I Cannot Resist A Cute Adventure Pack On The Minecraft Marketplace

 I am always on the lookout for cute games and Lily's Island caught my eye on the minecraft marketplace.

At the time of writing Lily's Island by Humblebright Studios had a rating of 4 stars on the minecraft marketplace.

I watched the trailer and fell in love immediately and purchased the adventure pack for 1340 minecoins.

This is a resource management and simulation type of game where you take on quests to gather resources by searching, fishing, farming and mining.  The quests and resource gathering earns you points so you can use them to upgrade areas including your home.  Gradually the island becomes more alive and visually appealing which encourages new NPC critters to stay.

This adventure map is single player and I can understand why as it took me only 3 hours to complete.  For the amount of minecoins I paid there should have been more quests but I enjoyed it nevertheless.

When you start the adventure map sign posts indicate to set the PC render distance to 24 so you can get the best experience.  I am fortunate to own a gaming pc with minecraft windows 10 edition and had no issues with lag.  To be honest these settings should have been highlighted in the marketplace description as not everyones pc or laptop  can handle that.  This long render distance allows you to see the beautiful mountains surrounding the island.  They are worth a look if your pc/laptop can handle it.

Visually the colours are vibrant. Great detail has been put into the furniture pieces, crops, resources and NPCs.  This pack sure has cuteness overload.  I am so impressed that I wish the base game looked like this - especially the furniture and diamonds.

To top it all this adventure map has 5 custom chill soundtracks which is a big bonus.  I really enjoyed listening to them all and felt drawn into the adventure pack even more.

I was slightly disappointed that this adventure map did not include a skin for this high price.

There was not a lot of reading in this game so you only got to know each NPC's personality a little.  I would have liked to know more about them as they are too darn cute to be left unoticed.

This game starts at a slow pace. A bit grindy in the beginning but once you upgrade and open new parts on the island you will sail through it in a short time.

I enjoyed meeting all of the adorable 16 NPCs.  I am pleased they made all the squirrels, owls etc not look the same.  They all had their own unique character and style.  I fell in love with them all.

The hidden secrets and challenges were only a few but well thought out.  Took me quite a while to find the lobster and ghost.  I would have liked more of these secrets and challenges as they were fun to do and it would have extended the gameplay to match the price value.

On completing the game you had the freedom to explore the island.  I thought this meant the map would unlock so I could go exploring across the water and into those beautiful mountains so I could survive and build my own house but no.  I would have really liked that experience as this is such a wonderful cute map to continue playing on.

I would have also liked to keep the tamed lobster at the end of the game so it could explore the island with me.

I also had items remaining in my inventory at the end of my game from searching in barrels that I could not use or place.  Workbenches you could interact with throughout the island and recipes for brown items like glass panels etc were shown but you could not make them as you did not have any of these resources, why?  I did not see the point of that.

I gave Lily's Island a 5 out of 5 star rating because I love the cute visuals, music and storyline.  I would have liked more for my money though - extra quests, hidden secrets and challenges as well as a skin.  The game was short lived but I enjoyed my adventure.  I will play it again in the near future for sure.  I do recommend it to add to your adventure map collection if you like cute things like me.

Lily's Island Check It Out Here

TOGETHER OR ALONE WORK THOSE GREEN FINGERS TO THE BONE!

Farm Together is a relaxing farming experience that gives you butterflies in your tummy when someone either visits your farm to sign your guest book, gives you a hand on your land or just talk to pass the time. It gives me a buzz to make my farm look better each day for more lovely people to visit and communicate with me as meeting people from all around the world is amazing.

This game will make you play for hours on end as the farm is so customizable and expandable with endless farm designs because of the vast variety of decorations, plant and animal types. Not only that but Milkstone Studios have put a lot of effort into making your character, pet and tractor very customizable.

The music is amazing and is perfectly chosen for a relaxing game such as Farm Together. I could listen to the music all day.

The graphics are very detailed and are bright and colourful in all aspects of the game. Keep an eye out for the beautiful rainbows.

The video, audio and control settings have many options to suit your needs which I like to see in a game.

I use the keyboard and mouse to play Farm Together and I have no issues with the key placement or mouse movement. If you forget the keys no worries as they are displayed on the bottom right hand corner of the screen. I did notice that the mouse pointer is locked in the game and I have no idea if this can be changed so you can work on multiple screens without using the alt and tab etc to switch screens. The game is displayed windowed borderless when this happens.

Check the game out on Steam - Farm Together

I have played 40 hours so far and I am enjoying it immensely but would like to see more improvements as follows:

Enable Tutorial Settings - I found on creating a second game this is disabled. You have to enable tutorial settings at the menu before creating a second game for it to work. I would like to see this option available during game play to prevent confusion.

