From the gutters to a tropical island, it can’t be all that bad for Caveman Bob – the neanderthal hobo you steer in Restore Your Island – a first-person simulator from Paiband Studio. When we’re introduced to the fella, he’s begging for money, sitting on the streets with barely any clothes or coconuts, when a tinted-out executive car drifts in, its driver, suited up and wearing shades at night, holds up a note to say your uncle has kicked the bucket and you’ve inherited your island. Classic simulation setup.
Surprised that the character can read based on his uggs and aahs, the driver throws him into the back of the car, transitioning to a helicopter throwing you out onto the pokey little island to live out your dreams. A dream/nightmare is a good suggestion, as the setup is surreal. The island itself isn’t all that big, but it’s absolutely caked in trash to the point of it being comical.
Surely, this isn’t how inheritances should play out!? Your previous dwellings were so much cleaner. Anyhoo, armed with one of those claws old and/or fat people use to pick up items they can’t reach, Restore Your Island shifts to Operation Beach Cleanup. Aiming at the individual bits of crap, you pick them up and place them in the bin until full, then sell to the bobbing boat at the end of the jetty.
With the money earned, you can buy new equipment and upgrades, music cassettes and more. It would be a big ask to clean the island with your claw, so you then get a magnetic detector thingy-me-bob that attracts certain types of trash. Upgrades let you categorise between metal, plastic, glass and organic as if you separate the different types into individual, purchaseable bins, you earn more money. This later can be upgraded to a vacuum, which is OP, plus a sifting machine that pulls everything up from the sand, including treasures and keys to unlock chests.
Aside from Bob, you can rescue a dog (multiple breeds available), which will wander the island and yap like a puppy regardless of the breed you choose. The island is quartered, and in each area is an animal to rescue with free tools that unlock on the jetty once found. A couple of them you can name as well as pet for when you want to stop for a bit. Treasures essentially fast-track your money to get better upgrades, plus there are a few nods to other games if achievement hunting.
Upon arrival, you get to choose a hut to sleep in, which might serve as a save game. I don’t know, as the game crashed a couple of times and reset my completion rate of 80% to 14%. Weirdly, I just redid what I’d lost as Restore Your Island is one of those mind-numbing relaxation types where you repeat the same motions and couldn’t give a monkey’s about real time. Still, there were a fair number of bugs, such as crabs glitching(?) into turtles, achievements unlocking before finding them, and textures not always catching up in time.
Restore Your Island is a nice-looking game through the Unreal engine, but there’s not really much to see and do after the first few minutes. You can’t really do anything in your hut besides sleep, make an espresso, or feed the dog. There are no decorations to customise the place, nor can you have an impromptu game of keepy-uppy with a turtle. The most frustrating aspect of the game, however, is the lack of guidance. It’s not rocket science on what’s expected, but at 98% completion, there’s no indicator of what is left besides an obvious achievement via Steam. A radar tool will highlight hidden goodies, but again, some of them are glitched, meaning that I only have a tiny amount to do to finish, but no idea whether there are a couple of tiny cans buried still, or a palm tree I need to fertilise.
As a result, I’m ready to hit the hammock and call it a day. I binged Restore Your Island in one sitting as I enjoyed that same process from the preview. There is a free update coming with a new island and tools, which will be a nice addition, though I’d like to see a few tweaks and hints on what I’m missing so I can finish it. Y’know, like the grime detector highlighting tool in something like Castle Flipper. Besides that, being on a tropical island away from civilisation? It’s not half bad.
