You play for a few minutes, or maybe up to half an hour, and then you give your survivors tasks with long timers and then check back in with them later. Personally, I'm good with that. I did decide to buy the beginner pack for $8.99, which netted me one excellent survivor and some gems, which let me buy another excellent survivor. Those two have really helped me out in combat, so I feel I've gotten my monies worth. (It's less than a movie ticket, and I've gotten more than two hours enjoyment out of the game. Works for me.) I really like the decision making part of the game, where you get to decide how to handle certain situations. It draws me into this game much better than other similar games I've played. I like being able to shape how things are going as the story progresses. So, I would still recommend this game for people who like time-management games or for someone who wants a game they can play for a few minutes at a time and then come back to later.
The game mostly balances long timers well, but there are several 48-hours in the late stages on long constructions (which you'll have to do multiple times, too). I'm pretty sure I even saw a 72. Just like sirgrail, I fell for the story elements. It gets REALLY cool at times and the emergent gameplay is fantastic, if you can handle the bite-sized nature of it.
I agree, the pacing seems fine tbh and there is enough short timers to keep you occupied for a few minutes. I tend to find myself playing this and pvz2 in tandem as there's enough 30mins+ tasks to wait for and my games with EA's undead shuffle just about complements each other.
Pretty sure I'm the only one still playing this but if anyone looks if you figured out how to add friends let me know. I think it's just on Facebook but I don't use it so I think I'm getting screwed
I have a 12 hour timer on a search area so I have to keep doing it until I get the resource. I don't mind because there is a lot to do besides it and I don't have a blueprint that needs the resource yet. The only reason I can see that someone wouldn't like this game is because they aren't patient. I haven't hit a wall yet so...
I enjoy the game until now, I wait, wait and wait until I have enough resource to build something else. Maybe Kongregate is stingy while balance the time to collect the resource... But as I said, the game is great...
I loved this game. It has great writing, nice sprites, the timers aren't too terrible. I couldn't stop playing the game, always wanting to check back on the survivors, wishing that they would find a way back home. Then I started encountering huge monsters. Like really huge where you really have to make lots and lots of potions to defeat the monster. Then another huge monster. Then another one. After another. With the battle mechanics in the game being a lottery, now it's a boring boring grind for me. I'm not having fun anymore. I don't like this game anymore. I stopped playing. Too bad i wont know what happens to the survivors but no way I'm going to fight one boring mega leech after another without any significant reward attached to it. Goodbye Tinker Island. I used to love you
Fun and well polished game. Wish Kongregrate would make more like this. Just got Betty Bee and Alfred the monkey, haven't spent any real money and have saved about 350 diamonds. You earn a lot of diamonds as rewards for in game achievements. This game is good to play a little each day. Not the type of game that you play and beat in long sessions, it is more like tamagotchi as others have mentioned.
I just saved to 500 diamonds today and got the tomb raider chick with 54 attack or something. I haven't spent money cause I don't have any but you get the video diamonds which is 13 a day and then I get them fighting monsters today I killed two wolves that got me 25 more diamonds. I totally hear the person about the huge monsters being grindy I've got the Monty Python rabbit and the hobbit ent both in the thousands of hp doing 10+ attack and the rabbit has almost half the dots even when I bring 6 survivors to the fight. If you don't mind watching video ads then if you let your survivor dude they come back with health just takes time or vids. Otherwise you do need tons of meds. I had 4 survivors die fighting the rabbit partially cause I wasn't paying attention and all had 16-17 hours to heal so I watched vids and like 40 of them then the diamond 10 and got to fight it more. I watch the vid ads when I'm watching a movie or tv so I'm not just waiting then it doesn't feel super annoying. Right now I'm stuck trying to get the magic rope item to upgrade my storage to 400. It's a 5 hour timer and I've got the other two items in the location already, I've been searching for days and the annoying thing is if you send more then one survivor it still only registers one search. Then there is a 24 hour one with two items and I'm like how many days will I be out someone tryi to get the fish hook and nails. I sent someone to this one last night but I probably won't until I need one of the items.
Two days in a row so the diamonds from videos was increased a good amount. Plus I got two foraging quests one for 25 and one for 50 diamonds so that's another 75 when I take the time to do them. I had to use diamonds to increase storage from 300 to 400 it was 90 to get the green rope. Then I didn't have the item for the 400 to 500 building and it was 90 diamonds if I clicked it in the building list but I selected it and then sent my person to it and only had me pay 2 diamonds which I'm guessing was an error but I didn't pass it up.
does anyone play to the puzzle part so far ? it's required a 3 digit code to move the handle. I'm stuck.
You can run away from an enemy in the middle of a fight if your health starts to get low and heal your people and come back and finish the fight later. The HP of the enemies remain at whatever amount of damage you do to them. So you can attack an enemy and bring them down from 2000 hp to 1000 hp and run away and come back later and they will still have only 1000 hp when you fight them the next time. So if you don't like your characters dying, they don't have to.
In the hatch? It was confusing but I think I only used numbers that weren't at both rooms but I'm not totally positive. I did it a couple weeks ago. I can check the log when I get home (I'm at the theater)
Yeah I do both. If I'm too low on resources for meds I let a couple die and watch ads to get back. It's getting to be too much as they're now at 20hours to heal and I can only watch enough storage get 2 and a half back before the vids get screwy.