I would like more of the decorative items to be interactive like the scarecrow - click on it and it would express physically and verbally the weather for tomorrow. That is just one of many thoughts going through my head :-)

I do feel the path width is great for walking/running on but too narrow for the tractor. An option to make a path double the width would be great for vehicles. I would like different path designs not to connect to each other automatically. Either keep them separate or have an option to connect or not. Not all paths connect on slopes which I feel should be an option too.

I would like the land to be more customisable by adding a spade to the game so land can be raised or lowered by single or multiple selections - removing small raised areas will prevent valuable land not going to waste.

To get your first house is quite expensive but I do not mind the challenge and I will look forward to decorate it and use household items as I am only 40 hours into the game so I cannot give my opinions on that yet.

I like the fact that there is many options to customise your character, pet and tractor but would like to see clothes automatically change to match the seasons (be able to customize for all the seasons and not just one set of clothes for all year round). Shorts and t-shirt in the winter well that just would be too cold.

Your pet just follows you around the farm meowing or barking. I would like to interact with my pet cat or dog. Pet it, pick up and give your pet a hug or give it a treat (bone found tilling the land for the dog or when you fish you catch an extra fish that cats only eat) and your pet goes and finds rare items occasionally for you on the farm to use, wear or place decoratively.

One thing I did notice there is no Scottish flag for decoration but only the Union Jack for the whole of the United Kingdom. I am a Scot from Scotland - a flag with a white x shaped cross with a blue background would be a great addition to the decorative items. The same goes for the flag of England if it is not already available and other places that I have maybe missed. Make it more specific.

I have noticed the bigger farms I have visited on opening the map it is difficult to spot the x's where crops are ready to harvest as they are too small. A zoom in and out option would be great as of now I am not aware if you can already do this. The gui is customizable at the menu settings so changing it to large may work for the map?

I hope there will be in the future more options than a tractor to travel around on your farm like a horse or a dirt bike for example.

Overall it is a friendly, communicative, casual and relaxing farming game that you can put many hours in alone or together. Make your ideas run wild as there is a vast amount of land to customize. I totally recommend for those who like green finger games.

DO YOU LIKE A CHALLENGE? WANT TO TEST YOUR SURVIVAL SKILLS ALONE TO THE LIMITS IN AN INHOSPITABLE OPEN WORLD?

Do you like a challenge?  Want to test your survival skills alone to the limits in an inhospitable open world? Craft tools, weapon and armor.  Build a campsite or a huge base or just explore the world with a portable shelter and pet creature/dragon.  Windstone is the fantasy game for you. 

You take on the role as a dragon rider and are one of the last Windwalkers of a primitive tribe from another world. You have a map to choose a location to start your tutorial and quests to help you on your journey and find your first dragon egg.  Follow the story to rid the land of insect-like creatures of your invaded campsite or fortified base with your pet dragon or other tamed creature.  The open world allows you to traverse the land, the air and sea as well as caverns and labyrinthine temples.  Many items can be found in baskets (remember to forage your surroundings for edible times too) around the world and will give random items - enemies and wildlife will spawn randomly too so no two game sessions are alike.  More creatures big and small are in development and some can be tamed and trained as hunting companions and mounts. Look after your character and pet dragon well as thirst and hunger can effect you mentally and cause death.  Keep an eye on energy levels as if they are too low you cannot build, craft or run and this also can lead to death too.  You really need a thinking cap on for this game as its difficult to survive - one mistake and the game could be over for you.

Windstone can be installed using the itch.io desktop app itch.io app- the game updates automatically. 

The author Threshold Seven first published Windstone on Itch.io in April 05, 2018 and it is still in development (early alpha) as of the last update on March 05, 2019. 

Threshold Seven's contact details are as follows:

itch.io profile
website
twitter
YouTube

Computers with Windows 10 - 64 bit OS is recommended to run Windstone but the author says the game may work on other version of windows.  Please note Mac is not supported but may be in the near future.  The video settings within the game allows Windstone to run on computers with lower end processors and graphics cards at reduced visual quality and Frames Per Second as long as there is enough Random Access Memory the game is playable.

System and RAM requirements:

Recommended Minimum:

i5, AMD FX processor or equivalent

GTX 550, Radeon R7 270

8gb RAM


Recommended for Highest Settings and 60 FPS:

i7, AMD Ryzen or equivalent

GTX 1060, Radeon R9

16gb RAM


Windstone was made using the Unreal Engine, Blender, GIMP and Audacity.

Inputs for game play are keyboard and mouse.


Languages - English.

