Toby's Island

Honestly, i found this game randomly by searching the 'creature collector' tag. I was curious when i saw the style of this game so i gave it a try. This is truly what i can call an 'hidden gem' If you like pokemon and Stardew Valley like, give this game a chance! There is a strong 90 era vibe and i think it will please older gamers! So Toby's island is about a young boy named Toby (obviously) who crash on an island surrounded by talking monsters. The island is full of mysteries to discover but Toby need to plant crops and find allies in order to survive. I can't say much without spoiling but the more you discover, the more you realize that Toby isn't there by coincidence. Positive of the game: - The visual; Very good pixel art that is very pleasing to watch, it's even more stunning when you know that this game was made by a very small team. - The soundtrack; I really love the music in this game and it make the game even more pleasing to play. - The characters: It's a charming cast...

[h1] A Charming adventure and taming RPG [/h1] [b] Overview [/b] What a brilliant game, a solid story with good sound design and, most importantly, exceptionally good game play. [b] Story [/b] A bit of the standard affair: washed up on an island, a world that faces an immanent threat, and you smack dab in the center. While the story won't drop your jaw, it acts as a perfect backdrop for one to follow as one explores. It never wears out its welcome by becoming VN like, but is still integral. [b] Sound [/b] The sound design is good. You probably won't be adding much of the music to a playlist (unless you are jamming out to a pelican shooting down fallout eyebots with a flurry of bubbles (if you know, you know), but the music generally fits each area well and several sound effects are quite nice. [b] Game play [/b] Game play has a bunch of features: Rebuild your town, recruit allies, hatch partners, Turn based battles, Shoot em' up, farming, fishing, etc. A great variety of things ...

Firstly I’d like to say I enjoy the graphics and artstyle you have made there are just a few mechanical problems I’d like to point out. First off there seems to be a slight lag with input for movement where sometimes they move 1 grid or 2 grids. Another big thing would be the lack of settings, especially resolution. The resolution really needs to be optimized as all that is happening is the screen stretches to fit the resolution while still leaving black bars. This takes away from the art style as it pixilates the screen.

Pixel art: QUALITY ★★★★☆ Learning curve: Shallow overall to me, but i guess it really depends on how much experience you have with similar games ★★★★☆ Storytelling style: ★★★★★ Degree of freedom: High ★★★★★ Stability: tabbing out during cutscenes causes issues, other than that game runs smooth ★★★☆☆

Toby rules.

A passion project done by a solo dev. Game's huge, with big story, lots of content and areas to explore. Impressive work! Art style, while perhaps not flashy, it's very nicely done and consistent throughout. One suggestion for the dev: you should enable the Steam Overlay, or at the very least remove the F12 functionality to return to the Main Menu. I like taking screenshots of games usually, and you can imagine what I felt when I tried it in Toby's Island and realized I lost time because I hadn't saved in a while.