Castaway Paradise was originally a FB/mobile F2P game, now ported to PC. Only a few vestiges of the original mobile iteration remain, but they're pretty glaring -- energy timers on most actions and a progressive level cap on the shop catelogue. You'll be actively hampered by the former until level 15 and can't complete the latter until level 34. The PC version may not have cash IAPs, but still uses mobile tactics to gate content.

The handful of NPCs populating the island are such helpless simpletons, they actually amplify the feeling of being marooned on an island Tom Hanks style, except you're surrounded by sock puppets instead of volleyballs. Without any crafting system, farming and fishing become a repetitive grind for EXP and currency.

On the positive side, the devs are fairly responsive and post in the community hub regularly. I don't know how many more (if any) player suggestions they plan on incorporating since leaving Early Access. They do roll out seasonal/event updates and limited edition item sets, but the majority of LE sets are holiday-based and only appear once a year.


TL;DR

Underneath the grind, Castaway Paradise boils down to a reductive decoration-sim. It lacks the depth & breadth of genre heavy-hitters like Farmville or Harvest Moon. I bought this on sale for 50% off from the Humble Store (so no refunds). I really wanted to find more depth in this game, but even with so much time sunk, I still can't strongly recommend it in one direction or the other. Perhaps it's better that there's no neutral option, because I'd say ambivalence is damning enough.

[i]Castaway Paradise[/i] was originally a FB/mobile F2P game, now ported to PC. Only a few vestiges of the original mobile iteration remain, but they're pretty glaring -- energy timers on most actions and a progressive level cap on the shop catelogue. You'll be actively hampered by the former until level 15 and can't complete the latter until level 34. The PC version may not have cash IAPs, but still uses mobile tactics to gate content. The handful of NPCs populating the island are such helpless simpletons, they actually amplify the feeling of being marooned on an island Tom Hanks style, except you're surrounded by sock puppets instead of volleyballs. Without [b]any[/b] crafting system, farming and fishing become a repetitive grind for EXP and currency. On the positive side, the devs are fairly responsive and post in the community hub regularly. I don't know how many more (if any) player suggestions they plan on incorporating since leaving Early Access. They do roll out seasonal/event updates and limited edition item sets, but the majority of LE sets are holiday-based and only appear once a year. [b]TL;DR[/b] Underneath the grind, [i]Castaway Paradise[/i] boils down to a reductive decoration-sim. It lacks the depth & breadth of genre heavy-hitters like Farmville or Harvest Moon. I bought this on sale for 50% off from the Humble Store (so no refunds). I really wanted to find more depth in this game, but even with so much time sunk, I [b]still[/b] can't strongly recommend it in one direction or the other. Perhaps it's better that there's no neutral option, because I'd say ambivalence is damning enough.