The music was created by the composer Christopher Goering.  You can find Christopher's music on YouTube (Shards of the Portal) - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZiuBWLl7dpqxTIAvzTJzFA

Now the informative and technical things have been discussed.  Let's get into my first hands on experience playing Windstone.  I felt just over an hour was enough to satisfy my needs and write a positive review.

On launching the game I was greeted by an animated menu.  It is really breathtaking beautiful as you get a sneak peak of what awaits you - an adorable wooden hut, realistic flames dance in puffs of black smoke from the little camp fire, water well with bucket stands nearby, colourful edible plants sticks and boulders surround the hut and camp fire, but.. there is more.  You are not alone as hoards of large vibrant red insect-like creatures can be spotted near and afar crawling and jumping in the dense forest.  Are they hostile or friendly?  Start a new game to find out!

My eyes and ears are totally satisfied with this game.  Christopher Goering has done a great job on the music as it is so relaxing, very pleasing and his music pulled my imaginary thoughts into a fantasy state.  Calming me and preparing me for whats to come.

The menu has New Game, Load, Video Settings (so many options here to allow the game to play on low end PC's - my settings were not saved on closing the game and I had to redo them which was no big deal and hopefully that will be resolved in a future update), Key commands and Close Game.  The were was no Sound Settings to change the volume of the music etc but listening to my VOD on Twitch (Windstone Video Game Play) did not effect my microphone levels at all.  There was no option to change the mouse speed or mouse clicks.

Character - male or female - no option to customize height, width or body shape, skin colour, hair styles and facial features.  No option to give character a name.  I really would like to see this, make it more personal :-).

The map has a good variety of places to start your campsite or large fortified base.   

Character's reaction to key touches and mouse movement and clicks were reasonable for me.  I managed to swim but found I was drifting mostly.  Run, jump  and crouch was ok.  Picking up items - had to be quite a bit close to the item with the cross-hair to actually pick up an item - would be nice if you could pick up more than one of the same item at once if they are all close together.  The knife, hammer, hatchet, bow and arrows I got the hang of immediately but I had no clue how to use the poisoned arrows.  I did not get to see how well the campfire worked as I did not manage my resources efficiently as I over made stuff and died.  Scrolling the mouse wheel did nothing - would be great if you could swap your tool or weapon with this as well as the use of the number keys.  The last two slots on the hot-bar at the far right-side I had no clue how to use the equipped items there.  Once I put more hours into the game I am sure I will get the hang of everything.

The response to mouse movement and clicks worked fine for me as I did not get any motion sickness but for those who have this problem it would have been nice to have mouse settings to lower the speed and clicks.  Hovering the mouse over items, holding left clock or right clicking on them displayed a good sized readable font.  I was a bit disappointed in the pointer (cross-hair).  It was just a little white dot and I did not see an option to change the size, colour or appearance shape/form as picking up rocks on the beach was a tad difficult as the cross-hair was white against pale yellow - not noticeable at all.

Being a gamer of the older generation I had many restarts.  It took me a while to get used to remembering all the shortcut keys as there is so many of them and you have to memorize the hot-bar as the tools and weapons when equipped are placed in a specific slot.  I could not place them anywhere I wanted.  Once you get the hang of it, its not a problem.  I tried placing food items in the hot-bar but they did not stay for easy access.

I may have not looked into the GUI thoroughly enough but I did not see an option to keep the GUI displayed permanently in my game - the hot-bar and health stats of my character - would have been nice to not have to click on the tab key all the time to see those.

For the one hour I have played I did not get to explore far as I was surrounded by insect-like creatures.  But what I have seen so far looks amazingly detailed - dense forest, colourful plants and I have seen two types of creatures so far and I am sure there is many more types to come. 

The day and night cycles are not too long and I look forward to looking up at the many beautiful stars each night. 

The tools, weapons, bed and basket I did find were useful and much appreciated - a nice touch indeed for first time players.  I did find the starting weapons were not strong enough to kill the insect-like creatures even when I did powerful hits and I died constantly - its not too grindy of a game and I am sure my weapons will get better upon time.

The guidance tutorial at the start helped me a lot and I liked the fact it remained on the screen to follow through as I have a memory like a sieve in my old age.

I am excited to play Windstone again.  I cannot wait to have a companion at my side to make my world a safe place.  I am looking forward to adventuring further in my beautiful world to see what treasure and creatures behold me.  Despite this game being still in development (early alpha) I totally recommend it.  Windstone is rated four out of 5 stars but for me personally I would give it a 5 as Threshold Seven have achieved a lot in the last year and have had a lot of feedback and TBH I am really enjoying it.

.